Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
No.
Not from the house.
From the ballroom.
But even though that was happening, the lights Fitzy kept on to guide my way back were illuminated.
The electricity hadn’t gone out at the house.
Just at the studio.
Creeped out, coasting through anxious straight to alarmed, I reached to the house phone.
It was late. No one would pick up.
I still did it because I had to check.
I put it to my ear.
And what I feared was correct.
The line was dead.
At that point a shadow raced across the front windows.
I sped right through alarmed straight to scared shitless.
“Okay, shit. Okay, shit,” I whispered.
The door to the studio wasn’t locked.
I grabbed my phone, engaged the screen, looked at it and saw I had a red bar.
Not a surprise. I’d left it in the studio the night before. It hadn’t been charged for over a day.
But I had juice.
Though I didn’t know who to call.
Did I phone 999 and say, “Hey, listen, the ghosts are kicking up a fuss at The Downs. Can you come out and rescue me from the studio?”
I wasn’t sure they’d be all that motivated to race out here on a call like that.
I didn’t want to call Prue or Chassie. They’d be sleeping.
I didn’t want to wake Fitzy and Patsy either.
Especially if this was probably nothing but my fatigued but always overactive imagination.
Sadly, I didn’t have Harry’s or Scotty’s numbers in my phone.
“Just go to the house,” I started my peptalk, my attention fixed on those lights glowing and shifting color. “You’re tired. You just made a huge discovery. The cats aren’t fond of your mood. You need to chill out and sleep.”
I got up, went to the door, and when I opened it, all three cats darted out.
“Fuck,” I snapped and moved out after them.
Just get in the house, get in the house, get in the house.
I charged quickly toward The Downs, following after the three scampering shapes of the kitties.
“Sss,” I heard from behind me.
Not the wind.
It was a person.
Out after midnight with me, hissing at me while I was alone in the dark.
Oh fuck.
I took off running.
When the house came into view, particularly the ballroom, I lost the rest of the little shit I had hold of because I could see the ghostly apparitions drinking punch, gossiping and dancing.
I never went in that way.
Fitzy kept the doors to the terrace off the ladies’ lounge open for me.
I rounded the north wing, skidding on the wet flagstone. The rain, still coming down, was now only a drizzle, but it’d been falling all day so everything was drenched.
I nearly took a header into some shrubbery but kept my feet for once, raced up the steps to the terrace at the ladies’ lounge and moved to throw open the door.
It didn’t open.
“Sss,” the sound came again.
Closer.
Fuck!
I rattled the door.
Locked.
And nowhere near anyone who could hear me pounding on it.
I was not going back from where I came, either the studio or the ballroom.
And it was hell to the no on the ballroom, and not only because that was the direction the noise was coming from. The people in it were still dancing and the lights coming from it were now almost blinding.
I took off running again, down the steps, across the courtyard to the door opposite, which went off one of the salons to the terrace.
I tried it.
Locked.
“Sss, sss, SSSSSSSS.”
It was following me.
I was not going to look.
I raced down the terrace to the armory, trying all three sets of double French doors at that end.
Locked.
All of them.
Damn Fitzy and him taking his butler responsibilities so seriously!
I raced down the steps, onto the walkway, around the edge of the southern wing and skidded across the wet turf.
This time, I went down, hard, both hands and knees slipping over the wet lawn as well as the fine gravel of the path there, the pebbles cutting into the skin of my palms and knees.
I heard a low chuckle.
It was a man.
I was alone in the middle of the night with some strange stalking man!
Fuck!
I pushed up and kept running, the fine drizzle winning, soaking through my shirt, my jeans, into my hair.
I rounded the front (this huge fucking house!), sprinted across and bounded up the steps two at a time.
I heard running feet coming my way.
I yanked frantically at the bell pull and pounded on the door.
My heart felt like it exploded, and in my moment of panic, fortunately, my mind recalled what Prue had told me.
Fitzy and Patsy had their own entry into the house.
I bounded down the steps this time, three at a clip, getting a stitch in my side as I raced blindly along the front of the house, around the side, straight toward the shrubs that had been planted to give Fitzy and Patsy some privacy for their outdoor space.
I found the entry, practically jumped down all of the steps, ran across their patio, hit their door and pounded on it.