Praise for the novels of Heather Graham

“Graham expertly blends a chilling history of the mansion’s former residents with eerie phenomena, once again demonstrating why she stands at the top of the romantic suspense category.”

—Publishers Weekly on Phantom Evil, starred review

“An incredible storyteller.”

—Los Angeles Daily News

“A fast-paced and suspenseful read that will give readers chills while keeping them guessing until the end.”

—RT Book Reviews on Ghost Moon

“If you like mixing a bit of the creepy with a dash of sinister and spine-chilling reading with your romance, be sure to read Heather Graham’s latest… . Graham does a great job of blending just a bit of paranormal with real, human evil.”

—Miami Herald on Unhallowed Ground

“The paranormal elements are integral to the unrelentingly suspenseful plot, the characters are likable, the romance convincing, and, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Graham’s atmospheric depiction of a lost city is especially poignant.”

—Booklist on Ghost Walk

“Graham’s rich, balanced thriller sizzles with equal parts suspense, romance and the paranormal—all of it nail-biting.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Vision

“Mystery, sex, paranormal events. What’s not to love?”

—Kirkus Reviews on The Death Dealer

The

Evil Inside

Heather Graham

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Lisa Manetti, Corinne De Winter, Brent Chapman, Juan Roca, Dennis Pozzessere, Jason Pozzessere, Dennis Cummins, and all our group, and the amazing scares and laughs we all shared at the Lizzie Borden House. (And thanks to the house’s beautiful current owner!)

In memory of my in-laws, Angelina Mero and Alphonso Pozzessere; I can’t think of Massachusetts without thinking about them, and smiling.

And in memory of Alice Pozzessere Crosbie and “Uncle Buppy,” and for the Crosbie clan, Steven, Ginger, Linda, Tommy, Billy, and Mary, and their families.

And for the great, diverse state of Massachusetts. Especially Gloucester, and Hammond Castle, where Derek and Zhenia had the most beautiful wedding ever.

Prologue

The boy stood naked in the middle of the road.

Sam Hall’s headlights caught him there, frozen in position, like a deer. He was covered in something slick, and it dripped down his flesh. It looked reddish, like blood, as if the kid had run off the set of a horror movie after being drenched in buckets of the stuff.

Sam slammed his foot on the brake pedal, grateful for once that his years with Mahon, Mero and Malone had given him the ability to afford the new Jaguar with the stop-on-a-dime brakes.

Even then, the car pulled to a halt just inches before the boy.

Swearing softly beneath his breath and puzzled beyond measure, Sam jumped out of the car. “Hey, what the hell are you doing there, son?”

The boy didn’t move, didn’t seem to realize that he’d nearly been roadkill. He just shook as he stood there. Summer had recently turned to fall, and the air had a sharp nip, typical for Massachusetts at this time of year. Tree-laden tracts lined the road; the old oaks seemed to bend and moan with the breeze, while multicolored leaves danced on the road and swept around the scene as if they, too, were deeply disturbed.

The boy didn’t acknowledge Sam or look at him.

Again Sam swore softly. There was obviously something really wrong, though this kid couldn’t have been injured severely and still be able to stand as he was.

He couldn’t have lost that amount of blood and still be conscious.

Was it really blood … couldn’t be.

Either way, Sam couldn’t leave him in the middle of the road.

He looked at the new Jag he really loved, with the leather seats he also loved, and walked around to his trunk and found the beach blanket he’d picked up on his recent drive to the Florida Keys. It was sandy, but it would warm the kid.

He returned quickly, but the kid hadn’t run off, much less moved. “Are you hurt?” he asked quietly.

He received no response.

“Here, here, you’re going to have to get into my car,” Sam said, approaching the boy with the blanket. “We’ll get you to a hospital.”

Sam wrapped the blanket around him. “Sorry about the sand,” he said.

The kid looked to be somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, but underdeveloped. He was painfully thin. His eyes were huge and brown in the lean contours of his face. His chest was devoid of hair, so most of the blood had slid down his chest.

The temperature seemed to be around forty degrees Fahrenheit. It wasn’t freezing, but the kid shouldn’t be exposed to this long.

Sam intended to get him into the car. And yet, as he stood there, trying to be compassionate while saving his wool coat from the sticky red substance that looked like blood, he suddenly froze.

It didn’t just look like blood—it was blood.

Denial rushed through his mind.

But it was blood, no denying it.

Pig’s blood, cow’s blood … hell, rabbit’s blood.

But something told Sam that it was not.

He drew the blanket off the boy and turned him around, seeking an injury that might have caused that amount of blood.

But he didn’t find any. If he had, the boy wouldn’t have been standing upright. He wouldn’t have been breathing. He’d have been dead from a wound like that.

He’d already wrapped the blanket around the kid. No undoing that.

And if he could, would he leave the kid there shivering with nothing?

Still standing in front of the boy, who didn’t even reach up to hold the blanket in place, he fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone and hit 911. An operator with a droning voice asked him what his emergency was.

“My name is Samuel Hall. I was driving into Salem when I nearly hit a young man in the road. He’s covered in blood. It doesn’t appear to be his blood, but I can’t be certain that he isn’t injured. He’s standing on his own, and doesn’t seem in any way to be too weak to do so, but he’s nonresponsive. He may be in shock. Can you get someone out here—fast?” He looked around and quickly gave his position as best he could. Hell, it was a quiet backwoods road. He’d opted to take IA north from Boston, but had turned off early. The dark, quiet road through the trees had seemed a soothing path for his first visit home in a long time.

“Stay calm now, Mr. Hall,” the operator told him. “I’ll have a car out to your position immediately. Patrolmen are in the vicinity. It won’t be long. You’re sure the young man isn’t bleeding? If so, you must stanch the flow of blood. Stay calm. Are you doing all right?”

He hesitated for the fraction of a second, staring at the phone, his mind racing. He thought of the horrors he had witnessed in the military, and he thought of the crime-scene photos he’d studied as a criminal attorney.

“Ma’am,” he said, his voice even and strong, “I’m about as calm as a dead Quaker. But you need to get someone out here fast. I’m going to suggest you send an investigator, because I have a feeling this might be human blood, and I don’t want to compromise any more evidence than I already have by putting my blanket around the boy.”

“Of course, sir. Please remain on the line. And do your best to remain calm.”

“If you tell me to remain calm one more time, I’m going to implode and become consumed by spontaneous combustion—”

“There’s already a car on the way. Sir, you just have to remain calm. This is Salem, Massachusetts, sir, and we are moving into the Halloween season now, you know. You may be the victim of prank. Now, stay on the line, and remain calm, Mr. Hall.” She gasped suddenly, her well-learned rhetoric failing her for a moment. “Oh, you’re the Sam Hall—”

He heard the sound of a siren then. “They’re here” is all he said. “Thanks.” He hit the end icon on his phone.

A patrol car pulled up on the road in front of him, and the glare of its lights met and mingled with the Jag’s headlights, almost blinding him for a minute. Two uniformed officers exited from either side of the car, guns in position.

“He’s not armed!” Sam called. “He’s—he’s in shock. He needs medical attention.”

“An ambulance is on the way,” the driver called out. “And Detective Alden. I radioed him on my way out.”

Alden? He wondered if it was his old friend John. Puritan names still abounded here, and John Alden and he had been on the football team together. John had always wanted to be a cop, a detective, actually. He must have worked his way up through the ranks.

The patrolmen walked forward, slowly holstering their guns as they saw that the shaking youth carried no weapon and that Sam seemed nonthreatening, as well.

“Patrolman Nathan Brewster,” one said, introducing himself. “And my partner, Robert Bishop.”

Sam nodded. “Samuel Hall,” he said, but the patrolmen were just staring at the boy. They glanced at each other uneasily.

“Yeah, yeah, Detective Alden is on his way. Any minute now,” Brewster said, almost as an afterthought.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked. The two were behaving curiously. They had holstered their weapons but appeared ready to spring for them again at any second.

Neither touched the boy. Neither spoke to him. The kid was shaking harder and harder, despite the blanket Sam had set around his shoulders. Neither did the boy make any attempt to hold the blanket to his bony frame.

Again, the two exchanged glances. “We’re not really at liberty to say, sir.”

“Fine, well, I think we have to get him into a heated car, or he’ll die of exposure pretty soon,” Sam said. True or not, he couldn’t bear watching the shocked youth stare wide-eyed at nothing and shake anymore.

But before the patrolmen were compelled to respond, the sound of sirens suddenly seemed to grow to an alarming pitch. First on the scene was an unmarked car. A grim, solid-looking man of about fifty in a worn woolen coat and plaid sweater exited the driver’s side of the car and strode quickly toward them.

Plainclothes cop. Detective, Sam thought. He hoped it was John.

And it was.

But unlike the others, he didn’t pull a weapon. He hurried forward, passing between the patrolmen and Sam and the youth. He didn’t look at Sam, but at the boy, and his expression wasn’t authoritarian or harsh, but sad.

“Malachi,” he said. “Good God, Malachi, you’ve done it now.”

“Excuse me. He’s shivering. He’s freezing. He’s in shock. John? It’s Sam—Sam Hall.”

John Alden turned and looked at Sam.

“Sam!”

“I was on my way to the folks’ place. I nearly hit the boy. He was just standing there, in the road. Covered in blood.”

“Sam,” Alden repeated.

He looked as if he was about to say good to see you or something to that effect, but in the road with a blood-splattered boy, it just wasn’t appropriate.

“John, this kid needs help. I think he’s in shock,” Sam repeated.

John Alden nodded and indicated, with the cast of his head, the ambulance that had arrived. “Yeah, he’ll get medical attention. And he’s in shock, you say? He should be. He just hacked his family to death.”

1

Lexington House.

There it stood, on a cliff by the water. It might have been a postcard or a movie poster, and it was as eerie as ever—a facade that graced the darkest horror movie. Its paint was chipping, the exterior was gray and it had been weathered through the centuries by icy winds ripping in off the Atlantic Ocean. The ground-floor windows seemed like black eyes; the second-floor windows might have been startled brows, half covered by the eaves of the roof.

Oddly enough, Lexington House had always remained in private hands. From its builder—the Puritan Eli Lexington—to its recent owner—the now deceased Abraham Smith—it had always found a new buyer after each and every one of its tragedies. People had once known its early history, of course, but that had been lost amid the witchcraft trials that scarred American history and continued to fascinate the social sciences. And when Mr. and Mrs. Braden had been brutally murdered two centuries later, in the 1890s, the world knew that their son had been guilty of the crime. But the legal system had worked for the killer this time, and he’d been acquitted. He and his sister had promptly sold the house to another private party. Eighty years later it had become a bed-and-breakfast, and then it had been purchased by Abraham Smith, who had longed for the property on its little cliff, segregated from all but a few neighbors.

One of whom had been murdered last week.

And now today …

Jenna Duffy had heard about nothing but the Lexington House on the radio since she’d started for Salem from Boston this morning. Uncle Jamie had called her days before, begging that she come to Salem and speak with him. Peculiar timing.

She’d pulled to the side of the road and parked to stare at the place.

A patrol car sat near the house; crime-scene tape cordoned off the entire house. There were no onlookers, though. The house was at a little distance from the historic section of town, where most visitors strolled through the Old Burial Ground, visited the House of the Seven Gables or sought out history at any one of the witch museums or the Peabody Essex Museum. And since it was October and Halloween was approaching, the real-life contemporary tragedy would fuel the ghost stories that were already being told around town.

She stared at the house awhile longer, wondering about its history. What happened at Lexington House would prove to be another horrible case of mental instability or greed, and as much as she longed to actually see the property that brought about such gruesome tragedy, she had a meeting with her uncle. She glanced at her watch and pulled back onto the road. With Halloween tourists clogging the city, it might take her time to get where she was going.

Somehow she was still early.

She parked her car at the Hawthorne Hotel’s parking lot, and wandered across the street to the common.

Autumn leaves, beautiful in their warm orange, magenta and yellow colorings, rustled beneath Jenna’s feet as she strolled. Before her and around her, the leaves swirled and lifted inches into the air as the breeze picked them up and whimsically tossed them about.

She heard the laughter of schoolchildren as they made their way through Salem Common, heading home but not too quickly. Autumn was certainly one of the most beautiful seasons in New England, and schoolchildren, raised with all the colors as they may have been, still loved to stop and lift the leaves, toss them about and roll in them.

Jenna had loved Salem since she’d first come to the States and her parents had chosen nearby Boston, Massachusetts, as the place to begin their new lives. They had come up here weekends, in the summers and for the Halloween festivity, and also for the fall leaves and to see Uncle Jamie.

But this was a difficult visit. She was about to meet Uncle Jamie at the Hawthorne Hotel, and she was worried about him. He’d been so anxious when he’d asked her to come. He was asking her in a professional capacity, but he didn’t want her bringing “your team” or “your unit” or “the official group” with which she worked, not yet.

As she walked across the common, her attention was drawn back to the children. A group of five- to seven-year-olds were holding hands, running in a circle and playing a game.

She froze as she heard them reciting the old rhyme repeated not just in this area, but around the country.

Oh, Lexington, he loved his wife,

So much he kept her near.

Close as his sons, dear as his life;

He chopped her up;

He axed them, too,

and then he kept them here.

Duck, duck, wife!

Duck, duck, life!

You’re it!

Jenna felt as if ice water had suddenly been injected in her veins—the old ditty now seemed to be words of mockery and cruelty. A young woman, who had been standing with another group of parents watching over small children and a group of older teens who had gathered in the park, rushed forward. She caught hold of the little boy’s arms, spun him around and shook a finger at him, reprimanding him.

Another of the mothers came hurrying over to her, her voice carrying in the cool air. “Cindy, don’t be so hard on them! They don’t … know. We used to say that rhyme all the time when we were kids.”

“Samantha, I know, it’s just that … now? Now, with what’s happened again? It’s that house! That horrible house, and that boy … He used to go to school with our kids.”

“But, it’s over now, Cindy. It’s over. They have the boy in custody.”

Other parents began calling out sharply to their children. The two women herded the children toward the group of parents. A tall man in the group said something sharply to the teens, words that Jenna couldn’t quite hear, and they disbanded, as well. The conversation they all exchanged became whispers. The families and the unattached teens began to drift away, as if none of them wanted the reality of the situation.

The great seafaring days of Salem were in the past. The city survived on tourism, and most of it wasn’t because of the autumn leaves. Salem had been the site of the infamous Salem Witch Trials—and it had also been the site of two horrendous and savage murdering sprees.

And, now, a third.

Tragic incidences of human ignorance and brutality in the past were one thing; bloodletting in the present was quite another, especially with the town anticipating the season’s mammoth number of visitors. The income generated by the holiday alone could sustain many a shopkeeper and inn through the brutal New England winter to follow.

Of course, for Uncle Jamie, the recent tragedy would not be in any way fiscal but personal. She knew Jamie and loved him dearly, because he was a man who took the troubles of others to heart. This was often to his own detriment, but that was Jamie.

From her vantage spot, she could see the Salem Witch Museum with its English Gothic facade across the street on North Washington Square—the point where she always told friends to begin their exploration of the city. In a comparatively short presentation, the museum did a fine job of explaining the climate of the city during the days of the infamous trials. The statue of Roger Conant, town founder, stood proud before her as well, larger than life, his heavy cape appearing to blow in the same breeze that tossed the leaves about.

The residences and businesses surrounding the common were decked out for fall. Pumpkins and black cats adorned windows and lawns, while skeletons and, naturally, witches dangled from branches. Some people were more into the traditional concept of fall itself, and they had decorated with scarecrows, feathered turkeys and cornucopias. The image of the city of Salem she saw as she stood in the common was that of old New England, family and festivity, tinged with the strange pleasant warmth of the coming of fall.

She glanced at her watch again. It was time to go and meet Uncle Jamie; she suddenly realized she had been dreading the meeting, and she didn’t even know why.

Sam poured himself a second cup of coffee and looked around the house, trying to concentrate on its details and trying to make up his mind. He didn’t like wondering what the hell he was going to do about the house, but it was better than thinking about the bizarre and tragic circumstances under which he had finally made it home.

He didn’t need to get involved—he wasn’t staying here. He’d already taken a nice long leave of absence, and it was time to go back to work. But, then, he mused, maybe he shouldn’t. He’d not only saved his client from prison, but he’d proved beyond a doubt that the man not only deserved to be declared innocent, but was, in fact, innocent. And he was still a bit worn down from all the effort.

Sam had really stepped on every rung of the ladder on his way to becoming a renowned attorney. He’d worked in the D.A.’s office following college and the military. He’d worked as an investigator as well before joining his first small firm, because his boss had needed an investigator more than another attorney in the office. He’d learned the ropes from Colin Blake, Esquire, and he’d come to terms with a sad truth: a defense attorney was still required to give his best effort in a legal defense, even if he thought his client was guilty as all hell. He’d learned to make the cops and the prosecutors suffer, but discovered he didn’t much like that side of the business. Still, despite that, he wasn’t sure he could ever go back to being a prosecutor. It wasn’t the money. Well, it was about money. Often. It was sometimes about the money it took to put together a great team of defense attorneys. He’d seen a young woman sent to prison for years, convicted of the murder of her newborn. He’d seen a rich young man walk on drug charges, and a poor one sent up fifteen years for the same offense. He understood the law; he didn’t understand why the slow wheels of Congress took so long to correct the inequities that were to be found in so many instances. He was violently opposed to the death penalty, always afraid that somewhere, sometime, it would send an innocent person to his or her death, and yet he understood the desire others felt to see it utilized. Too many drug lords, murderers and rapists made it back onto the street. But last night …

Something about the kid he’d come upon in the street was still tugging at his heartstrings.

The kid, according to police, had axed his family to death.

There was no doubt that Malachi Smith’s father, mother, grandmother and great-uncle had been murdered, and horribly so. Jumping on the internet that morning, he’d seen that the news regarding the killings had gone global. Abraham Smith, sixty-two, Beth Smith, fifty-nine, Abigail Smith, eighty-three, and Thomas Smith, eighty-seven, had all died from exsanguination—Beth, Abigail and Thomas all receiving at least eight blows from a honed ax, Abraham over twenty. The previous week, a neighbor, Mr. Earnest Covington, had been found hacked to death on his parlor floor. Six months earlier, a Salem native living in nearby Andover had been found murdered in his barn. Police had been following leads and now suspected that the cases were related.

Indisputable evidence indicated that the youngest son of the Smith family, Malachi, was the killer. The police had the young man in custody, and he remained under guard in isolation at a correctional facility hospital.

The Smiths were the current owners of Lexington House, famed for its bloody reputation. The family had adhered to strict fundamentalist teachings, being members of the Old Meeting House in Beverly, Massachusetts. This was a strange connection of sorts with the original murders in the place. In the midst of the witchcraft trials, Eli Lexington had murdered his family with an ax. He’d been imprisoned with the nearly two hundred arrested for witchcraft at the time. Then he disappeared. There were no records of his fate after prison.

Then, in the late eighteen hundreds, Mr. and Mrs. Braden had been killed in the house, as well. A historical parallel of the Menendez case? From the books, movies and court records that had come down through time, it appeared that a disgruntled son had killed his parents for the money. And, of course, similar cases had been suspected elsewhere. The Braden case was similar, too, to the Lizzie Borden murders. Both Lizzie and the Braden boy had been acquitted, but nobody doubted that each of them had murdered their families.

Just like today’s case.

Sam told himself over and over to get the hell away from his computer. He was not involved. But he was.

He’d found the kid in the road.

And, he’d grown up in Salem. He could still remember being a school kid, and the rhyme every school kid in the area had learned. Oh, Lexington, he loved his wife …

A good attorney, of course—even a hack—would go for an insanity plea. The kid had grown up in what everyone in the area termed a haunted house—a really haunted house—which, in a city like Salem, was saying something.

Any attorney could defend the boy. It was too easy. He forced himself to leave the computer screen and walk around the house.

His parents had been dead for nearly two years; he’d returned for the funeral, and he hadn’t been back since. The house, however, was in excellent shape. His father, until his death, had seen to it that no electrical wires frayed, that the heating system was state-of-the-art and that every board that even seemed slightly damaged was replaced. His father’s friend and contractor, Jimmy Chu, had kept the house in good repair during the two years. His dad had come from old Puritan stock, and he’d considered it an honor to care for the home that his parents had owned, just as his grandparents before them did. It wasn’t one of the oldest houses in the area, but it ranked right in there with many of the homes surviving from the turn of the eighteenth century all the way into the twenty-first.

He smiled suddenly, shaking his head and taking a sip of the coffee he still held, untouched. “Darn you, Dad. You knew that I won’t be able to sell the damned thing!”

A house—in a city in which he no longer lived—was a pain in the ass, no matter what. He guessed that his father had always figured he’d come home one day.

Well, he’d managed to, but on the wrong damned day. He dropped his head. He didn’t want to be involved with a legal situation here.

But he couldn’t blink without seeing in his mind’s eye the blank brown eyes of the naked boy covered in blood and shaking on the road.

“Jenna!” Uncle Jamie drew her to him, giving her a warm and emphatic hug.

She hugged him in turn. She loved Jamie. She loved her family in general. Despite their long history of warfare, the Irish were an exceptionally warm, passionate and profuse people. They were full of magical tales, and they seldom felt obliged to refrain from speaking their minds.

“Uncle Jamie!” she said.

He pulled her away for a moment, holding her at arm’s length to study her. Jamie had brilliant green eyes and graying auburn hair. He was her mother’s younger brother, and had always had a mischievous side to him, making him very popular among children. He was so devout that he’d nearly gone into the priesthood, but had decided at the last minute that he didn’t really have the calling. He’d attended medical school and become a psychiatrist instead.

“You look good, my girl, aye, that you do! Pretty thing, you always were. Beautiful eyes, green like Eire, and hair like fire—you got my sister’s temper to go with it, eh?” Her own accent had become little more than a hint of a different place, but she had come to the States when she’d been a young teen. Jamie had been a grown man.

“Mum’s temper isn’t that bad, Uncle Jamie. She’s a lot like you—opinionated.”

He grinned. “Come over here, I’ve a booth for us,” he told her. He slipped an arm through hers, leading her toward a corner booth. “Lovely, lovely, isn’t it? I’ve always loved this city. You have the Wiccans with their wonderful shops—and their Wiccan gossip and squabbles, of course! You’ve got the immigrants and the old Puritan families, and all of them getting along—and not. But fall here is the most wonderful season in the world—everyone loving life and creating cornucopias and carving out pumpkins.”

“Yes, I love it here, too, Uncle Jamie.”

He looked around and motioned to the waitress. “What will you have, niece?”

She was surprised to feel a sudden chill. Jamie was hedging, and he usually just spoke plainly. It was unusual that he’d dawdle by ordering like this, but she decided she’d let him talk at his own speed. “Something warm,” she replied.

“An Irish coffee?” he suggested.

“Why not?” she said.

Their waitress was wearing a cute, short-skirted pirate costume. Jamie asked to make sure that the bartender used Jameson Irish whiskey, and that they didn’t go putting a wallop of “white stuff”—whipped cream—on either drink. The waitress smiled. “Jamie, you order the same thing every time you come in.”

“So I do,” Jamie told her, grinning. “But, still, a man’s got to be careful when he orders his drink.”

Laughing and shaking her head, the waitress moved on with a swish of her short skirt.

“They do get into Halloween early, don’t they,” Jenna murmured.

“Well, you know the whole pumpkin-carving thing is Irish, of course,” Jamie said.

“I know, Uncle Jamie …” she said to the familiar information, knowing it wouldn’t stop him. She thanked the waitress as she delivered their drinks. Jamie didn’t seem to notice.

“It all came from Stingy Jack,” Jamie said, studying his cup, and speaking to himself more than her.

“A myth about a man named Stingy Jack,” Jenna reminded him.

He waved a hand in the air.

“The devil invited old Jack to have a drink with him, and Jack, he wasn’t about to pay for the drinks, but then neither was he about to turn one down. So, our Jack, he tells the devil that he must turn himself into a handful of coins to pay for the drink. But, thirsty though he was, Jack was a clever boy, and put the coins in his pocket, around his silver cross, and the devil, next to that cross, couldn’t turn himself back into the devil, not next to the holy relic! Finally, though, Jack let the devil return to his old self—long as he didn’t bother Jack for a year and a day—and would not claim his soul if he should die. There are stories of Jack playing a few other tricks on the devil over his lifetime. Eventually, of course, he did die. And when he did, the Good Lord would not let him into Heaven, and the devil could not claim his soul, and so he was sent into the dark of the night with only a burning lump of coal to light his way. Well, Jack found a pumpkin, carved it out, and carried it about endlessly through the darkness of the night. And so he was called Jack of the Lantern, and finally, Jack-o’-Lantern.” He paused to take a gulp.

“It’s not a bad tradition—especially for those who scoop out the pumpkin and make pie and then carve the pumpkin to burn with an eerie—or happy!—face throughout the night,” he finished.

“Pumpkin pie is delightful,” Jenna said, leaning toward him and touching his hand. “But I’m pretty sure this story isn’t why I’m here, Uncle Jamie. Talk to me. Why did you want me here? I’m delighted to see you, you know that. But you called me and said that you needed me.”

Jamie nodded, running his fingers over the varnished wood of the table. “It may be too late,” he said softly. Then he looked up at her. “They think they have him dead to rights. They say that the blood of those he murdered was all over him, and that his fingerprints were on the ax. But he didn’t do it, Jenna. He didn’t do it.”

She frowned. He was talking now, but he was beginning in the middle.

“You asked me here … about the murders that occurred? But … the family was just killed last night. You called me two days ago.”

Jamie shook his head. “I called you about two murders that had happened earlier—and then last night occurred … and now they have the boy … and I just don’t believe he did it. He’ll be railroaded into a mental hospital for the rest of his life—but he’s not crazy! People started saying that it was the house—that it’s Lexington House, and that he lived there and started killing because he was listening to ghosts. Thing is, I know that by what seems like obvious evidence he looks guilty as all hell, but that’s only what it looks like. He didn’t do it.”

She shook her head. “All right, back up. You called me because of the two previous murders. The radio mentioned those on the way up here, too, but only bits and pieces and suppositions. I don’t really know details. Tell me about them.”

“Six months ago, a farmer in Andover, Peter Andres, was killed in his barn—with a scythe. The police had no suspects—the scythe was in the barn, but there were no fingerprints other than those of Andres. Everyone was baffled. Andres was known as an affable man. But the rumor mill got started—the rhyme about Lexington House doesn’t tell it all. In the nineteenth century, a scythe was supposedly used on the Braden father before he was given the final blows by the ax. So, the police started looking at people with an interest in Lexington House, and then at Lexington House itself. Malachi was always the subject of some rumor or other—he’s a strange lad. But he tells me that he prays, and he believes deeply in God and in Heaven.”

“Many killers find Jesus,” Jenna said softly. “How did you know all this about him?”

Jamie shook his head. “They find Jesus in prison—Malachi has always had him.” He sighed. “The boy came to me three years ago. His parents brought him to me—they were forced to, by children’s services, after a few incidents at school.”

“Like what—he attacked other children? Threw rocks at birds … set cats on fire?”

“No, no. Nothing of the like. He was teased, beaten and bullied by other boys. He just sat there when they hurt him and said that God was his protector and that Jesus would turn the other cheek.”

“And then?”

“Soon after, the parents decided to take him out of school, but because of another incident, a really strange incident. And that’s when children’s services ordered that he see a psychiatrist—me.”

“So how long have you been seeing him?” she asked.

“If you’d asked the parents? He was my patient for a year. Social services paid me for a year. But I’ve seen him ever since—more as a friend than a patient. It all began about three years ago, when his parents pulled him out of school. Thing was, in his own way, he was happy to come see me. Musical instruments, other than the voice, were a sin in his house. But he’s something of a genius with the piano. At my house, he could play.”

“What was the incident that caused social services to step in?” Jenna asked.

“He looked at a boy,” Jamie said.

“Looked at him?” Jenna repeated, puzzled.

Jamie nodded. “The boy was throwing food from his lunch tray at Malachi. Malachi looked at him, and this other boy froze—and then he picked up his tray and beat himself over the head with it so hard that he had a concussion. He was hysterical and told the doctors that Malachi had forced him to do it—with his eyes.”

Jenna leaned back, staring at Jamie, frowning. “Wait—this other kid said that Malachi looked at him, and made him beat himself silly?”

Jamie nodded.

Jenna shook her head. “Why—that’s preposterous. Especially here. It’s like the girls crying Witch! Witch! Witch! and causing the unjust deaths of twenty people and the incarceration of nearly two hundred more. I’d thought we’d learned some lessons …”

Jamie sighed. “He was better off out of school. The thing is, I think that Malachi desperately wanted to be normal. He was malnourished, and he was raised to think that just about everything in the world was evil, an idea browbeaten into him by a fanatical father. He never lost his temper—the other kids couldn’t goad him to act. And that made them mad. He’s the most peace-loving individual I’ve ever met. When the neighbor, Earnest Covington, was killed, one of the boys who he’d been with at school went to the police and told them that Malachi had come running out of the house. They brought Malachi in for questioning, but Mrs. Sedge at the grocery store, said that Malachi had been in the meat section at the time, choosing dinner cuts for his mother—she never left the house—so he was off the hook. But, then, last night … well, Malachi was found drenched in his family’s blood, standing naked in the road.”

Jenna put her hand on her uncle’s. “Uncle Jamie, you have a friendship with this boy … but, if he was found covered in his family’s blood …?”

“Jenna, I need you to find out the truth about that house,” he said with resolution.

“Uncle Jamie—”

“We can’t let the system take this boy. We have to somehow make it work for him now—now that he has a chance.”

“A chance?”

“His parents are gone now,” Jamie said quietly. He looked toward the ceiling. “God forgive me!” he murmured and crossed himself. He looked at Jenna solemnly. “You know I’m a religious man, right, Jenna?”

Surprised by the sudden question, she arched a brow to him. “Well, you were almost a priest… . I didn’t figure that meant you’d turned away completely but—sorry! No, I know that you still love the church.”

He nodded. “I’m disappointed in the way human beings interpret religion at times, and God knows I loathe the horrible things done daily in the name of God and religion. But you don’t go throwing the baby out with the bathwater, you know?”

“Jamie, you’re losing me again.”

“They were—fanatics,” Jamie said. “I don’t even know exactly what belief they adhered to, but it was with a vengeance. There was hell to pay when that boy didn’t learn his Bible verses or when he couldn’t recite huge tracts of the Bible.”

“He was abused?”

“Not physically—they weren’t beatings, or even severe spankings. Parents often tap the hands of little ones—to stop them touching a stove top, a light socket … No, the abuse was mental and, well, I do suppose physical in a way. No food could be eaten without the father’s blessing… .”

Jamie stopped speaking for a minute.

“You can’t imagine the peace in that boy’s eyes at times. He doesn’t do evil things because of the ghosts in a house, and he doesn’t do evil things because his father was a religious zealot who turned everything to sin. I don’t believe he does evil things at all—especially not murder. If ever anyone has been touched by the hand of God, I think it’s that boy. And you have to help me save him. Maybe it’s my mission in life, I don’t really know. But I’m begging you. You have to get into that house, and you have to speak with Malachi.”

“And how am I going to interfere when he’s now in the hands of the police?”

Jamie looked past her and lowered his voice. “Well, with a wee bit of help from the Lord, I think I can convince his defense attorney that he needs your assistance.”

She turned to see what had drawn Jamie’s attention. It was a man, tall and broad shouldered. The coat he had worn into the bar was excellently cut, and he moved like someone accustomed to custom-tailored clothing. His face was strongly molded with a classic masculine line. His hair was neatly cut and combed, just slightly awry from the breeze. She thought that she recognized him, but she didn’t know why she should have.

“Who is he?” she whispered.

“Samuel Anthony Hall, attorney-at-law.”

She almost laughed aloud. She knew why she recognized him—she’d recently seen his name and picture all over the internet. The world had wanted his last client to fry for the heinous murder of his pregnant fiancée. The prosecution had DNA evidence that the two had engaged in intercourse the day of the murder, but Hall had proved that one of his client’s enemies had killed the woman—a revenge killing. She couldn’t remember the details, but the client had loose mob ties and the case had received major press attention.

“Actually, you’ve met him before, you know,” Jamie said.

“I have?” Jenna looked at her uncle.

“You knew his parents, Betty and Connor. They were friends of mine, and they were friends of your folks, as well. You’ve been in his home. Maybe only once or twice—you were here when you were a young teenager and he was home from law school. He was supposed to be watching over you and a few of your friends. Silly, giggling girls. He thought you all were torture.”

“Wow. Can’t wait to meet him again, though I think I do remember his folks. They were very nice people.”

“They were.”

She studied Sam. He had the bearing of a man in charge—and a fighter. Or a bulldog.

“Samuel Hall,” she mused, turning back to her uncle, slightly amused. “That’s not the kind of attorney the state acquires when you haven’t the resources to hire your own. And I’m assuming all the money Malachi might have will be in probate. And unless you’ve changed your ways—working for the state most of the time for almost nothing—you can’t afford him. And even if our entire family was to put in our life savings, we still couldn’t afford him. He was said to have made several hundred thousand—just off his last case.”

“Yes, he can command a high fee,” Jamie murmured.

“Too high,” Jenna told him softly.

“He’s going to do it pro bono,” Jamie said.

She stared at him with surprise.

He grinned. “All right, so he doesn’t know it yet.” He leaned forward. “And, dear niece, if you don’t mind, please give him one of your best smiles and your sweetest Irish charm.”

2

“Sam!”

Sam Hall turned to see that Jamie O’Neill was hailing him from one of the booths. O’Neill wasn’t alone. He was with a stunning young redheaded woman who had craned her neck to look at him. She was studying him intently, her forehead furrowed with a frown.

He thought at first that she was vaguely familiar, and then he remembered her.

She had changed.

He couldn’t quite recall her name, but he remembered her being a guest at his house once, and that she—and half a dozen other giggling girls—had turned his house upside down right when he’d been studying. But his mother had loved to host the neighborhood girls, not having had a daughter of her own.

Before, she had been an adolescent. Now, she had a lean, perfectly sculpted face and large, beautiful eyes. Her hair was the red of a sunset, deep and shimmering and—with its swaying, long cut—sensual. She appeared grave as she looked at him and, again, something stirred in his memory; maybe he’d seen her somewhere—or a likeness of her—since she’d become an adult. She was O’Neill’s niece, of course. And her parents, Irish-turned-Bostonian, had been friends with his folks.

“Sam, please! Come and join us,” Jamie called.

He’d ordered a scotch and soda. Drink in hand, he walked to the booth. He liked the old-timer. O’Neill was a rare man. He possessed complete integrity at all costs. An immigrant, he’d put himself through eight years of school to achieve his degree in psychiatry. He lived modestly in an old wooden house, and he still probably took on more patients through the pittance granted him by the state than any other person imaginable. Sam had heard a rumor that Jamie had gone through a seminary but then opted to live a life outside the Catholic church.

But when he really looked at the grave look on Jamie’s face, he felt a strange tension shoot through his muscles.

Jamie wasn’t calling him over just to say hello. He wanted something from him.

Sam wished he’d never come into the bar.

“Sam, do you remember my niece, Jenna Duffy? Jenna, Sam, Sam Hall.”

Jenna Duffy offered him a long, elegant hand. He was surprised that, when he took it, her handshake was strong.

“We’ve met, so I’ve been told,” she said. He found himself fascinated with her eyes. They were so green. Deep viridian, like a forest.

“I have a vague memory myself,” he said.

“Sam, sit, please—if you have the time?” Jamie asked.

He was tempted to say that he had a pressing engagement.

Hell, he’d gone to law school and, sometimes, in a courtroom, he realized that it had almost been an education in lying like wildfire while never quite telling an untruth. It was all a complete oxymoron, really.

“You’re on a leave, aren’t you? Kind of an extended leave?” Jamie asked him, before he could compose some kind of half truth.

“It’s not exactly a leave, since I choose my own cases, but, yeah, I’ve basically taken some time. I’m just deciding what to do with my parents’ home,” he replied.

He slid into the seat next to Jenna Duffy. He noted her perfume—it was nice, light, underlying. Subtle. It didn’t bang him on the head. No, this was the kind of scent that slipped beneath your skin, and you wondered later why it was still hauntingly in the air.

“You’re not going to sell your parents’ house, are you?” Jamie sounded shocked.

“I’ve considered it.”

“They loved that place,” Jamie reminded him.

Jenna was just listening to their conversation, offering no opinion.

“They’re gone,” Sam said. He shook his head. “I just don’t really have a chance to get up here all that often anymore.”

“It’s a thirty-minute ride,” Jamie said. “And it’s—it’s so wonderful and historic.” “So is Boston,” Sam said.

“Ah, but nothing holds a place in the annals of American—and human!—history as does Salem,” Jamie said.

“You’re trying to shame me, Jamie O’Neill,” Sam said. He smiled slowly.

Jamie waved a hand in the air. “It’s not as if you need the money.”

Ouch. That one hurt, just a little bit.

“Jamie, you didn’t call me over here to give me a guilt complex about my parents’ house …” Sam said.

Jamie looked hurt. “Young man—”

“Yes, you would have said hello—you would have asked about my life. But what’s going on? I know you. And that Irish charm. You’re a devious bastard, really.” Then he looked at Jenna and murmured, “Sorry.”

“Oh, I don’t disagree,” she told him.

“So?”

“You found Malachi Smith in the road last night,” Jamie said quietly.

Sam tensed immediately. The incident had been disturbing on so many levels. He couldn’t forget the way that the boy had been shaking.

He stared back at Jamie. “I did.”

“I don’t believe that he did it,” Jamie said.

Sam winced, staring down at his drink. He rubbed his thumb over the sweat on his glass. “Look, Jamie, I feel sorry for that kid. Really sorry for him. I’ve been watching the news all morning. His life must have been hell. But I saw him. He was covered in blood. How else did he become covered in blood if he wasn’t the one who did it?”

“Ah, come on, you’re a defense attorney!” Jamie said.

“It’s obvious.”

“I’m missing obvious,” Sam said drily. No, not really. There was just this odd feeling. Why get involved any more than he already was? The horror he’d felt when he’d come upon the boy bathed in blood, in the middle of the road …

“I think,” Jenna said, “that it’s possible that Malachi Smith came home to find his family butchered, and that he tried to wake them up, or perhaps wrap them in his arms, and therefore became covered in the blood.”

“He was naked,” Sam said flatly.

“Right. He became horrified by the amount of blood all around him, all over his clothing, and tried to strip it off—but there was so much of it, it was impossible,” Jenna said.

He looked at her. “And you believe this?” he asked pointedly.

“I didn’t grow up here—I was always a visitor—I never knew Malachi Smith or his family. I heard the rumors about them, and, naturally, everyone in the area knows about Lexington House. Well, it’s the kind of legend that gets around everywhere, I suppose. I can’t tell you about Malachi Smith—not the way that Uncle Jamie can. Jamie treated the boy. But I think that’s the kind of possibility my uncle might have in mind. And I myself suppose it’s possible. We’d have to know what Malachi has to say.”

Sam stared at her for a long moment. Her eyes were enigmatic, so deep and mesmerizing a green. If he remembered correctly, she’d been something of a wiseass kid.

“Sam, they are your roots,” Jamie said.

He laughed. “My roots? Lexington House is not part of my roots—I barely knew the Smiths. Again, and please, listen to me, Jamie, I understand how you feel. I’m sorry for the boy. But, I don’t like staying here too long—you wind up tangled in the history of the place, shopping for incense, herbs and tarot cards—and hating the Puritans. Religious freedom? Hell, they kicked everyone else out. Witchcraft? Spectral evidence … it’s no wonder we have religious nuts like the Smiths moving in. And I like our modern Wiccans—do no harm and all that. But I’m not into chanting and worshipping mother earth, either. I seem to get too wrapped up when I’m here—I’m like you. I want to argue the ridiculous legal system of the past, and I find myself wondering sometimes if it does affect any insanity that goes on in the present. Maybe it’s in the air, maybe it’s in the grass and maybe people just really want to hurt one another. Maybe they can’t not buy into all the hype of this place.”

He stopped speaking. He was surprised at his own bitterness. He had never hated Salem. It was his home. The Peabody Essex Museum was an amazing place. People still tried hard to figure out just what had gone on, and how to improve the world in the future, to learn how to stop the ugliness of prejudice and hatred. Actually, he loved Salem itself. He loved many of the people. Maybe it was just him; maybe he still wanted to understand what could never be truly comprehended in the world they lived in now. But people tried. Tried to preserve the past to improve the present and the future.

And yet a whacked-out son of a bitch like Abraham Smith had moved in, tortured his son in a like manner to the rigid principles practiced long ago, and he’d never forget the way the kid had looked in the middle of the road, shaking, his eyes huge and terrified, blood dripping off his naked body … and he couldn’t help but feel that the father’s method of raising the son had something to do with all that death.

Jamie was nonplussed by his speech. Jenna just looked at him with those beautiful green eyes that seemed to rip into the soul.

He sighed deeply. “You want me to defend the boy. It should be an open-and-shut case. There’s just no way that a prosecutor would ever get a jury to believe that the boy was mentally competent when he committed the act.”

“No!” Jamie said firmly. “I want you to prove that the boy didn’t do it.” Sam groaned softly.

“Isn’t that your specialty?” Jamie asked him. “Proving your client’s innocence—and in so doing, finding the real killer?”

“Jamie, I’d like to help, but in this case—” “I know we don’t pay as well as the mob …” Jamie cut in.

“Oh, low blow, Jamie. Not fair. I’ve worked pro bono many times.” He sighed deeply. “You don’t just want me to defend Malachi Smith—you want me to find a killer. I haven’t lived here in years—I wouldn’t even begin to know where to look. And I’m an attorney—”

“You keep up with your private investigator’s license,” Jamie pointed out.

“We could be talking a conflict of interest in this situation,” Sam said, “if I’m defending him and investigating the case.”

Jamie smiled serenely. “Nope. It’s perfectly legal for you to hold and use your P.I. license while you practice law. And you know it. That’s not an excuse—you’ve just come off a case in which you managed to do both. Any time whatsoever you’re afraid of a conflict of interest, you send someone else out. You use your mind and your license when you need them. Send others out to do the work you’ve decided needs to be done.”

“What others?” Sam asked, aggravated.

“Jenna,” Jamie said, smiling then like the Cheshire cat.

“Your niece?”

“Jenna,” Jamie repeated. “My niece is part of a special unit of the FBI.”

Sam stared at the redheaded woman at his side. FBI? Special Unit?

“I’m not here officially,” she said quickly.

“Of course not, you’d have to be invited in, and Detective John Alden is certain that he doesn’t need help, that he has his murderer,” Sam said, looking at her. “What kind of a special unit?”

“Jenna’s team was instrumental in solving some of the most high-profile cases in the country,” Jamie said proudly. “The recent Ripper murders in New York? That was her team. And all that trouble down in Louisiana with the death of a senator’s wife—them again.”

Sam stared at her, memories stirring in his mind. He remembered now. In the news they’d been called the Krewe of Hunters, and they had a phenomenal success rate. But they were known to be … special, all right. They looked for paranormal occurrences. And what better place than Salem?

He didn’t mean to be so rude; he took his eyes off Jenna when he spoke. “The ghost of old Eli Lexington caused Malachi Smith to murder his family? No, wait, he wouldn’t be innocent then. The ghost killed the family himself!”

“In my experience,” she said evenly, “a ghost has never killed anyone.”

“Kill someone? Ghosts don’t even—” But he cut himself short.

Ass, he told himself. She was being even-keeled. He was looking like a superior fool.

“I’m sorry, Jamie, I’m not sure how we can possibly solve this thing, really. The kid was covered in blood. John Alden has arrested him.”

“So,” Jamie said, smiling, “that should get you going! It’s too easy—way too easy—to take that line of defense. You should step up to the plate quickly. Please, Sam! Come on—they’ll give him some kid fresh out of school as his public defender. Doesn’t this interest you?”

“It is quite a challenge,” Jenna said.

Sam groaned. “How about I sleep on it?”

“Evidence is growing cold,” Jamie told him.

Jenna smiled suddenly, looking at him. “You’re going to do it, and you know you’re going to do it.”

“Oh? Out of the kindness of my heart?” Sam asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “More likely, because it is such a challenge. If you pull this off, you’ll be known not just as an incredible attorney, but as a miracle worker.”

Sam stood, not sure why the meeting with Jamie O’Neill and his niece had seemed to set him so off balance.

Could he do it? Yes. He didn’t need money. Was it an intriguing challenge? Maybe—and maybe it was more likely that the kid had done it.

“I’ll let you know in the morning,” he said, and walked away from the table. Then he headed back. “Look, I don’t think you know how much is involved here. Besides the filing, the briefs … paperwork you can’t even begin to imagine. And then, yes, investigating this? When the police think that they have their man? Not to mention the fact that you don’t have a plausible alternate suspect. In fact, none of us has a clue.”

For a moment he saw something in Jenna’s eyes that agreed with him, and he wondered if Jamie hadn’t managed to challenge his niece into this, as well. But just as quickly as the glint appeared, it vanished. Now, when she stared up at him, her eyes seemed as sharp as her tone. “Two other people were murdered and no arrests were made. With no real evidence, it’s being quietly assumed that Malachi Smith murdered those other men, as well. He hasn’t been charged with those murders, and I don’t believe that they have a plan to charge him with them because they do have conflicting evidence where Peter Andres and Earnest Covington are concerned. So, in fact, you won’t be going against the police if you are to claim to primarily be looking at those two incidents. There are plenty of places to start, Mr. Hall. Who were the other victims? What enemies might they have had? And what about the church Malachi Smith was involved with? It certainly had to be out of the ordinary.”

“And you’re going to investigate all this?” he asked her.

She smiled serenely. “I do have friends, Mr. Hall.” “Ah, yes, team members.”

“I’ll remind you that most of the cases we solve are at first thought to be almost impossible,” Jenna said.

He couldn’t decide what was really going on in her mind, her voice remained so even, and she maintained such an unruffled calm. He couldn’t help but goad her on.

“Funny—I thought the NYPD had something to do with that last one!”

“The point is, Mr. Hall, no one is asking you to do all the work. I’m not a lawyer, but I do know how to work my way around legend and superstition, and the head of my team is one of the foremost behavioral scientists in the country. We can help you.”

“And the police are just going to let you snoop around?” he asked.

“You, as the defense attorney, will demand that leeway be given in your investigation—for the benefit of your client, of course,” Jenna said impatiently.

He didn’t know why he was feeling such a hot tension, or why his muscles seemed to be bunching and his temper flaring.

Because he didn’t think that they could do it? As much as he didn’t want to think of the boy as a murderer, it seemed the most logical scenario.

He looked back at Jamie. “I’ll let you know in the morning,” he said, and strode out of the room.

Jenna looked at her uncle long and hard after Sam had left, then finally spoke. “I’m not so sure that telling Sam Hall who I am and what I do was the best move you might have made.”

“And why not?” Jamie asked indignantly.

“Some people accept that the team gets the job done. And some people think that it’s a joke. Even among the Feds,” she told him.

“You can find the truth. I know that you can find who did this—you always had the knack.”

“Oh, Jamie! Please, I’m not a miracle worker, either… . And, you have to be ready for whatever we do find. We don’t know that Malachi didn’t commit the murders yet.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “But, never mind that now—what would you like for dinner?”

She laughed. “Nice change of pace! Scrod, of course. Only in New England can you have really wonderful scrod!”

Jamie veered the conversation away from Malachi while they ate. He talked about “Haunted Happenings,” an October event that brought tourism to Salem. He was a man who had his own deep and binding beliefs, but he was also fascinated by the faiths that others believed in. There were Wiccans in the city who were really Wiccans, believing in the gods and goddesses of the earth and in doing no harm to others, lest it come back threefold. And, he advised her, there were Wiccans in the city who were Wiccans because it was a very nice commercial venture in “Witch City.” There were parades and balls, special events for children, theatrical programs on the tall ships at Derby Wharf and so much more.

“Now, you don’t mind staying awhile, really, do you? I rather threw you into that—I mean, saying that you’d investigate,” Jamie said. “And I know, too, that you’re employed by the government, that you have responsibilities—”

“It’s all right. A few team members are still in New York tying up some loose ends from our last case, and a few are in Virginia, outside of D.C., setting up our new offices.”

He let out a contented sigh. “So you can stay.”

She smiled. “Jamie, I knew from the beginning that you invited me up here for a reason. I didn’t realize I’d arrive in time for it to really … begin in earnest.”

He watched her oddly.

“What?”

“You always had it, you know,” he said.

“Had what?” “The sight.”

Jenna was quiet at that. Her grandmother had entertained her when she had been a child with the myths and legends of Eire. She would tell a fantastic story about banshees—and then remind her that, now and again, many a tale had started at a pub. There were spirits—and then again, there were spirits.

It was true. Her cousin, Liam, who had become a writer, had done so discovering that the fantastic tales he could tell after a night at the pub could be put down on paper—and pay.

It was equally true that a number of people in her family had seemed to have some kind of a special sense. They could often feel a place, and know that violence had been committed there. They were prone to hearing the footsteps of the ghosties as they moved about in a place, and they could sense the presence of something that remained, even after years had gone by.

But the first time she’d known she had some kind of sight was when she’d been working as an R.N., and had been down in the morgue on some business.

A corpse had spoken to her. He insisted he hadn’t died of natural causes, as would be assumed. He’d been helped into the great hereafter by a greedy family member.

Of course, that first time, she’d felt the speed of her heart escalate to dangerous levels. She wondered if, frequently, ghosts did not speak to their loved ones because they were afraid of giving them heart attacks—thus prematurely making ghosts of them, as well.

And, certainly, not every soul chose to walk the earth. Some remained because they felt they had unfinished business. Some remained because of the violence of their demise. Some had something that needed to be said, and some felt that their antecedents needed protecting.

“Uncle Jamie,” she said, moving her fish around on the plate, “you’re thinking that this is going to be a far easier thing than it is.” She spoke softly, looking around. “Perhaps I do have what you call ‘the sight.’ It doesn’t mean that I can go and see the corpse of Abraham Smith and he’ll tell me who did him in. He may not have remained behind, and if he did, he may not be able to communicate. We’ve never had an instance where it was easy and cut-and-dried—where we just walked into a morgue and said, Hey! Who’s the guilty one? Ghosts can help, but in many different ways.”

He was watching her, listening intently. At least, with Jamie, she never had to try to pretend. Jamie told her once that he believed in the “holy ghost,” and if he said so in a creed he spoke at religious services, he’d be an idiot not to believe that there was more beyond the average range of sight. Faith, he told her, was belief in what couldn’t be seen. If a man had faith, he couldn’t always doubt what he couldn’t see. Most people had faith—even if their faith was different. A lot of different roads climbed the same hill.

He folded his napkin and set it on the table. “Jenna, I know that your team deals with what is real and tangible and out there for all to see and know. I never thought that you could come here and solve all my problems with a simple chat with the dead. It’s never a simple ‘How do you do, and can you answer a question for me?’ But we are dealing with old stories and legends around here, true and enhanced.”

“These murders aren’t legends,” she said.

“No. But, but the natural ‘storytelling’ desire is to automatically say that the kid did it, neat and tidy and a juicy, repeatable story. That he freaked out because his father was a browbeating fanatic and he figured he could say that the house was filled with devils. People want to say this, for the newspapers at least. See what other stories are out there, from dead men or the living. I know that you can sort it all out.”

“You do have faith in me,” she murmured.

“Of course!” he said cheerfully. “Well, we’d best get on home, huh? I have a feeling it’s going to be an early morning.”

“And why is that?”

“Sam Hall is going to want me to visit his client with him,” Jamie said.

“He hasn’t agreed to defend Malachi Smith yet,” she said.

Jamie grinned. “Faith, lass. I live by it!” he said cheerfully.

It was good to be back at Uncle Jamie’s house. She’d spent a lot of time coming up here as a teenager. She smiled, thinking of the past. She’d had local friends—girls who had been glad to see her—and she brought the excitement of the big city, Boston, along with her.

They’d shopped at the wonderful stores; they’d played at being Wiccan, and it had surprised her at first that her Catholic parents hadn’t minded. They had been amused. But they had seen the wars fought in their own country over religion and economics and were tolerant.

Jamie’s house was old, but the family had always seemed to agree that it was a benign house. Whatever ghosts remained, they were tolerant, as well.

Jenna went to sleep in the familiar old bedroom her uncle had always referred to as “hers.” Jamie had allowed her to have her whims: there were posters of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt and other groups on the walls. They were a little incongruous there, since the bedroom was furnished entirely in period furniture, not from the seventeenth century, but the eighteenth century. Her bed was a four-poster; an old seafaring trunk sat at the foot of it, and a washstand with an antique ewer stood against the wall, along with an old wardrobe. To walk into the room—other than the posters and the stuffed Disney creatures on the shelves—was to walk into another time.

She lay awake a long time, what she had learned from Jamie rushing through her head. She admired her uncle and his steadfast faith; all the evidence in the world might stand against Malachi Smith, but Jamie believed in him.

When she fell asleep at last, she wasn’t sure that she had done so. The room still seemed to be bathed in a gray, half light. There seemed to be movement in her room, a movement of shadows, and then they stood still at the foot of her bed, staring at her.

It was a group of women, and they were in the rather stern and drab shades of the late sixteen hundreds. Only one seemed to be in a slightly different color, and in the shadows Jenna thought it might be a dark crimson. They just stared at her, and even she, who was accustomed to meeting the dead, felt a deep unease. And then an old woman in the front lifted a hand toward her. She whispered something, and at first, Jenna couldn’t make out the words. She wanted to wake up; she wanted to reach over and turn on the bedside light or just let out a scream and run into the hallway.

But then she comprehended the words the woman was trying to speak.

“Don’t let the dead have died in vain.”

Her throat was still tight; she was still so afraid. And, yet, she was the one who sought out those who had died.

Words came at her again.

“Don’t let the blood run, don’t let more blood run. Don’t let your blood run.”

Sam Hall arrived at Jamie’s door at precisely eight in the morning. He was going to defend Malachi Smith, and he was going to do it pro bono.

Jenna decided that her uncle really did know how to read people.

By the time he arrived, Jenna had mused over her dream, her waking dream or her nightmare—whatever it might have been. It had been natural, certainly. The conversation all day had been about blood and murder, and her thoughts had long lingered on Salem and the city’s past.

When she opened the door, dressed and ready to go as Jamie had suggested she be, Sam didn’t seem surprised, though he might have been a bit irritated that they both were confident he wouldn’t back away from the case.

“I’m not sure why you’re coming—I have to spend time at court. I have to become the attorney of record, see what the public defender has done, see where custody lies, file motions … it could be a long day,” he said. “I’m sure the public defender he hired has already made arrangements for Malachi to be seen by a court-appointed psychiatrist, and if we’re going for a not-guilty plea, I have to make sure that we stall the court date as long as possible.”

“I’m absolutely excellent at sitting around and waiting,” Jenna assured him.

Jamie came to the door. “Let’s go,” he said. “Sam, thank you.”

Sam grunted. “I’ll drive. You two do what I say, sit when I say sit and wait as long as you have to wait.”

Jamie was cheerfully agreeable.

It was a long morning, and there was a lot of paperwork to file. Since Malachi Smith was a minor with no family and still under the age of eighteen, he had become a ward of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and there were filings to be made with the state. None of that was difficult, not, apparently, when you were a hotshot attorney. Jamie was given a hearing and appointed Malachi’s guardian. Malachi had to fire the public defender he’d been assigned and accept Sam Hall as his attorney. That was easily accomplished—Jenna waited in the car while Jamie spoke to Malachi with Sam—but then time was needed for filing all the documents Sam had prepared.

When arraigned, Malachi had not been granted bail; the crime was far too heinous. They met Evan Richardson, Sam’s assistant, who had come to Salem as soon as Sam had called him and had already worked on the motions that had set the ball rolling. He would deal with more motions and more paperwork and the courts while Sam was engaged elsewhere. Jenna liked him. Just about her age, he was a pragmatic fellow from Syracuse, New York, not embroiled in the burden of history that often came with being a New Englander.

When they finished with the legal paperwork and headed back to see Malachi with all the papers properly filed, Jamie argued the point of Malachi’s incarceration with Sam.

“I can watch the young man day and night!” he told Sam.

Sam gave him a long sideways glance. “Jamie, you’re forgetting something,” he said.

“What’s that?” Jamie demanded.

“If Malachi Smith didn’t kill his family, a vicious killer remains at large.”

Jenna felt a streak of cold zip up her spine.

“Someone who has now killed six people,” Sam said.

Jamie was silent. She remembered her dream. Blood would flow… .

“All right,” Jamie said gruffly.

“And you do realize that the majority of the world will believe in Malachi’s guilt. The facts point to his guilt—until we can offer more facts,” Sam said.

Jamie nodded. “Yes, I see. If the killer strikes again, that will prove that Malachi is innocent, because he’ll have in indisputable alibi.”

“Yes. That and, if we’re going to do this, no one will really have the time to babysit Malachi every moment and make sure he’s safe. He’s better in the psych ward for now.” Sam stopped in the street, staring at Jamie. “And I have to tell you right now that if we don’t discover something, and it comes to the line, I’ve now taken Malachi on as my client, and under any circumstance, I will defend him to the best of my ability—including changing the plea to one of insanity if I don’t believe we can get reasonable doubt into the heads of the jury. You understand?”

“Of course,” Jamie assured him.

Jenna did her best to stay out of the finer points of argument. She wasn’t an attorney, and she knew full well that despite what she did know about federal law, she had no courtroom experience whatsoever.

“Let’s see our client again,” Sam said gruffly. He looked at Jenna and frowned as if he was still wondering just what she was doing there. But he didn’t argue her presence.

Jenna didn’t think that Sam was wrong to see to it that Malachi was kept in custody while they awaited trial. Jenna had expected something far worse—a long hall with bars and cells, the stench of fear and evil, and beady-eyed reprobates staring out with a desire to slit their throats, perhaps. But though Malachi was kept in isolation in a locked room with a small window box, the room was decent enough, if sparse.

It was almost like any other hospital unit. Almost. Malachi Smith was being incarcerated pending trial on murder charges. It wasn’t a pleasantly painted place, nor were there any concessions to creature comforts. Jenna was grateful for her status as an R.N.; Sam Hall used her qualifications in explaining the reason for the three-person visit when he was the attorney of note.

There was a nurses’ station. There was also a guard station. The guards were armed, and there was a series of doors to enter before arriving at Malachi’s “decent”

room. Jenna realized that the difference between his “room” and a cell was essentially that he had walls around him rather than bars.

The guards were professional and courteous. They seemed to be treating Malachi well. Extra chairs were brought; Malachi’s space included a simple cot and one chair.

Jenna’s heart immediately went out to the boy. He was pathetically slim and small for his age; she was certain that malnutrition had stunted his growth. He was a couple of inches shorter than herself, while Sam Hall and even Jamie seemed to dwarf the youth. His eyes were huge and brown, his face as lean as his frame. When he saw Jamie, he smiled. It was a smile filled with hope, but it faltered quickly and he looked at the three of them like he would begin crying in a matter of seconds.

And he did. No sooner had Malachi walked over to Jamie and leaned against him than great sobs started to rack his body. Sam stood back with Jenna, waiting for the torrent to subside.

“There, there,” her uncle said, patting the boy’s back. “We’re here to help you, Malachi.”

Sam glanced at Jenna. For the first time, it seemed that he was looking at her as if she could say something that might be helpful. Well, maybe the fact that she was a nurse and a special investigator led him to believe that she must have empathy with others.

“I believe that the tears are for his family, honest tears,” she whispered.

“And not because he was caught?” Sam asked.

“No.” She hesitated. “Though, even if he had committed the murders, the realization of his family’s deaths would be wrenchingly painful.”

Sam nodded, and seemed to accept her reply, especially with the caveat. She knew that he wasn’t convinced yet—no matter Jamie’s passion. To press forward as if she were positive as well might alienate him, and she wanted them all playing on the same side. She wasn’t Jamie. She hadn’t treated Malachi, and she didn’t know him.

But she did step forward and put a hand on Malachi’s trembling shoulder. “My uncle is right, Malachi. We’re here to help you. But we need you to try very hard and tell us exactly what happened.”

The boy’s thin frame still clung to her uncle.

“Malachi, we need you to help us,” Jenna persisted.

Finally he nodded against Jamie’s shoulder and turned to look at her. He seemed like such a little kid. She tried a gentle smile and eased his hair from his forehead. He smelled of antiseptic soap and was dressed in an orange-beige pajamalike suit that resembled scrubs.

Jail attire, of course. This was a hospital division, but it was jail, nonetheless.

“Can it help?” Malachi asked quietly. “You know that, in the eyes of others, I am already condemned.”

“Please, come, sit down on the bed, and we’ll go through it all,” Sam said. “You know that I’m going to defend you. And, remember, I’m your lawyer, so anything you say to me is confidential. If there is something that you want to say to me that should be kept confidential, I must speak with you alone. Now, Jamie doesn’t believe that you killed your family, Malachi. And if that’s true, and you want to tell us what happened, you can feel free to speak with us all here. Just remember, and this is important—I can’t repeat anything. Since Jamie isn’t officially your doctor right now, he could be compelled to repeat what you’ve said, and Jenna is Jamie’s niece, and an … investigator. So if you don’t wish to speak in front of them—”

“I didn’t do it,” Malachi blurted, drawing away from Jamie at last. His face was still tearstained, but he continued to speak earnestly and passionately. “I would never hurt them, never! I would never hurt anyone. I believe in God, and his only son, Jesus Christ—and He taught that all men should be peaceful, and seek to help their brothers. So help me, before God! I didn’t do it.”

As he spoke, his words so desperate and earnest, it seemed that a ray of sun burst through the barred windows.

The room was cast into an almost unearthly glow.

Then the glow faded, and Jenna wondered if it had just been the sun passing in front of an autumn cloud.

Malachi hung his head and repeated, “I didn’t do it.” He looked up, straight into Jenna’s eyes, and said, “Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not kill.”

3

“Malachi, do you remember me as the man who found you in the road?” Sam asked.

The boy reddened and shook his head.

“Let’s sit down now and relax,” Jamie said, leading Malachi to the bed. He sat the youth and smiled, then took the first chair, leaving the second and closest chair, for Sam. Jenna sat on the third.

“First, are you doing all right in here?” Sam asked pleasantly.

Malachi nodded and shrugged. “I know how to be alone,” he said softly.

Compassion filled Jenna at these words. She saw a child who lived such a strict and unusual life that he saw visions of Dante’s hell at home and was shunned by other children wherever he went.

“Good, good, I think this is the best place for you right now,” Sam told him. “Now, Malachi, what I need you to do is really try to relax—and I know how ridiculous that sounds. But I need you to go back and try very hard to remember everything that happened the evening when I found you on the road.”

“I found them,” he said. “I found them.” He started to tremble again; tears welled into his eyes. “My mother …”

Jenna didn’t remember getting up but she found herself crouching next to him and placing an arm around his shoulders. “It’s all right,” she said. “Malachi, it’s all right to cry. You loved them. You loved your mother very much, and she’s gone. It’s natural that you’d cry.”

He nodded and leaned against her shoulder.

Sam waited patiently for a few minutes, and then pressed on.

“Malachi, it’s important that we know where you were when it all happened. You weren’t home—or were you? Were you hiding somewhere in the house?”

Malachi stared across the room, his slender face crinkling into a frown of concentration. He shook his head thoughtfully, and was silent so long that Jenna thought he wouldn’t answer.

“I went to the cliff—the little cliff at the end of the road. It isn’t a real park, but the kids go there all the time. It’s like a park. Some of the kids just run around with Frisbees or soccer balls, and some of them go there to …” He broke off, embarrassed, and glanced at Jenna awkwardly. “You know. They go there to fool around.”

She smiled at him and patted his hand. “Why do you go there, Malachi?”

“I like the sea,” he said. “It’s up from the wharf, and you can be alone with the wind and sea and the waves crash against the rocks there. Right at the peak, you can always feel the breeze, and it feels so good. It’s like it whips through you, and it makes you all clean. Sometimes, I just sit and look out on the water. And I try to imagine what it would have been like, years ago, when the great sailing ships went to sea, and the whalers and the fishermen went out.”

Every kid needed a place to dream.

She smiled at him. “Do you go there a lot?”

He nodded. He lifted his shoulders, and they fell again. “I have no friends,” he said. “It’s okay. I know that my family was different.”

His family was different. In a city that made half its tourist dollars through the rather unorthodox belief in the Wiccan religion. Did people believe? Or did tourists just enjoy the edge of it all—tarot cards were fun, just as it was fun and spooky to head to Gallows Hill and wonder if the spirits of the dead rose in tearful reproach or if they indeed rose to dance with the devil. But the Smiths believed in something. Not that, but something. And with belief being so cheap, in a way, that could mark them as outcasts right off.

“Am I right to say that your family had very strict religious beliefs, Malachi? Almost like the Puritan fathers?” Sam said.

Jenna looked at him, surprised that his thoughts were running vaguely similar to her own.

Again, his face reddened. He nodded, looking down. “Father said that all the Wiccans were the same, that it was all hogwash, that there is no devil in the Wiccan belief. I don’t think he really hated anyone, though. But there really was a devil—he was the horned God. People just wouldn’t say that he was the devil. My father didn’t want to hurt anyone—it isn’t our place to judge on earth. He just said that they were all going to hell.”

“Tell me what you believe, Malachi,” Sam said.

“I believe in what Jesus said. That we should love our fellow man—never hurt him.” Malachi paused a minute. “Actually, I kind of like what the witches say. You know, that they would never hurt anyone, because whatever harm is done to another comes back on us threefold. I mean, I don’t believe that there’s a count—that doing a bad thing to another human being means that three bad things will happen. But I do believe in a great power, and that we answer to that power—to God, through Christ His son—when we depart this world. And I think He will ask me if I was good to those around me, and I will say, ‘Father, I tried my hardest. I’m sure that I’ve sinned, but I have tried to be a good person.’”

There was something so earnest about his words. They weren’t like the rhetoric of many a televangelist. They were heartfelt and sincere.

He could be a fanatic, she told herself. And fanatics, no matter what their religion or calling, could be dangerous. Yes, kill in the name of God!

But it just didn’t seem that he saw killing as one of his God’s commandments.

“I do see it all a bit differently than my father did,” Malachi added, and then tears welled in his eyes again. “He believed—he may have been mistaken sometimes, but he believed. He must be in Heaven now.”

“Of course he is,” Jenna murmured. Sam stared at her. She stared back at him. It had been the right thing to say, and she knew it. It didn’t matter if the man’s beliefs had warped his ability to be a decent father.

“Tell me what happened after you were on the cliff,” Sam said.

“I—I came home,” Malachi said. Jenna, sitting next to him, could feel him. He was trembling again, reliving the horror.

“And exactly what did you do?” Sam asked. His voice was smooth, easy. He wasn’t attacking; he was asking.

“I walked into the parlor,” he said, his voice so soft they could barely hear him. “My—my mother … She was by the hearth… . She—she was on the floor. I ran to her … I fell down on my knees. I saw … the blood, but I couldn’t believe that she was dead. I held her—and the blood was all over me. And I couldn’t bear the feel of it. I tried to get it off of me. I stood up and—and then I saw my father, over by the sofa … I started screaming. I raced up the stairs and found my uncle in one bedroom, and my grandmother … my grandmother, oh, God!” He cried out the last and buried his face in his hands, sobbing and wailing.

Jenna pulled him closer, murmuring soothing words. She stared at Sam as she felt Malachi’s body shudder against her own.

“Do you remember anything after?” Sam asked him. “Do you remember me?”

It took a long time for Malachi to answer.

“I remember Detective Alden telling me that I was under arrest, that I had killed my parents,” Malachi said dully. “I didn’t kill them. I’m not crazy, and I didn’t kill them. I loved them. My parents, my grandmother … my uncle. I loved them. I didn’t always agree with them. But they loved me, and I loved them.”

He said the words with certainty. He said the words like an innocent man. Jenna believed him.

Sam had a few more questions. She barely heard them. She sat next to Malachi Smith, trying to give him human warmth and comfort. And when it was time to go at last, she wasn’t exactly sure why, but she agreed with her uncle.

Malachi Smith was not guilty.

There was something pure about him.

She had no proof, and the evidence was against him.

But she believed in him.

When they left the facility, Sam Hall was quiet and grim.

And she realized that he, too, was experiencing the same feelings.

Sam sat at the desk in the den at his parents’ house, idly rolling a pencil in his fingers, staring at the screen of his computer and looking at the empty notepad by his side.

He’d been surprised that Malachi Smith had now made an indelible impression on him.

He shouldn’t have been so surprised, not really. From the time he had come upon the kid in the road, he’d been touched by the boy. Shaken. Not shaken. Yes … disturbed, at the least.

His client was innocent. He firmly believed it, which was good—he’d defended men when they might have been innocent, and when they might have been guilty as all hell.

He realized that he actually felt righteous about pursuing a nonguilty plea for Malachi. This case made no sense. He liked to believe that he could read people, and he knew all the little things to look for in a liar. Liars seldom made eye contact. They were fidgety, keeping their movements close to their own bodies. They had a tendency to touch their mouths, or their faces. The emotion in their words was often just slightly off or askew—acted out, rather than real.

The world was filled with very good liars, of course, but he’d spent a great deal of time in court, and he’d watched countless defendants, witnesses, prosecutors, judges, jurists and defense attorneys. He was good. The courtroom was actually one big stage, and often, the rest of a person’s life depended on how well the ad-libbed and scripted performances were played out.

He’d been at his desk an hour now, so there should have been a list of notes on his pad. He should have been to a dozen sites on the computer. He was still staring at the screen, reliving in his mind’s eye the time he had spent with Malachi Smith.

He had to shake the feeling he’d experienced with Malachi.

Sam was no longer sure what he believed in himself. He supposed that he believed in a higher power, or perhaps he wanted to believe in a higher power. No one wanted to think that their loved ones, now deceased, were nothing but decaying matter. Man had always looked to the heavens for some kind of redemption and had been inventing God around the world since the human brain had begun to recognize its own extinction.

Growing up in Salem, he’d seen everything. The old Puritanical values had died hard despite the enlightenment of man. Wiccans were finally allowed into a council of religions, but that council wasn’t recognized by the hard-core fundamentalists. Less that .03 percent of the American population was Wiccan. In Salem, poll estimates suggested that there were about 4,000 Wiccans in an area of about 40,000. Ten percent.

He mused that today they might have been considered the “tree huggers.”

Had someone killed the Smith family because of their fundamentalist beliefs?

He started writing on his notepad at last.

Abraham Smith, his wife, Beth. His mother, Abigail, his brother, Thomas. Killed at Lexington House. Earnest Covington, killed the previous week, three doors down. Six months earlier, Peter Andres, killed in his barn at Andover, just a hop, skip and jump away.

One in the barn with a scythe, one in a house with an ax, then four more in a house with an ax. It sounded like a sick game of Clue.

What did the victims have in common besides location? That was where he needed to start.

Sam rubbed his eyes. It had been a long day. He pushed away from his desk. He needed fresh air. He walked out of the house, locking it, perhaps purposely keeping his eyes downcast as he did so. He didn’t want to think about how he’d lost himself at that moment.

Boston had been easy. Take on the high-income clientele, fight like a tiger. When a client was guilty as all hell and sure to lose in court because of absolutely damning evidence, argue out the best possible deal. Hit the high-end restaurants and bars. Indulge in a few high-end affairs and avoid commitment. Relish a victory like his last with a trip down to the sun and sand, and then start all over again. Shallow, he told himself.

Yeah.

Once on the sidewalk, he looked back at the house. And he smiled with a sense of nostalgia. He’d thrown himself into his work and the lifestyle when his folks had died. Life wasn’t fair; death really wasn’t fair. He’d loved them. They’d given him everything, and they’d made him want to achieve great things because he’d wanted them to be proud.

“You’d want me on this case, wouldn’t you, Dad?” he said softly. Once upon a time, he’d been filled with righteousness. He’d believed in putting away the bad guys and going to bat for the innocent and falsely accused.

Then he’d gotten to see the legal system in action. He was still convinced that this country had what was certainly the best one in the world. And yet, even the best was filled with loopholes, inept cops, inept clerks and justices who were biased even if they were charged to comprehend and follow the law. Then, of course, Congress wasn’t always the best at writing laws, and God knew, a good speaker was a good speaker: attorneys themselves were certainly a major part of justice—and injustice.

And attorneys could become jaded. Had he let that happen?

Yes, definitely.

Maybe it was time to believe again.

Maybe that was the core of belief: people who had mattered and passed away living on in the hearts or souls of their loved ones. His father was no longer there to see him going to bat, pro bono, for the poor and ill-treated. It was something that would have pleased his parents.

He turned away from the house, surprised that he didn’t want to be alone.

I know how to be alone, Malachi Smith had said.

Sam knew how to be alone, too. He’d been an only child. But he’d grown up surrounded by love, and his parents had welcomed other children into their home. He smiled; his mother had been concerned that he wouldn’t learn how to share if she didn’t make sure he learned that he just didn’t get everything that he wanted.

He wondered what it had been like to be Malachi, shunned by others. And, yet, the boy seemed to have his own faith. Perhaps pounded into him by his father.

Perhaps made into something better in the lonely recesses in his mind.

Whatever demons haunted the human mind, Sam mused that everyone had them. He had his own. And he knew that right then, no matter how good he might be at it, he didn’t want to be alone. And he was surprised to realize that it wasn’t just Jamie he wanted to see.

It was Jenna. She was a beautiful young woman, but that wasn’t it. He was lucky. His world was filled with beautiful young women. She was different.

Yeah, right. Adam Harrison’s ghost-buster-Krewe-of-Hunters different. Just what the hell had he gotten himself into?

He grinned. Whatever it was, he had feeling that she was like the flame that enticed.

Jenna was surprised to see Sam Hall standing at the door to Jamie’s house. “Hi!” she said. “Hey,” he returned.

She realized she was staring blankly at him. “Oh, I’m sorry!” she said quickly. “Come on in, Jamie is just hanging at the table going through papers while we’re waiting on dinner.”

“Oh. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said quickly, taking a step back. “Sorry, I should have realized that it was around that time.”

“No, please, come on in—we’ve plenty. It’s a strange kind of international goulash in the Crock-Pot, nothing at all exciting,” she warned him.

Jenna realized that Jamie was standing behind her when he said, “Come on in, Counselor! Please, we’d love for you to join us.”

Sam lifted a hand, as if he would back away again in a minute. “Seriously,” he said, and she noted that he could have a wonderful, dimpled and sheepish smile. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was thinking about the case, thought I should take a walk—and found that I’d walked over here.”

Impulsively, she stepped forward and took his arm. “I insist,” she said and smiled at him. Her mother could be one of the most iron-willed women she had ever met, but she always got her way by adding a grin. She was surprised that she was so insistent with Sam Hall, and she almost released his arm the second she grabbed it, but she had made her point.

“I’ve just been going over notes, trying to figure out why on earth the other two victims were murdered,” Jamie said. “Come on, I’ll show you what I’ve got.”

Jenna turned and headed back through the hall to the kitchen. It was big, with the old hearth against the far wall. Jamie had built a fire against the autumn chill, and it felt good. Nothing was cooking over it, however; dinner was in the Crock-Pot.

“Why would anyone kill a grumpy old farmer in Andover?” Jamie asked, shoving a newspaper article toward Sam as both men took a seat at the table.

“Six months ago,” Sam mused, taking the newspaper article. He read through it thoughtfully. He looked over at Jamie. “Peter Andres. No close relatives, but he had a second cousin living in Boston. Doesn’t seem like the cousin was after money. I know of the guy—plastic surgeon, makes a mint. And it looks like the police did check out his alibi.” He looked over at Jenna and Jamie. “Peter Andres was a substitute teacher. Farmer, and substitute teacher.”

Jenna set the Crock-Pot on the table and pushed the newspaper back. “Make room for plates, if you don’t mind,” she said. “And don’t suggest that Malachi killed Peter Andres because he didn’t like him as a teacher!”

“Hey, I’m the defense attorney. But you can guarantee that a prosecutor will make the suggestion,” Sam said.

“I’ll get drinks,” Jamie said, hopping up. “We’ll have to see if Peter Andres worked as a substitute while Malachi was still in the school system.”

“I’d bet the big bucks that he did,” Sam said thoughtfully.

“Now you’re being exasperating,” Jenna said, opening the refrigerator door for the salad she’d tossed and setting it on the table. “It sounds as if we’re trying to prove that Malachi did commit the murders.”

“No,” Sam argued, looking at her and hiding a smile. If he were ever in trouble, he would definitely want her in his corner. She was determined and passionate in her defense. She sincerely believed in Malachi’s innocence. When he was with Malachi and heard the youth speak, he believed in him, too. When he looked at the facts, he felt that belief waver.

Jenna wasn’t wavering.

“What’s going to happen when we make it to trial is this—the state will make every effort to show Malachi in a bad light. They will put forth every reason he would naturally have been the one to commit the crimes. I’m debating whether or not to put Malachi on the stand, because they will try to crucify him. Then again, if he can be as convincing and articulate as he was with us, he’ll be a good witness in his own defense. I don’t know yet—I have to look at this from every possible angle, because that’s what the prosecution is going to do. One of the things I have to create is reasonable doubt, and one of the best ways to do that is to think like our opposition.”

“Or find the real killer,” Jenna said, sitting opposite him and staring at him. “That’s what you did in your last case. And, now, you have me. And, unofficially, an entire team of investigators.”

He kept his eyes level with hers and hoped that his years as an attorney had made him a really damned good liar. “That’s wonderful, of course.”

Jenna gazed at him with cool and disdainful eyes. His acting wasn’t that good. “I work with people who can find the tiniest discrepancies on film, and who can find out about any piece of information possible on a computer. They will contribute legwork, phone work, paperwork—anything you want. So your problem would be …?”

“I don’t have a problem. I said, that’s wonderful,” Sam reminded her.

“Jenna, lass, you’ve a starving man down here,” Jamie said cheerfully.

“Smells wonderful,” Sam said.

“Irish-Hungarian goulash. The very best!” Jamie said.

When the food was dished out and Jenna was seated, Sam said, “Quite frankly, it is all a lot like acting. A good attorney can act and speak and write up summations that either prove a point, or leave a wide margin for doubt. And we also start out with the question, where do we want to go? We’re going on the premise that Malachi Smith is innocent of murder, and, while they’re not prosecuting the boy for the other murders, the state will

have as their default assumption that the same person or persons murdered the Smiths, Peter Andres and Earnest Covington. Since they were all bloody killings committed by some kind of a sharp blade in a fairly small area, all known to the boy—it seems like a plausible assumption.

“So, we want to find the person or persons who might have actually committed the murders. That will mean investigating the victims. Of course we’ll be looking at the Smith murders, but if we can also cast doubt on the police’s assumption about the other two, we’ll go a long way to getting them to reconsider Malachi for any of the killings. We’ll question friends and whatever relatives we can find, and we also need to know if they were thought of fondly in town—or if they were thought of at all. The killings might have been random or specific, but I’d bet on specific. That means motive, and we need to find out why someone would have killed these particular people. It might have been convenience, or there might have been a more practical reason.”

“I need to see the house,” Jenna said.

“Why?” Sam demanded. “There’s going to be a lot of blood spatter. People were killed there.”

“The house itself may have clues,” Jenna argued.

“Are you going to talk to the ghosts?” he asked drily.

“Maybe,” she said evenly. “Sam, everything you’re saying is exactly right. We do know what happened. But I need to see all the sites—we have to go to Andover and see the barn where Peter Andres was killed, and also get into the neighbor’s house. But we need to start with Lexington House. You know that! You’re going to defend Malachi. You need to know exactly what happened. And you’re friends with Detective John Alden, so …”

Sam sighed. “All right. Tomorrow morning. We’ll start with the house.”

Lexington House. Jenna had never actually been in the old colonial building, but she had an idea of what the arrangement of rooms would be like; many such homes had been built in a similar manner. The porch led to a mudroom, and beyond that was an entry hallway. The hall stretched the length of the house, the staircase to one side. The first door to the right would lead to a parlor. Upstairs, there would be four bedrooms, two on either side of the house.

Detective John Alden led the way, ripping off the crime-scene tape and unlocking the front door for them.

As she had expected: mudroom. Work jackets hung on hooks in the small vestibule, and work boots were lined up against the wall. There was a long hallway with doors leading off to either side of the house, and a set of stairs against the left wall that led to the rooms above. They followed John Alden to the first door on the left.

Blood remained on the walls. The spray pattern was terrifying—there was so much blood. Four people, murdered here just two days ago, two of them in this room.

Two here, in the parlor. Mr. Abraham Smith and his wife.

Chalk marks on the floor designated the positions where their bodies had lain.

“You can move into the room about three feet—no farther,” Alden warned.

“We appreciate your assistance in being here, John,” Sam told him.

Alden was still for a minute, weighing his answer. “We do have a chief of police,” he said. “And the chief wants every possible effort made on this case so that there aren’t any more historic mysteries floating around out there. The murders are heinous, and they’re not fancy legends—it’s a seventeen-year-old boy who has been accused. I worked hard for this badge, it’s something I’ve always wanted. And I don’t want any surprises when we get to court on this one.”

“Noted,” Sam said. “And still appreciated.”

“Just be careful where you’re walking,” Alden said gruffly.

Jamie took a step in to the left. Sam went to the right.

Blood. What remained of the carnage.

A table was knocked over. A pile of bloody clothing lay next to a lamp that had presumably sat upon the table. A quilt—covered in blood—had been ripped from the old sofa.

The bricks of the fireplace were dotted with stains and spray.

“Abraham Smith got it right there, in front of the fireplace. You can see where his body lay, right there,” John Alden pointed out. “The missus was over on the floor by the sofa—looks like she dragged the quilt down and knocked over the table. She had hack marks on her arms. I think she stood up to protest, and was axed down right there. She staggered a few feet, and then died. And that pile there—that’s the kid’s clothes. And this room is only the beginning,” he said wearily.

Jenna could barely hear him. As he spoke, she felt as if he faded away, along with the others in the room. The very color of the air distorted, taking on a gray hue. A crude straw broom appeared by the fireplace. A wire basket of wood was on the brick apron in front of the hearth. There were no lamps. Candles sat on rough wooden tables by hardwood furniture, and sconces were attached to the walls.

There was a woman in severe, puritanical dress pacing in front of the fireplace. Once she had been pretty. Her face was worn down by weather, toil and worry. Her brow was furrowed. She kept looking toward the door.

A breeze seemed to strike Jenna from the back.

She turned. The front door had burst open—two youths, one perhaps ten, another twelve, came running into the room, panicked. They rushed to their mother, hugging her one by one.

“They’ve declared against Rebecca Nurse,” the older boy practically yelled. “Oh, Mother, it grows so frightening.”

“Father says that evil must be uprooted, and that Goody Nurse is surely evil. If the girls say that she dances with the devil, she must die!” the younger boy said.

The breeze seemed to grow very chill, though it appeared that a summer sun blazed outside the gray miasma within the house. Once again, someone entered the room.

He was in breeches and boots and a white cotton shirt. His long, graying hair was parted cleanly in the middle.

He carried an ax.

Eli Lexington! Jenna thought.

He walked into the room, his hands moving on the ax as if he were testing the weight of it.

“Eli?” his wife said softly.

“Evil must die!” he roared. “Let those who dance with the devil go to the devil, and let their spawn rest in hell aside them!”

Jenna felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. Eli Lexington walked across the room, and despite his wife’s scream of protest, he brought the ax down on her shoulders, and then, wielding it again, took it viciously down upon her fallen body. The boys stared, frozen in horror. Jenna tried to close her eyes against the vision, but the image just appeared in her mind, and there was no way to hide from the horror that unfolded before her.

Eli turned on the oldest boy.

“Run!” the child yelled to his brother.

The word was cut off as the ax struck his head.

The little one had no chance to run. “Though shalt pluck out evil—thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!” Eli roared.

He continued to vigorously hack at his family. The last scream and moan died away. The gray air seemed to fade, and Jenna was aware that her uncle and Sam Hall were looking at her with grave concern.

She felt weak, faint, as if she would fall. She couldn’t do that.

“Excuse me. I need some air,” she murmured. She turned and almost stumbled. Jamie, however, was already at her side, grabbing her arm.

“Ah, lass, the scent in there is a bit overwhelming. Felt me old knees buckling, too,” he said.

Reaching the porch, she sank down to sit on the step. Jamie sat beside her. While he clearly wanted to be concerned for her welfare, he was also anxious to hear about what she might have experienced.

“Jenna … Jenna … did you see? Is he innocent?”

She looked at her uncle sadly. “Uncle Jamie, I saw—but not the present, I’m afraid. I saw Eli Lexington, and he seemed to be really crazy—he believed that his wife was a witch, and that he had to kill her. And he had to kill his sons, because she had already given them to Satan, because they’d wind up in hell.” She realized that she was shaking, her voice tremulous.

“Wonderful. That’s really going to help us.”

The deep, mocking voice came from above and behind her. Sam Hall. He’d slipped out onto the porch as well, concerned or curious.

Jenna figured it was the latter.

She stood, suddenly feeling perfectly fine. It was as if her spine had stiffened so tightly that she gained a half an inch.

“You’re going to tell me that the boy was psychologically shattered by the strict deprivation of anything societal caused by his father’s strange religion, and that caused him to see apparitions in the house?” Sam asked. His eyes were as flat as his words.

“No,” she said equally flatly. “In my mind, Malachi didn’t do it. Excuse me. If John Alden will allow it, I want to see the rest of the house. And, quite frankly, I think we should do this separately.”

Of course, Sam was the one who was friends with John Alden—had gone to school with him—not Jamie. And still, Jenna was convinced that if she acted with authority, she would be allowed her exploration. She’d worked against this kind of man before.

Sam shrugged. “We’re here. What the hell.”

Yeah, what the hell. He had written her off as a kook who liked to pretend she was a medium of some kind.

In a way, of course, it was true… .

But she was part of Adam Harrison’s Krewe of Hunters, and they offered so much more than Sam seemed to be able to fathom.

Well, they dealt with that belief all the time. She had to bite down and ignore his attitude, and do what she knew she could do.

She stood up and walked back into the house. Part of the stairway was blocked by crime-scene tape; a trail of blood drops ran to the upstairs.

Jenna walked into the room where Malachi’s great-uncle had been killed. The blood spatter was all over the wall. A pillow was soaked in it and had turned a hardened crimson color. She held still for a minute, but felt nothing, and no images came to her mind.

She walked across the hall to the grandmother’s room. The old woman had evidently been caught standing; the blood had soared far across the room in little drops, though the majority was on the floor, in the upper portion of the chalked-out figure there.

Again, she felt nothing. She knew she had to come back. With whatever “gift” she had, history seemed to be coming to her slowly. She’d gotten the seventeenth century today—she’d have to try again later to find out more recent events.

If she could …

She walked down the stairs, quiet and grim. The others were out on the porch.

“I still think you’re crazy,” John Alden told Sam, watching Jenna as she exited the house and joined them. “The kid is—weird. And, in his mind, he probably had good reason to kill his parents. Their brainwashing might have been some kind of mind-torture. And his prints were on the ax. That’s going to go a long way in court, my friend.”

“All right, John,” Sam said, “his prints are on the ax. But, the scenario he describes could account for that. I’ve seen it before. Kid came home and saw the carnage in his house. He was in shock. His parents were on the floor in a pile of blood. He picked up the ax, maybe pulled it out of his mom, threw himself on his parents. He had blood all over him—he couldn’t stand it. He stripped off his clothing. In shock and panic, he raced out into the night. And that’s when I found him.”

“Cool, you tell that to a jury, my friend,” John Alden said. He cast his head to the side. “Crazy, Sam, you’re plum crazy. You don’t need the publicity, God knows! You’re high on a winning streak. In my mind, you’re going to plummet—like a crazy man.”

“John, the kid needs someone,” Sam told him.

John nodded. “Sure. Well, I’m not out to crucify the boy, no matter what you might think. But I am beholden to the people here, and I have to tell you, I’m glad that one is locked up!”

“He’s safe,” Jenna said.

“He’s safe?” Alden asked, and laughed. “Yeah, sure.

Well, if that’s all …?”

Sam looked at Jenna, a dry smile curling his lips.

“Jenna?”

She forced a smile in return. “That’s all.”

“Thanks again, John,” Sam said. He took Jenna’s arm, leading her down the porch steps. Jamie followed, and they walked across the lawn and down to the curb and Sam’s car. Jenna paused, pulling back, and looked around.

“What?” Sam asked.

“Nothing. Nothing,” she said quietly. But it was something. They were being watched. She could feel it; she knew it.

4

Mrs. Lila Newbury was a very thin and nervous woman who sat behind her desk looking as if she wanted to jump up and move away. She fiddled with the things on her desk—a pencil, a stapler and a cup of paper clips. She seemed entirely out of place; the office had been decorated and adorned for Halloween. A carved pumpkin with a battery-powered light grinned evilly from the edge of her desk while garlands in black and orange were strewn around the windows. A paper skeleton dangled from the door, and paper images of black cats were taped here and there, along with typical autumn cornucopia. There were no witches, Sam noted, and he was sure that was because some of the school’s children had to be among the ten percent of the population that was Wiccan.

Lila Newbury looked as if she had been plucked up from a sixties flower garden and thrown into it all.

Sam couldn’t help but think that if this woman was the guidance counselor, many of the kids at the school would wind up like nervous terriers, running back and forth, afraid, and not even close to certain about what they wanted to do with their lives. She hadn’t been there when he’d gone to the high school himself. In fact, he hadn’t seen any of the teachers or office personnel he had known. Sure, he had graduated fourteen years ago; people did move on. Still, there had to be someone here he still knew. He’d look into that later.

“Mrs. Newbury?” he pressed softly. She hadn’t actually agreed to see him. He’d walked in while one of the office girls had been trying to call and warn her that he was there.

“Yes, yes, I’m thinking, of course,” she said.

Thinking, of course. She was thinking of a way to get rid of him.

“When this comes to court …” he warned vaguely.

“We have several hundred students here … I’m trying to recall … Malachi Smith had been pulled out of the public system some time ago. His father—God rest his soul—had decided on homeschooling.”

“But I understand that was prompted by an incident at the school,” Sam said.

“Yes,” she admitted uneasily.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Sam asked.

“He looked at a boy … and the boy was convinced that he had some kind of power that could hurt him,” she said, not looking at Sam, but toward the clock on the wall, as if the clock was going to save her if she just watched the seconds tick by long enough.

“I need to know exactly what happened,” Sam said firmly, leaning forward. He was an attorney with no power as far as law enforcement went, but he was pretty sure she didn’t understand the law at all and that he could bully her. “You’re in danger of obstructing justice, Mrs. Newbury. You can and will be subpoenaed, and if you commit perjury or continue to hinder an investigation into the truth, you can be prosecuted yourself.”

He was glad of his reputation even though it didn’t give him the power to arrest anyone. Mrs. Newbury didn’t seem to know the difference.

“Teachers and counselors can’t be everywhere, you know!” she said, suddenly angry. “The kid seemed to wear a target. Probably because he couldn’t be riled. He was different, and trust me, Mr. Hall, children can be very cruel. They liked to throw food at him in the lunchroom. Well, one of the boys was throwing food at him and he turned and looked at the boy …”

As she continued with the familiar evil-eye story he’d heard a couple of times now, he almost couldn’t wait for her to finish before he blurted out his next question: “And you believed this?”

She flushed.

She had!

“No, of course not. But we had to call the parents in, And …”

“And?”

“Well, the boy was David Yates. His father is one of our city councilmen,” she said weakly.

“And he asked that Malachi Smith be expelled—and someone agreed to it?” Sam demanded, outraged.

Lila Newbury shook her head vehemently. “No! It never came to that. Abraham Smith stormed his way in here. He said that he wanted his son out of this horrible place. I helped him arrange for homeschooling.” A pencil suddenly snapped in her fingers. “Look, Mr. Hall, I did it as much for Malachi as I did for anyone. He was a sweet boy. I liked him, personally. But this is an understaffed facility, like most public venues of education. I couldn’t protect him all the time. He was going to get hurt. Like I said, children can be cruel. And, as we all know, they can be lethal, as well!”

“You just said that Malachi was a sweet boy. Do you really believe that he could have killed anyone?” Sam asked.

She looked away. He thought that she didn’t believe it herself.

But she was a woman without the strength of her own convictions. She’d never stand up for anyone if it was contrary to public opinion.

“What about Peter Andres?” Sam asked.

“What about him?” she asked nervously.

“He substituted here?”

She nodded. “And at other schools!” she said defensively.

“You know that Malachi is suspected of his murder?”

She waved a hand in the air. “Rumor, of course.”

“Rumor—of course. But rumor goes a long way. Did he ever teach Malachi Smith?”

“Well, yes, of course … he was a substitute and we often called him in.”

“Did they get along?”

She hesitated, and then apparently appeared to be truthful. “As a matter of fact, they got along quite well. Peter was strict, and Malachi didn’t mind strict. Peter liked the boy. He said that he was ‘special.’ He didn’t mean that in the mean way the other children did.”

“Did you ever tell that to the police?”

“The police never asked me.” She sighed impatiently. “Peter was killed over in Andover, what, about six months ago? Malachi was not one of our student body then.”

Sam stood up. “The boy with whom the altercation took place—David Yates? Is he still in school here? He’d be … a senior, so ready to graduate next June, right?”

“Yes,” she said almost inaudibly.

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Newbury. You’ve been a tremendous help.”

She looked up at him, and her face appeared stricken. She hadn’t wanted to help him at all. She managed a jerky nod.

He left her office, very afraid for the youth of the day.

Jenna had thought that there might be a For Sale sign on the farmhouse where Peter Andres had been murdered.

There was. And it was already showing signs of wear and tear. No matter how great a deal the property might be, many people would be loath to live at a place where a heinous murder had taken place. While they loved to stay at “haunted” hotels and bed-and-breakfast inns, they didn’t particularly want to spend their lives in places with actual “evil” reputations.

Jenna put through a call to the Realtor. The woman who took her call seemed surprised by her interest in the property.

“You want me to show it to you?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” Jenna said.

“I … uh … of course. I can meet you in, say, half an hour.”

“Thank you. May I look over the grounds until you arrive?”

“Um, yes. If you wish. Look, I feel obliged to tell you that the previous owner was murdered in his barn,” she said.

“I know. Thank you.”

Jenna hung up quickly, glad that the woman didn’t press to make sure she had a serious interest in the property.

She left her car on the curb and walked toward the house itself. It was a typical New England farmhouse. There was an empty paddock to the right of the house, and overgrown fields beyond. The barn was to the left rear of the house.

She felt the breeze stir as she walked toward the barn. The day couldn’t have been more beautiful. The air was crisp and cool, and autumn colors seemed to hover around the property in shades of red and gold.

The doors to the barn were wide-open; she assumed a cleanup crew had been in, and that there would be no evidence of the crime remaining. Again she was proved right. The barn was clean swept. It had a lingering odor of hay and horses, but the place was spotless. She doubted that there were even spiderwebs in the eaves.

She walked into the barn. She’d had Jake Mallory perform his computer magic and get his hands on the crime-scene photos and send them through to her email, so she could close her eyes and imagine the scene. Peter Andres had died with his eyes open, a look of astonishment still on his face. His killer had used the scythe first against his throat; the victim had gripped his neck, stunned, trying to fight the flow of blood. He had gone down, and the killer had finished it all off with a few swipes to his chest. The murder hadn’t taken more than a few seconds, the first strike had been so swift.

Jenna stood in the dead center of the barn and closed her eyes.

She could see Peter Andres. He had been a big man, white haired and white bearded. He had been raking autumn leaves the wind had swept into the barn.

She frowned, opening her eyes. She’d had a sense of someone so strong that she had to see if it was real or not.

She was alone in the barn. And yet …

She’d felt as if there was someone there. Someone, or a something. There had been a figure in a cape and cowl—and some kind of a demon mask.

Halloween. It was Halloween season.

But it hadn’t been Halloween when Peter Andres had been killed. And still, she was certain that she’d had a sense of such a person, looking around the barn door first, seeing Peter …

And rushing in.

The mask had been … a demon face. The figure had been dressed like a caped and cowled version of the horned demon. Satan? Malachi’s father had suggested that despite the fact that the Wiccan religion had no demons, they actually did have a devil, one of their earth gods in disguise. She didn’t know that much about the religion, but she knew that it was far different than the kind of imagined “witchcraft” that people had been persecuted for in the past.

She closed her eyes again. There was a rush in the air around her, a rush of movement. Peter Andres had been taken entirely by surprise. A big man, he could have defended himself.

He’d never had the chance.

He’d looked up from his work to see the figure racing toward him. He’d been confused, frowning over the evil vestige of the whirlwind hurtling into his body. He probably hadn’t even noticed that the demon-thing was carrying a scythe.

She felt movement in the air. Someone was there.

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