The Taking (Seven Deadly Sins #3)(19)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Where are you?”

“On my balcony with a chair shoved against the door.” Regan paced back and forth, checking the windows inside. All the rooms were still empty. “I figure if someone comes out here, I can scream for help at least”

“Why do you think someone’s in there? Did you hear a noise? Because, sweetie, it’s a big old house. It’s going to make noises.”

“I know that.” Talking to Chris was calming her down. At least a little. All it took was one glance into her bedroom and a glimpse of the stuffed monkey propped so carefully on her bed to freak her out all over again. “It wasn’t a noise. I had put something away in my nightstand, then I went outside to read the journal. When I came back in half an hour later, it was sitting on my bed.”

“What is it?”

She hesitated, but Chris knew the truth, so she told him. “It’s Moira’s stuffed monkey. I had just put it away, and I was thinking about the fact that I wish I could keep it on the bed …” Her words trailed off as a chill snaked its way up her spine. “Oh, my God . . .”

“Did you say any of that out loud?”

“No.” She didn’t even want to think what that meant.

A knock on the door downstairs startled her. “I’m up here,” she called over the railing to the police standing on her front step. “Chris, I’ll call you back. The cops are here.”

“Call me right back,” he warned. “And I’m coming over. I’ll be there in twenty.”

“You don’t have to do that.” But she hoped he would insist, because she suddenly didn’t want to be alone. “I’m coming down,” she called to the police.

“I’ll be there. Nelson will be heading to bed in like five minutes anyway.”

“Bed? It’s seven o’clock.”

“He’s old, remember?”

“He’s not old, he’s in his mid-forties.”

“Old.”

Oh, please. But she had no time to debate it with him. “And on that note, I’ll call you back,” she said as she jogged down the stairs and skidded to a halt at her front door. “Hi, thanks so much for coming so quickly. I just moved in here and I thought maybe someone was in the house. I . . . I heard a box fall over in my bedroom.” For some reason, she didn’t want to tell them the truth, though she realized how lame that sounded.

But they were nice enough about it and did a search of her whole house. “Nothing here, miss. No sign of any sort of forced entry and your back door was locked. Was the front door locked when you opened it to us?”

She nodded. “Yes, definitely.”

The older cop shrugged. “Must have been the wind or plain old gravity. Is your husband going to be home soon? Are you okay by yourself?”

“I’m not married,” she said, and reflected on how different that statement felt than it had two years earlier. Then, those words had been a regret. Now, they were a relief. “But I have a friend coming over.”

“Good. Lock her up nice and tight after we leave, and try to relax. It takes a few weeks to get used to the sounds of a new house.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“Have a good night.”

“You, too.” Regan locked the door behind them and frowned. So there was no one in the house. She hadn’t imagined the monkey had moved and she knew beyond a doubt she hadn’t moved it herself.

She called Chris back. “Hey, cops just left, there’s no one here.”

“Thank God. I’m coming around the corner right now.”

A minute later his blond head popped up in front of her door. She opened it and said, “I’m not crazy, I swear.”

“Of course you’re not crazy. You’re like the least crazy of any person I know, and I know a lot of bat-shit crazy people, so that’s saying a lot”

“So … before you say anything else, just come upstairs and tell me you see the monkey on my bed. Let’s just establish that first.” Regan shoved her cell phone into the front pocket of her jeans and ran back up the stairs.

Chris followed and a second later he was standing in her bedroom next to her. “Yes, there is a monkey on your bed. No doubt about it. So you were reading the journal, then you came back in and the monkey was there?”

“Yes.”

“What was in the journal?”

“I was actually reading about how the girl’s whole family died. It was horrible. One day they were all alive, the next all of them were dead, except for her. My heart was just breaking for that poor girl, left all alone.”

Chris wiggled the button on his blue golf shirt and frowned. “So you first thought you would like to have the monkey on your bed, but you put it away anyway. Then you’re sitting there feeling sympathy for the girl whose family died. Then the monkey is on the bed. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Regan shook her head. “I don’t know what to think.” She knew what Chris was going to say, she just wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear it spoken out loud.

“It’s a ghost. Most likely the author of the journal. That was a gesture of comfort. You offered her comfort, and she gave it in return.”

All the hairs on Regan’s head stood up. “Do you really think so? That her spirit is here?”

“Why not? This was the scene of the greatest tragedy, the most pivotal event of her life. It changed her indelibly.”

“I’ve never been sure if I believe in ghosts or not.”

“Maybe you should start believing,” Chris said, not looking at her, but smacking her in the arm.

“Why?”

“Because the French doors are opening by themselves,” he whispered.

Regan snapped her gaze from the bed to the doors and felt her mouth slide open in shock. The doors were opening, not the back and forth movement from wind, but a methodical swing of both doors simultaneously, like someone had a hand on each of them and was pushing.

“Chris.” She felt around for his arm, not taking her eyes off the doors, but wanting physical contact with him.

“Yeah?”

She squeezed his hand when she found it. “Will you stay here tonight?”

“Am I going to need a garlic necklace?”

They watched the doors finish their slow journey outward then stop when they were fully open. Regan jumped involuntarily when the door stops dropped down onto the wood floor to maintain the open position.