Captive Read Free

her. Alex continued to stare. The horse had a mane and tail of yarn. It had been hand carved. Suddenly she could see a small, chubby boy astride it of no more than three years old. Her palms grew damp and her pulse was racing even more quickly than before.
    She closed the door carefully and began glancing into other rooms, ignoring them now, because she was looking for
his
room. She continued on past the master bedroom. She was certain that Blackwell’s father had been alive at the time of his death, so Blackwell would not have used the master suite.
    And then she opened the door to a sparsely appointed room, one dominated by a heavy, dark bed. Immediately she knew she had found
his
bedroom. Alex froze.
    And she felt his presence far more strongly than she had felt it last night outside of Blackwell House. He was there, with her, watching her, ohmygod, she knew it.
    His eyes burned holes in her, not in her back, but from across the room, as if he faced her.
    Alex stared across the dark, shadowy room, her heart hammering, unable to move. She was paralyzed. And for the briefest instant, she saw him on the opposite side of the room, but not as he had appeared in the portrait downstairs. He was clad in a loose and partially open white shirt, in snug breeches and soft boots, his dark hair swept back carelessly in a queue. They stared at one another. He was unsmiling, his eyes dark and intense and very hot.
    Alex blinked; he was gone. She was absolutely alone.
    She was breathless, sweating, terrified. She licked her lips, wanting to speak, afraid to utter even a sound. She wanted to call him back. If he had indeed been there. Yet she was sane enough to be positive that she had imagined him now, stimulated by her reaction to his portrait. Surely she had not just seen a ghost.
    But the hairs stood up on the back of her neck.
    And Alex felt a soft, warm puff of air at her nape, and she jumped away from the open door. It had been a draft of air, of course. Of course.
    But she hugged herself, glancing around in a 360-degree circle. “What do you want?” she whispered in what was practically a croak. Sweat poured down her body, between her breasts.
    There was no answer, but then, she hadn’t expected one—and she didn’t want one. Did she?
    And instead of leaving, she entered the room, shutting the door behind her. Alex glanced cautiously around. The bedroom was paneled in pine, the floors oak planking covered with a faded red Oriental carpet. The massive four-poster bed loomed in front of her. A crude pine chest stood beside it, serving as a night table. A single chair and a writing table stood in one corner of the room, both dark oak and far more crudely designed than the furniture in the other rooms. Was everything here early American? Had he lived amongst these things? Sat at that desk and worked there? Slept in that bed? Why hadn’t this room been refurbished and updated like the other ones?
    The room was heavy with shadow. Pale, opaque drapes had been left partially open, and sunlight filtered through the thick oak tree outside and through the dirty panes of the window. Alex leaned against the door she had closed. She swallowedand stared at the bed. At his bed. Then she quickly looked away.
    But from the corner of her eyes she saw a blur of movement. Alex jerked, her gaze shooting back to the four-poster, certain she had seen something—or someone—moving, but there was nothing and no one there now.
    Goose bumps covered her entire body. She wanted to leave, yet she also wanted to stay. But she was so afraid. “Are you haunting this house?” she whispered. “Are you haunting me?”
    He refused to answer her. If he was even present.
    Alex swallowed. Her mind warred with Itself. One voice shouted at her that she was in trouble, fooling with ghosts, with the paranormal, and that there was a ghost in the room. And that the ghost might not be a particularly nice or friendly spirit just because she had decided that he was a