Blue Dahlia Page 0,96

saw a shape, vague but female. And from it he felt a raw and bitter rage.

Then it was gone.

He could hear his own breath heaving in and out, and feel the clamminess of panic sweat down his back. Though his legs wanted to fold on him, he stayed where he was, working to steady himself until Stella came out.

Her half smile faded the minute she saw him. "What is it?" She moved to him quickly. "What happened?"

"She - this ghost of yours - has she ever scared the boys?"

"No. Exactly the opposite. She's ... comforting, even protective of them."

"All right. Let's go downstairs." He took her hand firmly in his, prepared to drag her to safety if necessary.

"Your hand's cold."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"You tell me."

"I intend to."

* * *

He told them all when they sat around the library table with their folders and books and notes. And he dumped a good shot of brandy in his coffee as he did.

"There's been nothing," Roz began, "in all the years she's been part of this house, that indicates she's a threat. People have been frightened or uneasy, but no one's ever been physically attacked."

"Can ghosts physically attack?" David wondered.

"You wouldn't ask if you'd been standing at the top of the stairs with me."

"Poltergeists can cause stuff to fly around," Hayley commented. "But they usually manifest around adolescent kids. Something about puberty can set them off. Anyway, this isn't that. It might be that an ancestor of Logan's did something to her. So she's paying him back."

"I've been in this house dozens of times. She's never bothered with me before."

"The children." Stella spoke softly as she looked over her own notes. "It centers on them. She's drawn to children, especially little boys. She's protective of them. And she almost, you could say, envies me for having them, but not in an angry way. More sad. But she was angry the night I was going out to dinner with Logan."

"Putting a man ahead of your kids." Roz held up a hand. "I'm not saying that's what I think. We have to think like she does. We talked about this before, Stella, and I've been thinking back on it. The only times I remember feeling anything angry from her was when I went out with men now and again, when my boys were coming up. But I didn't experience anything as direct or upsetting as this. But then, there was nothing to it. I never had any strong feelings for any of them."

"I don't see how she could know what I feel or think."

But the dreams, Stella thought. She's been in my dreams.

"Let's not get irrational now," David interrupted. "Let's follow this line through. Let's say she believes things are serious, or heading that way, between you and Logan. She doesn't like it, that's clear enough. The only people who've felt threatened, or been threatened are the two of you. Why? Does it make her angry? Or is she jealous?"

"A jealous ghost." Hayley drummed her hands on the table. "Oh, that's good. It's like she sympathizes, relates to you being a woman, a single woman, with kids. She'll help you look after them, even sort of look after you. But then you put a man in the picture, and she's all bitchy about it. She's like, you're not supposed to have a nice, standard family - mom, dad, kids - because I didn't."

"Logan and I hardly ... All he did was read them a story."

"The sort of thing a father might do," Roz pointed out.

"I... well, when he was reading to them, I was putting the bathroom back in shape. And she was there. I felt her. Then, well, my things. The things I keep on the counter started to jump, jumped."

"Holy shit," Hayley responded.

"I went to the door, and in the boy's room, everything was calm, normal. I could feel the warmth on the front of me, and this, this raging cold against my back. She didn't want to frighten them. Only me."

But buying a baby monitor went on her list. From now on, she wanted to hear everything that went on in that room when her boys were up there without her.

"This is a good angle, Stella, and you're smart enough to know we should follow it." Roz laid her hands on the library table. "Nothing we've turned up indicates this spirit is one of the Harper women, as has been assumed all these years. Yet someone knew her, knew her when