After Dark by Jayne Castle Read Free Book Online Page A

There was an audible crackle as it floated closer to the wall. Lydia grew more uneasy. There was no sign that the ghost was weakening. More disturbing was the fact that it did not seem to be moving randomly now.
    Fuzz stared, unblinking, at the pulsating energy ball over the bed. Lydia knew that there was nothing either of them could do about the ghost except stay out of its way and hope that it did no serious damage. Only a dissonance-energy para-resonator—a ghost-hunter—could summon one; only a hunter could de-rez it.
    The small, pulsing green specter was almost touching the wall over the bed now. Lydia watched in frustration.
    Then she smelled scorched paint.
    â€œMy wall!” Lydia whirled and ran down the hall, barely avoiding a collision with the small end table she had put there because there was no other space for it.
    She dashed into the kitchen, tossed Fuzz onto the counter, flung open the door under the sink, and grabbed the household fire extinguisher, then raced back toward her bedroom.
    Fuzz gamely tumbled down from the counter and scampered after her.
    â€œIt can’t last much longer,” she told him. “It just can’t. Not here, outside the wall.”
    The smell of burning paint reached her before she got back to the bedroom doorway. She rounded the corner just in time to see the eerie green glow wink out of existence.
    â€œIt’s gone.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Told you it couldn’t last, Fuzz.”
    The odor of charred paint was unpleasantly strong. Lydia groped for the light switch, flipped it. And then groaned when she saw the scorch marks the ghost had left on the formerly pristine white surface of the wall.
    With the immediate danger past, she whirled and went to the window. She was just in time to see a figure garbed in dark clothing vanish up a rope ladder that dangled from the roof. As she watched, outraged, the ladder was pulled up and out of sight. She yanked open the window and leaned out.
    â€œLittle punk! If I ever get my hands on you—”
    But the jerk was gone, and she knew the odds of learning his identity were virtually zip.
    That was when the full implications of the situation hit her. She had given her landlord so much trouble lately that he would probably seize upon any excuse to terminate her lease. Fire and smoke damage no doubt came under the heading of “willful destruction of property by tenant” or some other vague clause in the contract.
    â€œIf Driffield finds out about this, we’re fried, Fuzz.”
    Â 
    Emmett glanced at the amber face of his watch as he got out of the Slider. It was barely seven o’clock. The morning sun had not yet penetrated the blanket of fog that had crawled in from the river late last night.
    He walked across the small, cramped parking lot of the Dead City View Apartments, let himself in through the broken security gate, and started up the stairwell.
    He had called twice before leaving the hotel, but Lydia had not answered her phone. Probably in the shower, he thought. He had considered waiting until she got to work before he talked to her, but in the end he’d decided it would be better if he spoke to her outside Shrimpton’s museum.
    He was halfway down the dingy corridor to her door before the obvious explanation for Lydia’s failure to answer her phone this morning occurred to him. Maybe she had spent the night somewhere other than her own apartment.
    For some obscure reason, that possibility irritated him. She was his consultant. He had first claim on the hours that she did not spend at Shrimpton’s House of Ancient Horrors.
    He started to lean on the doorbell, recalled that it did not function, and knocked instead. The door opened with unexpected speed. He caught a whiff of fresh paint.
    â€œStop by to see the damage you caused, you little thug?” Lydia jerked the door wide. “If you think I won’t go to the cops just because you’re