Sinister Entity (18 page)

Jessica held up her hands. “Mr. Leigh, I apologize for the way we burst in here just now, but believe me, we only did that because we thought we could get to the bottom of this right here, right now. This isn’t the way I usually work. I promise we will both be discreet. No more running around.”

Greg scowled. “Save it. I want you both out of here, now.”

Eddie stepped between them. “Greg, please, just give us another chance. I take full responsibility. If anything, I’ll go and Jessica will stay.”

Greg seemed to think about it for a brief moment, but his face clouded over and he said, “Both of you, out, before I lose my temper.”

Jessica knew they weren’t going to get anywhere by begging or apologizing. She pulled Eddie by the arm and left the room without another word. She was mad at herself, angrier than Greg was with her. She prided herself on always conducting herself in a professional manner. When they reached the living room, she could see the fear on Selena’s and Rita’s faces and realized she had done the exact opposite of what she had set out to do. In just a few minutes, she had managed to create a complete clusterfuck.
 

Greg was hot on their heels, his rage a physical force compelling them toward the front door.
 

Jessica looked at Selena and said, “I’m so sorry.”

Rita turned to Greg, said, “Honey, what happened? Why are they leaving?” She looked on the verge of tears.

He didn’t offer her an explanation. He opened the door for them, and closed it with a soft click the moment they stepped outside. Jessica thought she heard muffled crying behind the door.
 

It was the first time she’d ever been thrown out of a house.
 

Eddie avoided her gaze, walking like a dog with its tail between its legs and into the passenger seat.
 

Jessica cranked the ignition, punched the roof of the car as hard as she could and sped off.
 

Eddie knew enough to not say anything during the tense ride back to the hotel. When they pulled into the lot, he expected Jessica to tell him to grab his things from his room because they were heading home.

She surprised him by saying, “We might as well get some sleep, head out in the morning.”

“Jessica, I’m sorry about the way things went down.”

She stopped him with a look. “We both screwed up. I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay? I’ll see you at breakfast.”

Jessica didn’t look back at him as she walked to her room and locked the door. He leaned back against the Jeep, taking in the night air, amazed by the number of stars in the sky. This was what he called a country sky. The air had cooled and smelled faintly of salt from the nearby Atlantic.
 

Well, this is the last time she has you along for the ride,
he thought. And he couldn’t blame her. When he thought about how scared Selena looked when they left, he wanted to kick himself, hard. Talk about amateur hour.
 

But then again, he
was
an amateur, at least as far as field investigating went. His expertise was being a lab rat.
 

Why the hell couldn’t he detect anything? Even tonight, the house and everyone in it came up as a complete blank. For once, he saw something with his own eyes before sensing it within his mind, and to wonderful results. Had the altercation with Edwin Esposito’s spirit taken so much out of him that his extra senses were dulled to the point of being nearly nonexistent? Meditation was in order tonight, if anything to help restore some balance.
 

Before that, though, he wanted to get a better view of the stars. He walked behind the hotel to the closed pool area, and farther back into the tree line where the hotel lights couldn’t reach. It was breathtaking. He couldn’t remember ever seeing so many stars. They were so numerous and bright and clustered together, it seemed as if the sky were on fire. Crickets chirped around him, their harmony just short of hypnotizing.
 

At least there was one perk to their short-lived disaster in New Hampshire.
 

As tempting as it was to stay out all night, he willed himself to go back and meditate. He walked across the street and bought a bottle of water and a pack of cocktail peanuts from the twenty-four-hour market at the gas station. At the counter, he saw a souvenir magnet in the shape of New Hampshire and added it to his bill.
Might as well commemorate the night you fucked it all up with something you can stick on your fridge.
 

He looked at Jessica’s door and thought of knocking, but he was too afraid to face the consequences. She needed to decompress. She didn’t need his traveling pity party right now.
 

Back in his room, he ate the peanuts and drank half the bottle of water, then changed into a T-shirt and boxers and sat on the bed in the lotus position. After ten minutes, he began to realize that his mind was in too agitated a state to get anywhere close to where he needed to be. He wished he had the meditative abilities of a Buddhist monk, then realized how wishing to be something was a cause of suffering and only adding to his lost cause.
 

He considered jerking off to help ease the tension that was humming through both his mind and body, but after a few futile attempts he shot that idea down. It was impossible to bring up any of his stable of fantasies without drifting back to the debacle at the Leighs’ house and Jessica’s look of disgust when she left the car.
 

Frustrated, he gathered all the pillows behind his head and turned on the television.
 

“No peace for you tonight, dumbass,” he said.
 

He flipped through the channels, unable to find anything that could hold his attention, finally stopping at an old Spencer Tracy movie. It was the one where he was a one-armed guy coming to a town that held a huge secret. He’d missed the first twenty minutes but he didn’t care. Consider it a very small penance.
 

His heart jumped when there was a knock at his door.
 

He looked at the clock and rubbed his eyes in disbelief. It was three o’clock. He glanced at the TV. The Spencer Tracy movie was long gone. Claudette Colbert was on a train with Clark Gable now, the two of them bickering.
 

“I’ll be there in a sec,” he said, coughing to clear his throat. He grabbed his jeans from the floor and yanked them on. He was about to pull the safety chain and unlock the door when he realized he had no idea who was on the other side. It was, after all, the middle of the night.
 

“Is that you, Jess?”

There was no answer, just another couple of raps on the door.
 

Eddie opened his mind and felt Jessica sleeping in the next room. Her dreams, or at least the emotional vibe from them, were troubled, agitated, but she was most certainly under the covers and not outside his door.
 

“Wonderful,” he huffed.
 

He looked around the room for a weapon, settling on his belt. Indiana Jones had his whip, Eddie Home had his belt. It wasn’t as if he’d been expecting a confrontation in a New Hampshire Best Western.
 

Knock
.
Knock
.
Knock
.

Eddie’s heart pulsed in his throat. Steeling himself, he moved his face to the door, stooping to look through the peephole. The glass had been smeared by years of dirt and neglect. He could just make out the shape of a person standing inches from the door. He attempted to connect with the person’s mind, to gain an insight into their identity and intentions. Nothing.
 

Just like at the Leighs’.
 

“Holy crap,” he said.
 

He darted back to the door that connected his and Jessica’s room and whispered through the crack, “Jessica, wake up, it’s Eddie!”

It was followed by the sounds of the bed creaking and covers shifting. He knocked softly and whispered again, louder.
 

When the lock clicked he nearly jumped. He undid the lock on his side and opened the door. Jessica looked tired, angry, disheveled and confused. She had been sleeping in her clothes.
 

“This better be fucking good,” she said drowsily.
 

“One way or another, I’m pretty sure it will be.”

The steady, sure knocking resumed at his door.

“You call for room service?” Jessica said while trying to smooth her hair.
 

“Yeah, at three in the morning,” he said.
 

“Well, who is it?”

“I can’t see and I can’t sense a thing, just like I couldn’t get a read on anything at the Leigh house.”

Realization dawned on Jessica’s face. She ran back to her room and returned with her phone. “Just in case we need to call for help.”

Together, they crept to the door. The knocking happened again, three raps on the door, then silence.
 

Eddie turned to Jessica. “You open the door and stay behind it. I’ll face whoever it is.”

He didn’t feel half as brave as he sounded. He motioned for Jessica to open the door.
 

She tugged with all her strength in an attempt to startle the person on the other side.
 

It didn’t work.
 

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jessica saw the look of surprise on Eddie’s face when she pulled the door open and her heart stopped. He stood silent for a few seconds that seemed to last an eternity. She was about to peek around the door, having already dialed 9-1 in her phone when he said, “Selena! What are you doing here?”

She joined Eddie’s side and faced the girl. Selena didn’t speak, barely moved, her skin pale as milk in the moonlight. She looked as if she was in shock. Her dark eyes were wide and unblinking.

Jessica asked, “Selena, honey, are you all right? Come inside and sit down.”

Selena Leigh didn’t answer or move.
 

When Jessica reached out to touch her arm, Selena took a step back, keeping the same distance between them.
 

Eddie leaned into her ear and whispered, “How did she know we’re staying here? Better yet, how did she know this is my room?”

Everything had happened so fast, her brain hadn’t had time to think beyond the immediacy of the situation. Now that Eddie mentioned it, nothing was making sense. She felt a chill drop down her back.
 

“Selena, can you tell me why you’re here?”

The girl stared back at them with black, emotionless eyes.
 

Jessica handed Eddie her phone. She whispered, “Just click the button in the middle to take pictures. I’m going to make a rush for her.”

“What?”

“Just do it,” she hissed.
 

She put up her hands to show she was defenseless and meant no harm. “I want to help you, honey, but I have to know what’s bothering you. I’d really like it if you could come inside and talk to us. Isn’t that why you’re here, to talk to us?”

Without warning, she dashed out of the room. Selena took several quick steps backward, avoiding her touch, before turning her back and running into the gloomy parking lot. Jessica heard the click of her phone as Eddie snapped away. She sprinted after her, but Selena, or the thing that looked like her, was too fast. She took off like a world-class sprinter. Jessica jumped when the girl ran into a car’s side view mirror, shearing it off with a loud crash. It didn’t even slow her down and in seconds she had passed under the last streetlight and out of sight, into the night.
 

Jessica gave chase for several blocks, her bare feet hardly registering the pain from pounding on the hard concrete, until she gave up, realizing there was no way she would catch up with her. Eddie pulled up a moment later, panting. He bent over and clasped his knees, trying to catch his breath.
 

“Man, she’s freaky fast.”

“That’s because she wasn’t real.”

He looked up at her. “She seemed pretty real when she took out that mirror. I admit, she was a little strange with the wide-eyed and silent routine, but I don’t think doppelgangers can tear metal and glass off of cars.”

“Let me see the phone.”
 

She hit the Back button to flip through the photos Eddie had snapped. Most were too dark and grainy to make out any detail.
 

He continued, “I mean, I’m no doppelganger expert, but I doubt they could pull off something as real as that. She’s going to wake up with one hell of a bruise in the morning.”

Jessica clicked through to the very first photo he had taken, just as she had approached Selena outside the door. She stared at it for a while, tuning Eddie out as he expounded on his theory that only a real, flesh-and-blood person could have done what Selena did to the car.
 

She walked back to the hotel, Eddie by her side, still out of breath.
 

When they were back in the parking lot, she knelt by the remains of the mirror. The glass was cracked and the metal bent where it had connected with the door. It belonged to an old Mustang, an eighties vintage. Not their best decade. The mirror weighed more than most new car bumpers. She carried it with her to the porch outside their rooms.