Barbara Hambly - Night's Edge

Night's Edge

Maggie Shayne

BarbaraHambly

CharlaineHarris

Contents

HER BEST ENEMY

Maggie Shayne

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SOMEONE ELSE'S SHADOW

BarbaraHambly

DANCERS IN THE DARK

CharlaineHarris

NIGHTS EDGE

The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual titles as follows:

HER BEST ENEMY

SOMEONE ELSE'S SHADOW

DANCERS IN THE DARK

ISBN 0-373-77010-3

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation

whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any

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individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

Printed inU.S.A.

HER BEST ENEMY

Maggie Shayne

CHAPTER ONE

In the time it took Kiley Brigham to submerge her head, rinse out the shampoo and sit up again, the

temperature in the bathroom had plummeted from "steamy sauna" to somewhere around "clutch your

arms and shiver." Sitting up straighter, with rivulets fleeing her skin for warmer climes, Kiley frowned. Her

skin sprouted goose bumps. She muttered, "Well, what the hell isthis?" and then frowned harder because

she could see her breath when she spoke.

Had late Halloween week inBurnt Hills,New York , turned suddenly bitterly cold? There hadn't been

any warning on the weather report. And even if there had been a sudden cold snap, the furnace would

have kicked on. According to the overall-wearing, toolbox-carrying guy she'd hired to inspect the

hundred-year-old house before agreeing to buy it, the heating system was in great shape. True, she hadn't

run it much in the three days since she'd moved into her dream house, just once or twice during the late

October nights when the mercury dipped outside. But it had been working fine.

She tilted her head, listening for the telltale rattle of hot water being forced through aging radiators, but

she heard nothing. The furnace wasn't running.

Sighing, she rose from the water, stepped over the side of the tub onto the plush powder-blue bath mat

and reached for the matching towel. Her new shell-pink-and-white ceramic tiles might look great, but

they definitely added to the chill, she decided, peering at the completely fogged-up mirror and then

scurrying quickly through the door and into her bedroom for the biggest, warmest robe she could find.

As soon as she stepped into the bedroom, the chill was gone. She stood there wondering what the hell

to make of that. Leaning back through the bathroom door, she felt that iciness hanging in the air. It was

like stepping into a meat cooler, she thought. Leaning back out into the bedroom, she felt the same cozy

warmth she always felt there.

Kiley shrugged, pulled the bathroom door closed and battled a delayed-reaction shiver. She closed her

eyes briefly, just to tamp down the notion that the shiver was caused by something beyond the

temperature, then turned to face her bedroom with its hardwood wainscoting so dark it looked like

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ebony, its crown molding the same, its freshly applied antique ivory paint in between. Her bedroom suite

came close to matching: deep black cherry wood that bore the barest hint of bloodred. The bedding and

curtains in the tall, narrow windows were the color of French cream, as were the throw rugs on the dark

hardwood floor. Ebony and ivory had been her notion for this room, and it worked.

"I love my new house," she said aloud, even as she sent a troubled glance back toward the bathroom.

"And I'm going to stop looking for deep, dark secrets to explain the bargain-basement asking price. So

my bathroom has a draft. So what?"

Nodding in resolve, she moved to the closet, opened the door, then paused, staring. One of the dresses

was moving, just slightly, the hanger rocking back and forth mere millimeters, as if someone had jostled it.

Only, no one had.

She could have kicked herself for the little shiver that ran up her spine. She didn't even believe in the

sorts of things that were whispering through her brain right now. And had been ever since she'd moved

in.

I jerked open the door, it caused a breeze, the dress moved a little. Big deal.

In spite of her internal scolding, her eyes felt wider than she would have liked as she perused the closet's

interior. Her handyman-slash-house-inspector had asked if she'd like a light installed in there. She'd said

no. Now she was thinking about calling him tomorrow morning to change her answer. Meanwhile, she

spotted her robe and snatched it off its hanger with the speed of a cobra snatching a field mouse. She

back-stepped, slammed the closet door, and felt her heart start to pound in her chest.

B-r-e-a-t-h-e, she thought. And then she did, a long, deep, slow inhalation that filled her lungs to

bursting, a brief delay while she counted to four, and a thorough, cleansing exhalation that emptied her

lungs entirely. She repeated it several times, got a grip on herself and then felt stupid.

She didnotbelieve in closet-dwelling bogeymen. Hell, she'd made her career debunking nonsense like

that. More precisely, putting phony psychics, gurus and ghost busters out of business in this spooky little

tourist town. And no one liked it. Not the town supervisor, the town council, the tourism bureau, and

least of all, the phony psychics, gums and ghost busters.

But thanks to the Constitution, freedom of the press couldn't be banned on the grounds that it was bad

for tourism.

She pulled her bathrobe on, relishing the feel of plush fabric on her skin, and then drew a breath of

courage and turned to face the bathroom again. Her hairbrush was in there, along with her skin lotions,

cuticle trimmer and toothbrush. And she still had to tug the plug and let the water run out of the bathtub.

She was going back in. A cold draft was nothing to be afraid of.

Crossing the room, one foot in front of the other, she moved firmly to the door, closed her hand on its

oval, antique porcelain doorknob, and opened it. The air that greeted her was no longer icy. In fact it was

as warm as the air in the bedroom.

She sighed in relief as she stepped into the room. But her relief died and the chill returned to her soul

when she saw the mirror, no longer coated in fog, but something else. Something far, far worse.

Written across the damp glass surface, in something scarlet that trickled in streams from the bottom of

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each letter, were the words "House of Death."

Someone screamed. It wasn't until she was down the stairs, out the door and about fifteen yards up the

heaving, cracked sidewalk, that Kiley realized the scream had been her own.

She stood there in the dead of night, barefoot, clutching her robe against the whipping October wind and

staring back at her dream house with its turrets and gables and its widow's walk at the top. Such a

beautiful place, old and solid. And framed right now by the scarlet and shimmering yellow of the sugar

maples and poplar trees at the peak of their fall color.

Swallowing hard, she lowered her gaze, focusing on her car in the driveway beside the house. Leaping

Lana was an '87 Buick Regal—a four-door sedan in rust-brown that ate gas like M&Ms and sounded

like a tank.

Kiley squared her shoulders and forced herself to march over there—even though it meant moving

towardher house when every cell in her body was itching to moveawayfrom it instead. She opened

Lana's door and climbed in. She couldn't quite keep herself from checking the back seat first, the second

the interior light came on. It was clear. The keys were in the switch, because if someone was brave

enough to steal Kiley Brigham's car, she'd always thought she would enjoy the vengeance she'd be

forced to wreak on their pathetic asses, and besides, who would steal an '87 Buick, anyway?

She turned the key. Lana growled in protest at being bothered at such an ungodly hour, but finally came

around and cooperatively backed her boat-size backside out into the street. As Kiley shifted into Drive,

she glanced up at her house again.

There was someone standing in her bedroom window looking back at her.

And then there wasn't. She squinted, rubbed her eyes. The image hadn't moved, hadn't turned away.

The dark silhouette she knew she had seen simply vanished. Faded. Like mist.

"Fuck this," she muttered, and she stomped on Lana's pedal and didn't let off until they'd reached the

offices of theBurnt Hills Gazette, and her own office there, which held three things Kiley dearly needed

just then: a change of clothes, a telephone and a spare pack of smokes.

She was so together by the time the police arrived that they actually seemed skeptical. At least until they

headed back to her recently acquired house and saw the message on the mirror for themselves. Kiley

preferred to stay out in the bedroom—and even that gave her the creeps—while the cops clustered

around her bathroom sink debating whether the substance on her mirror was blood. One opined that it

looked like barbecue sauce, and another said it was cherry syrup. At that point the conversation turned

to previous cases where what was thought to be blood turned out to be something else entirely, like corn

syrup with red food coloring added—a tale that the officers found laugh-worthy.

She interrupted their fun by standing as close to her bathroom door as she wanted to get, and clearing

her throat. The laughter stopped, the cops looked up.

"Excuse me, but shouldn't one of you be taking a sample of that? And maybe checking my house for

signs of forced entry?"

"Did that, ma' am," one cop said, sending a long-suffering look toward another. "No signs of a break-in.

You sure the place was locked?"

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"Of course I'm sure the place was… " She stopped, pursed her lips, thought it over with brutal honesty.

"Actually, I forget to lock up as often as I remember."

"Mmm-hmm. Well, at least you're aware this was the work of an intruder."

She frowned at him. "Well, of course it was an intruder. What else could it have been?"

"You know how folks get around here. Half the time we get a call like this, the homeowner insists some

kind of ghost was responsible."

"Especially at this time of year," another cop said, and they all nodded or shook their heads or rolled

their eyes with "isn't that ridiculous" looks at one another.

"Well, I don't believe in ghosts," she managed to say, rubbing her arms against the chill that came from

within. "As to how the intruder got in, I'm not even sure it's all that important. The fact is that he did get

in. And I know that because I saw him."

"You saw him? Excellent." Cop number one—his name tag read Hanlon—pulled out a notepad and pen.

"Okay, where and when did you see the intruder?"

"He was standing right there, in that window, looking down at me when I backed the car out."

"So you didn't see anyone while you were inside. Only after you'd left?"

"Right."

"And can you describe him?"

She licked her lips, recalling the misty silhouette behind the veil of her curtains. "Uh, no."

"But you're sure it was a male," Hanlon said.

She narrowed her eyes and searched her memory. "No. No, I can't even be sure of that much. It was

dark. It was just a shadow, a dark silhouette in the window." She sighed in frustration. "Has there been a

rash of break-ins that I should know about, anything like this at all?" she asked, almost hoping the answer

would be yes.

Hanlon shook his head. "We've got hardly any crime around here, Ms. Brigham. Little enough so you'd

be reading about it if there had been anything like that."

She nodded. "We're so hungry for stories we've been covering the missing prostitutes fromAlbany ."

"You work for the press?" he asked.

"Yeah.Burnt Hills Gazette." More people came in. Suits, instead of uniforms. They carried cases and

headed for her bathroom. She watched them, her gaze unfocused. One swabbed a sample of the stuff

from the mirror, dropped it into a vial and capped it. Another snapped photos. A third started coating her

pretty shell-pink-and-white bathroom in what looked like fireplace soot in search of fingerprints.

The guy with the swabs took out an aerosol can of something—the label readLuminol —and sprayed it

at the mirror, then he turned off the lights.

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Kiley sucked in a breath when the grisly message glowed in the darkness.

"It's blood, all right," the guy said, flipping the light back on.

Officer Hanlon moved up beside Kiley and put a hand on her shoulder, as if he thought she might be

close to losing it. "We'd probably better start thinking about who your enemies are, Ms. Brigham."

She swallowed hard. "It would be easier to tell you who they aren't, and it would make a far shorter list."

The cop frowned. Another one nodded, coming out of the bathroom. "That's probably true."

Hanlon sent him a questioning look and he went on. "Don't you recognize the name? She's the chick who

writes those columns discrediting all the mumbo-jumbo types in town."

"Aah, right. Kiley Brigham. It didn't click at first." Hanlon eyed her. "Is this the first death threat you've

received, Ms. Brigham?"

"You think that's what it is? A threat?"

He shrugged. "Reads that way to me."

Kiley sighed. "Yeah, it would be my first."

"Wow." His brows arched high, as if he were surprised she didn't get threatened on a daily basis.

"Look, I'm not a demon here. I don't eat babies or kick puppies. I just tell the truth." She shrugged.

"Can I help it if that makes the liars of the world angry?"

"Can you think of anyone in particular who could have taken their anger this far?"

"Yeah, I can think of several. Most of them hold public office, though."

Hanlon looked alarmed by that. "I hope you're kidding."

"Maybe. Half. So what should I do?"

"Get yourself a security system," the officer said. "Something that's not going to let you get away with

forgetting to lock up. In the meantime, is there someone who could stay with you tonight? A friend,

relative, something like that?"

The question made her stomach ache, though she didn't know why. It wasn't as if she gave a damn that

she didn't have any friends or family, that she was, in fact, utterly alone in the world. She could care less.

Hell, if friends were what she wanted, she'd be out making them, instead of pissing off as many people as

possible on a weekly basis. Screw friends.

"Ma'am?"

She shrugged. "I'll spend the night at my office. There's security there. Tomorrow I'll see about that

system. Thanks for coming out."

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He nodded. "We'll be another hour here," he told her. "You can go, if you want. We'll lock up when we

leave."

"Yeah, likethat'sgonna do any good," she muttered as she headed out of the room. And then she

stopped in the hallway and wondered just what the hell she had meant by that. She shook it off, told

herself it didn't matter.

She had a major day tomorrow.Major.

Tomorrow she was going to bust the one New Age fraud who had eluded her ever since she'd begun

her weekly series of exposes. She'd planned for this, prepared for it, set up an elaborate scheme to make

it happen. And nothing as mundane as a death threat written in blood on her bathroom mirror while she

was standing a few feet away wearing nothing but a towel was going to stop her from seeing it through.

CHAPTER TWO

When she was around, the hair on the back of his neck bristled the way a cat's will in the presence of a

killer dog. He always tensed up the instant before he saw her. It wasnota case of extrasensory

perception, no matter what his harebrained assistant might like to believe. More likely a case of instinctive

self-preservation.

She was nearby, all right. It wasn't a scent, exactly, though now that he was alert, he could just detect a

faint whiff of that aroma that always floated around her. Not a powerful fragrance—not even a perfume

or cologne. Maybe it was the soap she used or something. He only knew it was unique, an aroma he

equated with his biggest headache. It shouldn't seem like a sexy scent to him. But it did.

Jack lifted his head and scanned the dim room, but he couldn't see her. Candles flickered from the

shelves that lined the walls. Their dancing light was refracted in the slow-turning crystal prisms suspended

from the ceiling, and transformed into living rainbows that crept over the walls and floor. The purple

curtains that separated this room from the rest of the shop were closed, and revealed nothing.

She was out there, though. No doubt about it. The persistent little pain in the ass.

Finally, Jack refocused on the nervous woman who sat across from him, fidgeting with her purse straps.

Really on edge, this one. Even more than most people were their first time. At least now he knew why;

she was just another weapon in Kiley Brigham's one-woman crusade against charlatans like him.

He barely restrained himself from cussing loud and long—not a good quality in one who purported to be

in touch with the spirit world—and forced a serene smile for his new client.

"I'm sorry, Martha. I just can't seem to get a response from your dear departed husband."

"You can't?"

He shook his head sadly. "It's odd. Feels almost as if he—" Jack pinned her with his gaze "—doesn't

exist," he said. "It's as if you made him up, just to—I don't know—test me or something."

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She blinked twice, gaping, and Jack saw just enough guilt in her eyes to confirm his guess.

"That's impossible, of course," he went on. "You wouldn't do something like that to me, would you,

Martha?"

"Of course not!"

"Maybe you'll have better luck with another medium. I could give you some names."

"No, thank you. I'll just… " She let her voice trail off as she rose.

Her small wooden chair scraped over the marble tiles, a growl of discord breaking the spell of the

haunting New Age music that whispered in magical Gaelic of fairies and poisoned glens and other such

nonsense.

"Don't rush off," Jack told her, rising as well. "I insist on refunding your money. I'm not a thief, you

know."

She took a step backward, toward the curtain, clearly itching to get out of there. She actually leaned

toward the curtain as she moved, actually reached behind her for it long before she was close enough to

touch it. "You, uh, you can mail it to me," she rushed on, her feet shuffling away from him, slowly but

steadily.

"All right, I'll do that. Do you want to give me your address, Martha, or shall I just save time and send

the money to Kiley Brigham?"

The purple curtain flew open even as Martha kept groping for it, and he was not surprised to see Kiley

herself on the other side, mad as hell, judging by the way her face was screwed up. "Damn you to hell,

McCain!" Her hands were braced on her hips and she was breathing a little too fast. She did the

heaving-bosom thing well. She certainly had the bosoms for it. Candlelight illuminated the hot-pink spots

on her cheeks and the fire in her green eyes. Cat's eyes, she had, and hair blacker than ink. Hell, she

ought to be the one running this scam. Her exotic looks would attract customers like moths to the porch

light.

Well, she'd have to dress the part, of course. Those tight-fitting, faded jeans and that T-shirt that read

"Keep Your Opinions Out of My Uterus" would never cut it.

But Kiley Brigham, girl columnist, wasn't interested in taking up his line of work. Instead, she was intent

on ruining what he'd built into an incredibly lucrative business.

Martha, he realized, was long gone. Must have darted out of the room while he'd been perusing his

nemesis, who, he realized, had been perusing him right back.

"Tell me something, Brigham," he said, relaxing back into his chair. "Were you mauled by a pack of

mediums as a child?"

She sent him a smirk that should have burned holes through him, but said nothing. Her probing green

eyes were busy now, scanning the room: narrow, suspicious, searching. He hated to admit it made him a

little nervous to have her looking around his place so closely.

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"So what do you want?" he asked to break her concentration. "You come for a reading? Want me to tell

your future, Brigham? Read your palm? What?"

As planned, her gaze returned to him. "How the hell did you know I was here?"

He rolled his eyes, shook his head. "I'mclairvoyant, remember?"

"And I'm a Republican."

A grin tugged at the corners of his lips. He battled it and finally won. "So what do I have to do? Slap you

with a restraining order?"

"You really think it would help?"

"Couldn't hurt," he said.

She bristled, but only for a moment. It seemed to him, the wind left her sails far more quickly than usual.

She heaved a sigh and sank into the chair the other woman had occupied.

"Did you have to scare her like that, McCain? You know how tough it is to find out-of-work actresses

who come as cheap as that one?"

He did smile now. It seemed safe. Her rage was ebbing, and in record time. It made him wonder what

was wrong. "You want something to drink?"

"Not if you're gonna try to foist some herbal, trance-inducing tea on me, I don't."

"Guess you're outta luck, then."

She rolled her eyes. "You don't really drink that crap. You can fool everyone else in this town, including

the tourists, but you can't fool me. Why don't you drop the act?"

He pursed his lips as if thinking it over, then said, "Nah. Business is booming these days." He narrowed

his eyes at her and leaned forward, flattening his palms to the table. "Largely thanks to that nasty little

column of yours discrediting my competitors one by one on a weekly basis."

She leaned over the table, too, her palms on the gleaming hardwood surface like his, her face only inches

away. "You make a living by feeding innocent victims a line of bull. They hand over their hard-earned

money for the privilege of being duped."

"I make a living by giving people who might not listen to a therapist psychologically sound advice. I'm

good at what I do. I help people. You, on the other hand, make a living putting hard-working people like

me out of business. I'll take my karma over yours anytime."

"Karma,schmarma ." She sat back, her palms gliding in tight circles on the small round table. "You know

as well as I do that there's no such thing. No psychics, no ghosts, no magic."

"No God?" He asked the question idly, as if he could care less.

She was silent for a long moment, so preoccupied she didn't even notice him looking at her. Her eyes

looked a little puffy, as if she hadn't slept. There was a tautness to her face that suggested worry.

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