Linda Conrad - Safe by His Side

To Blythe’s surprise Ashley hadn’t really minded the change. She’d learned to like having her own personal message system direct to the housekeeper and to her mother. And what made her the happiest was that she still had the ability to play all her video games.

So who was trying to reach Ashley via internal IM now? Was it the housekeeper, wanting Ashley to come down to dinner? Or could it be the girl’s mother? And if so, was it something that Melissa Davis would need attending to right away?

Curious, Blythe sidestepped the bed and pressed the Enter button to read the message. There, against a cobalt-blue screen, came a six-line message in bold bloodred.

Twinkle twinkle little star

I don’t need to wonder where you are

Come down to me from up on high

I promise you the world and sky

Don’t fret, little girl, we’ll be together soon

Come to me, Ashley, and I’ll give you the moon

Blythe’s stomach turned over and her palms grew clammy. This was the same kind of rhyme, done in the same chilling colors and with the same icky connotation, as Ashley had received before. The earlier ones were awful notes that usually ended with disturbing lines, sounding a lot like the overtures of a pedophile on the prowl. The police hadn’t liked the tone of the letters and e-mail, but they’d said their hands were tied until the sender made an overt move.

To appear on Ashley’s computer, this particular message had to have originated from somewhere within the house. That seemed pretty overt to Blythe. Someone was here. The evil had broken in despite their efforts to keep it out.

Oh, Ashley, where are you?

Ethan Ryan checked his watch as he kept one hand on the steering wheel of his rental car. He waited with his usual impatience for his sister to answer her cell phone back in Texas while he sat in L.A. rush-hour traffic.

“Where are you?” His sister Maggie was always in too much of a hurry for the niceties. No “Hello.” No “How was your flight?” Just get right to the point. But that was okay by him. His own limited patience was legendary. It ran in the family.

“Sitting on the freeway in L.A.,” he said grumpily to the baby sister who was, at least temporarily, his boss. “But I’ve got plenty of time yet. My appointment to meet with our new client isn’t scheduled until seven thirty. I called you to double-check on—”

“Ethan, you have to get there now.”

“What’s up, sis?” Ethan approved of his sister’s and brother’s efforts to save their deceased grandfather’s business by turning his run-down private investigators’ office into a security firm that specialized in guarding children. It was poetic justice, if nothing else. That’s why Ethan had agreed to use his expertise to help them out. Well, that and the fact that he’d had to leave the Secret Service.

“You didn’t move the appointment time up without checking with me, did you?” he blurted, not letting her answer the first question. “We were lucky the plane landed on schedule. This is the big city, Maggie. Not Texas. You just can’t schedule things too tight. As it is, traffic will keep me on the freeway an extra—”

“I don’t care how you do it, brother. But you have to be at Ashley Nicole Davis’s house right now.”

“Have you heard something new from her manager? That, um…Grandpa Ryan’s old college friend, what’s his name?”

“His name is Max Slotsmeyer, as you would know if you’d read the complete info packet I put together for you. And no, he hasn’t contacted me.”

“Then why should I show up two hours early for a scheduled appointment?” Ethan asked a little too irritably. “I wouldn’t do that even if I could sprout wings and fly over this danged inconvenient line of cars. Which, as it happens, I can’t.”

“Ethan.” Maggie lowered her voice to a whisper in order to capture his attention and make him listen. “Remember what Abuela Lupe used to say when she’d have a premonition—about feeling someone’s bones walking across her grave?”

Ethan remembered all too well his maternal grandmother Delgado’s special words and curses. Her witchcraft was part of the Mexican side of his family heritage. Most of the time he was glad about knowing Abuela Lupe’s sayings and spells. But sometimes he wished he’d never learned them. His sister’s tone told him this wasn’t going to be one of the glad times.

“Yeah, I remember,” he told Maggie. “And the connection is?”

“I’m feeling that same thing right now. Don’t ask me how I know, but something is terribly wrong at Ashley Davis’s house. They need you there. Please do something. You have to go now.”

It would do no good to try talking practicalities to his sister. When it came to family witchcraft, spells and curses, they had all learned to accept each other’s feelings and wishes unreservedly.

“I’ll do what I can,” he said in as soothing a voice as he could manage.

He hung up and took a breath before reaching for his briefcase on the passenger seat beside him. There hadn’t been a reason to use any spells in a while. Not since the fiasco when none of his curses or magic would’ve worked to save him from an embarrassing and life-changing incident.

Abuela Lupe had spent most of their formative years teaching him, his older brother and their younger sister the art of being curanderos—Mexican white witches—much to his very American-Texan father’s chagrin. But when they’d entered their teen years, they’d begged Abuela to also teach them a few of the spells and curses of the black witches—the brujos.

By then the siblings had learned that hexes and blessings could be muttered with the same breath. And as teenagers, they’d wanted some of the fun of knowing black witchcraft. Ethan’s young mind had reeled at the idea of getting any date he wanted with just the right hex, or raising his grade in any class with the proper combination of potions and herbs.

Their grandmother refused their request. According to her, black magic could not be trusted. They’d tried a few spells on their own and were fairly successful. In the long run, however, their immature white and black witchcraft hadn’t turned out to be strong enough for everything. The brothers’ and sister’s magic had failed to make a difference when it had mattered most.

But today, Ethan felt sure he still knew enough magic to cause a break in this traffic jam. Enough of a break, that is, to transport him to his destination in a few minutes instead of hours.

Pulling a finger-size red amulet in the shape of an egg from a secret compartment in his briefcase, Ethan began channeling his powers. He reached into his memory for the right words to use and started an incantation.

Not sure what lay in store for him, Ethan nevertheless knew to trust his sister’s hunches. If she felt it was imperative for him to be at Ashley Davis’s house now, then his job was to make that happen.

Blythe quietly moved back to her office and picked up her cell phone to call the police. But as her hand hovered over the lighted keys, she remembered how unsympathetic they’d been the last time she’d called them about scary e-mails and letters.

They’d made her promise not to call again unless the threat was real and imminent. Could she swear an intruder was in the house now? She hadn’t heard a thing, and the place did have a security alarm that was activated—most of the time. With a seven-year-old in residence, it was difficult to keep a security system set during the daylight hours. Still, there were no sounds at all.

Undecided about her next move, Blythe reached the top of the stairs with the cell phone still in her hand. She looked down the hallway in the direction of Melissa’s old master bedroom, but decided she needed to check downstairs for Ashley first. This whole thing could just be a mix-up of some sort and in a few moments she would find Ashley sitting in the kitchen eating chocolate chip cookies.

Could Ashley have written the note herself as a joke? That didn’t sound like something Ash would do, but you never knew. The girl did like making up her own poetry. She was a genius at some things, and she tended to be melodramatic at the best of times. Her mother’s illness was the worst of times in Ashley’s world.

Shaking her head sadly, Blythe pocketed the phone and headed down the stairway. Her best move would be locating Ashley and making sure she was not simply playing a game, since an intruder seemed impossible with the alarm system.

By the time Blythe reached the bottom stair, she had almost convinced herself that the spooky message was some kind of prank. Then she came to a sudden stop mid-thought, certain she had heard a noise this time. She froze in place, listening. Deadly silence was the only thing to reach her ears.

Blythe gave in to a momentary frisson of panic. Had she somehow failed in her responsibility to Ashley? No. Please, no. Refusing to believe that she’d messed up yet again, she set her shoulders and took another step. Before she angered Melissa by calling in the police, only to find Ashley had been acting out her grief by writing that note, Blythe decided her first move had better be to perform a thorough search of the house and grounds.

She headed toward the kitchen. Occasionally Mrs. Jenson gave Ash a treat before dinner. Those cookies, maybe, or a bowl of popcorn. Such things were not permitted according to Melissa’s rules, but perhaps Blythe would find the girl trying to be extra quiet while she snuck in a forbidden snack.

Hitting the switch on the overhead spot lighting in the dining room, Blythe sought to dispel the claustrophobic feeling. She ran an uneasy hand through her hair, knowing it was useless to try to contain her noncompliant dishwater-blond curls. Between the humidity and the stress causing her to perspire, this was bound to be a bad hair day. No matter. Her life was filled with bad hair days. And how she looked was the least important thing on her mind at the moment.

Reaching out slowly to press against the swinging door leading to the kitchen, she caught just a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye. Blythe stopped and whirled in the direction of the French doors, which opened onto the terrace that ran around the back of the house. A terrified scream stayed trapped in her constricted throat as she stared at the spot right outside where she could swear she’d seen the shadow of a man moving past.

No one there now. Just her imagination playing tricks.

She let out a sigh. But then, just as her body began to relax, it seemed as though the whole world exploded around her in a whirl of noise. The doorbell rang, the alarm sounded and voices shouted.

Blythe turned and ran toward the front door. As she reached the foyer, he moved out of a shadow behind the door and into the light.

Oh. My. God. This must be the stalker. In the house!

Ashley. By now Blythe could actually hear the little girl’s screams coming from behind the house. She needed to reach her. But how to find Ash without leading the stalker to her?

Time stopped, even as the alarm kept ringing. The stranger’s stare felt strong and held her immobile. She began counting her own heartbeats as she fought to breathe. Those eyes of his were amazingly calm and penetrating. Cold, steely gray, they studied her with dispassion.

Blythe fought to speak, but no sound came out. She tried dredging up a little anger or indignation, something to hang on to and use in her defense. Still nothing.

The pressure in her chest expanded and she began worrying that she might pass out. But she had to do something. Hold him there to wait for the police and keep him from Ashley. A little girl’s life depended on it.