Cursed. Lisa Childs
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Название: Cursed
Автор: Lisa Childs
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn: 9781474008624
isbn:
So it might have been the FBI agent...
Maria wanted to ask more questions about the killer, but her heart ached over the senseless loss of her young friend. And guilt overwhelmed her. “It should have been me. I’m the one he’s after. I just wish I knew why...”
Was it as simple as Mama had always said? Because she was cursed?
“Because he’s a witch-hunter,” Raven replied. “That’s what he calls himself.”
“Did you recognize his voice?”
“No, it was just this weird whisper. He said that he thought I was a witch.” The ghost’s lips curved into a faint smile of satisfaction.
That was all she had ever wanted—to be a witch like the older sister she had told Maria about—the older sister she had felt she would never be as smart or as beautiful as. Her sister had refused to teach Raven the craft. Maria should have refused, too, but she had identified too much with the girl.
“You are a real witch, Maria,” Raven continued. “Your knowledge and powers are legendary. I heard about you before I ever met you. That’s why I came up here. It’s why I wanted to learn from you.”
Maria would never forgive herself for hiring the girl. Even though it had been a year since a murder, she should have known the hunter was still out there, still watching her.
She shivered as the girl’s image grew fainter. Maria reached for her again, trying to hold her in the room. “Don’t leave...”
Her voice a mere whisper, her image just a wisp, Raven warned her, “You’re in the most danger from him now. He’s going to try to kill you.”
“Don’t leave me!” she begged. She had to apologize more, had to try to make amends, to assuage the guilt that cramped her stomach in knots. “Come back!” she cried.
Keys rattled in the lock, startling her into shocked silence. She should have been relieved that the door was opening, but terror gripped her.
Even without Raven’s warning, she’d known he would be coming for her. Soon.
The door opened, and a deep voice asked, “Who are you talking to?”
“You’re back,” she said, turning to where Agent Hughes filled the doorway; he was so tall, his shoulders so broad. His square jaw was clenched, his handsome face grim. Was his the face Raven had seen in the shadows of her hospital room?
“You weren’t begging me to come back,” he surmised. “The deputy said you were in here yelling.”
“Because I wanted to get out,” she said, rubbing her hands over her arms. Her sweater had dried from the rain earlier in the evening. But she was still so cold—even her blood chilled and pumped slowly and heavily through her veins. And that pressure was back in her chest, squeezing her lungs and heart with panic. “I need to get out of here.”
“The deputy was watching you through the mirror and listening through the intercom,” Agent Hughes divulged. “He said you were telling someone else to get out, that you were talking to someone in here.”
She lifted her hands and gestured around the tiny room. “Do you see anyone else in here?”
“I don’t see anyone,” he said, glancing around the small space. “But do you?”
She drew in a ragged breath. Even without the DNA, he already knew who and what she was. She had already admitted to trying to heal Raven, so she might as well admit to the rest of her abilities. “Raven’s ghost. She’s dead.”
That muscle twitched along his jaw. “How could you know that?” His gray-blue eyes narrowed with suspicion. He obviously had some ideas...
Some ideas that cast his suspicion on her again...
“I just told you that I saw her ghost.” Hers wasn’t the only ghost she had seen, but she wasn’t about to tell him about Mama. That brought out even more pain and vulnerability than seeing Raven’s ghost had.
“She was here,” Maria replied honestly even though he would probably think she was lying. Or trying to con him. “Her ghost was here...until you came in.”
Was he the reason that Raven had slipped away so quickly? Because she didn’t want to see her killer again?
“Why was she here?” he asked, speaking slowly and softly as if Maria were a young child...or mentally unstable, which was probably what that poor deputy thought of her, too.
“She came here to warn me. I’m in danger, too. That’s what all this is about,” she said, gesturing at those photos he’d left on the table.
He cocked his head as he continued to scrutinize her through narrowed eyes. He was probably trying to determine if she’d lost her mind. “What is all this?”
“All these murders,” she said impatiently. Why wasn’t he following her? “This is about me. Someone’s trying to kill me.” Because she was the real witch.
Images flashed through her head of the murders of everyone who’d gotten close to her. But in her mind she was now the victim. It was her head being held underwater, her neck the noose wound tightly around, her body the brick-laden board crushed...her skin the flames burned.
Not only could she see a vision of what would happen to someone, she experienced every feeling that person did when it happened. Every moment of terror. Every stab of pain. When they died, it was as if she died, too.
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