The Presence Part 1

THE PRESENCE.

by HEATHER GRAHAM.

SUMMARY: In her new paranormal romance, the "New York Times" bestselling author transports readers to a decaying Scottish castle, which Toni McNally and her friends have turned into a tourist attraction. But bodies soon start to stack up and Toni begins to see murders in her dreams before they happen.

REVIEW: As a girl, Toni Fraser had vivid nightmares that perfectly depicted real murders in real time. As an adult, she and four friends and her Scottish cousin rent a dilapidated Highlands castle and renovate it as the backdrop for dramatic reenactments. Unfortunately, the castle's rightful owner, laird Bruce MacNiall, who looks like a hero in Toni's stories, is shocked to find them there. But he doesn't boot the Americans out; he just wants them to stay out of the woods, where it becomes apparent that a serial killer has been disposing of the bodies of young women. Toni, who has always feared her paranormal talents, is then contacted by a ghost who looks just like the current laird and who seems intent on making her solve a centuries-old mystery. As the current mystery entwines with the mystery from the past, historical interludes add depth to Graham's enticingly suspenseful contemporary tale as Toni and Bruce become irresistibly attracted to each other.

--Diana Tixier Herald.

*Prologue*

Nightmares.

The scream rose and echoed in the night with a bloodcurdling resonance that only the truly young, and truly terrified, could create.

Her parents ran into the room, called by instinct to battle whatever force had brought about such absolute horror in their beloved child.

Yet there was nothing. Nothing but their nine year old, standing on the bed, arms locked at her side, fingers curled into her fists with a terrible rigidity, as if she had suddenly become an old woman. She was screaming, the sound coming again and again, high, screeching, tearing, like the sound of fingernails dragged down the length of a blackboard.

Both parents looked desperately around the room, then their eyes met.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart!"

Her mother came for her unnoticed and tried to take the girl into her arms, but she was inflexible. The father came forward, calling her name, taking her and then shaking her. Once again, she gave no notice.

Then she went down. She simply crumpled into a heap in the center of the bed. Again the parents looked at one another, then the mother rushed forward, sweeping the girl into her arms, cradling her to her breast. "Sweetie, please, please...!"

Blue eyes, the color of a soft summer sky, opened to hers. They were filled with angelic innocence. The child's head was haloed by her wealth of white blond hair, and she smiled sleepily at the sight of her mother 's face, as if nothing had happened, as if the bone jarring sounds had never come from her lips.

"Did you have a nightmare?" her mother asked anxiously.

Then a troubled frown knit her brow. "No!" she whispered, and the sky-blue eyes darkened, the fragile little body began to shake.

The mother looked at her husband, shaking her head. "We've got to call the doctor."

"It's two in the morning. She's had a nightmare."

"We need to call someone."

"No," her father said firmly. "We need to tuck her back into bed and discuss it in the morning."

"But--"

"If we call the doctor, we'll be referred to the emergency room. And if we go to the emergency room, we'll sit there for hours, and they'll tell us to take her to a shrink in the morning."

"Donald!"

"It's true, Ellen, and you know it."

Ellen looked down. Her daughter was staring at her with huge eyes, shaking now.

"The police!" she whispered.

"The police?" Ellen asked.

"I saw him, Mommy. I saw what that awful man did to the lady."

"What lady, darling?"

"She was on the street, stopping cars. She had big red hair and a short silver skirt. The man stopped for her in a red car with no top, like Uncle Ted's. She got in with him and he drove and then.. .and then..."

Donald walked across the room and took hold of his daughter's shoulders. "Stop this! You're lying. You haven't been out of this room!"

Ellen shoved her husband away. "Stop it! She's terrified as it is."

"And she wants us to call the police? Our only child will wind up on the front page of the papers, and if they don't catch this psycho murdering women, he'll come after her! No, Ellen."

"Maybe they can catch him," Ellen suggested softly.

"You have to forget it!" Donald said sternly to his daughter.

She nodded gravely, then shook her head. "I have to tell it!" she whispered.

Ellen seldom argued with Donald. But tonight she had picked her battle.

"When this happens.. .you have to let her talk."

"No police!" Donald insisted.

"I'll call Adam."

"That shyster!"

"He's no shyster and you know it."

Donald's eyes slid from his wife's to those of his daughter, which were awash in misery and a fear she shouldn't have to know. "Call the man," he said.

He was very old; that was Toni's first opinion of Adam Harrison. His face was long, his body was thin, and his hair was snow-white. But his eyes were the kindest, most knowing, she had seen in her nine years on earth.

He came to the bedside, took her hand, clasped it firmly between his own and smiled slowly. She had been shaking, but his gentle hold eased the trembling from her, just as it warmed her. He was very special. He understood that she had seen what she had seen without ever leaving the house. And she knew, of course, that it was ridiculous. Such things didn't happen. But it had happened.

She hated it. Loathed it. And she understood her father's concern. It was a very bad thing. People would make fun of her--or they would want to use her ability for their own purposes.

"So, tell me about it," Adam said to her, after he had explained that he was an old friend of her mother's family.

"I saw it," she whispered, and the shaking began again.

"Tell me what you saw."

"There was a woman on the street, trying to get cars to stop. One stopped. She leaned into it, and she started to talk to the man about money. Then she went with him. She got into the car. It was red."

"It was a convertible?"

"Like Uncle Ted's car."

"Right," he said, squeezing her hand again.

Her voice became a monotone. She repeated some of the conversation between the man and woman word for word. Perspiration broke out on her body as she felt the woman's growing sense of fear. She couldn't breathe as she described the knife. She was drenched with sweat at the end, and cold. So cold. He talked to her and a.s.sured her.

Then the police arrived, called by neighbors who were awakened by her screams.

The two officers flanked her bed and started firing questions at her, demanding to know what she had seen--or what had been done to her.

Despite the terror, she felt all right because of Adam. But then huge tears formed in her eyes. "Nothing, nothing! I saw nothing!"

Adam rose, his voice firm and filled with such authority that even the men with their guns and badges listened to him. They left the room. Adam winked at her and went with the men, telling her that he would talk to them.

A month later, the police came back to the house. She could hear her father angrily telling them that they had to leave her alone. But despite his argument, she found herself facing a police officer who kept asking her terrible questions. He described horrific things, his voice growing rougher and rougher. Somewhere in there, she closed off. She couldn't bear to hear him anymore.

She woke up in the hospital. Her mother was by her side, tears in her eyes. She was radiant with happiness when Toni blinked and looked at her.

Her father was there, too. He kissed Toni on the forehead, then, choking, left the room. An older man in the back stepped up to her.

"You're going to move," he told her cheerfully. "Out to the country. The police will never come again."

"The police?"

"Yes, don't you remember?"

She shook her head. "I'm sorry...I'm really sorry. I don't know who you are."

He arched a fuzzy white brow, staring at her. "I'm Adam. Adam Harrison. You really don't remember me?"

She studied him gravely and shook her head. She was lying, but he just smiled, and his smile was warm and comforting.

"Just remember my name. And if you ever need me, call me. If you dream again, or have a nightmare."

"I don't have nightmares," she told him.

"If you dream..."

"Oh, I'm certain I don't have dreams. I don't let myself have dreams. Some people can do that, you know."

His smile deepened. "Yes, actually, I do know. Well, Miss Antoinette Fraser, it has been an incredible pleasure to see you, and to see you looking so well. If you ever just want to say h.e.l.lo, remember my name."

She gripped his hand suddenly. "I will always remember your name," she told him.

"If you ever need me, I'll be there," he promised.

He brushed a kiss on her forehead, and then he was gone. Just a whisper of his aftershave remained.

Soon her memory faded and the whole thing became vague, not real. There was just a remnant in her mind, no more than that whisper of aftershave when someone was really, truly gone.

*1*

"Imagine, if you will, the great laird of the castle! The MacNiall himself, famed and infamous, a figure to draw both fear and awe. Ahead of his time, he stood nearly six foot three, hair as black as pitch, eyes the silver gray of steel, capable of glinting like the devil's own. Some say those orbs burned with the very fires of h.e.l.l. His arms were knotted with muscle from the wielding of his sword, his ax, whatever weapon fell his way in the midst of battle. It was said that he could take down a dozen men in the opening moments of a fray. Pa.s.sionate for king and country, he would fight any man who spoke to wrong either. Pa.s.sionate in love, his anger could rage just as deeply against a woman, if he felt himself betrayed.

"Imagine then, being his beloved, his bride, his wife, burdened with the most treacherous of advisors, men determined to find a way to bring down a man so great in battle, to further their own aims. Imagine her knowing that she had been betrayed, maligned and that her laird husband was returning from the blood of the battlefield... intent upon a greater revenge. There...there! He would come to the great doors that gave entry to the hall."

Toni stood at the railing of the second floor balcony, pointing to the ma.s.sive double doors, high on sheer exhilaration. A crowd of awed tourists were gathered below her in the great hall entry, staring up at her.

This was really too good, far more than they had imagined they could accomplish when she and the others had set their wild dream about procuring a rundown castle and creating a very special entertainment complex out of it. So far, David and Kevin had rallied their crowd magnificently by playing a pair of hapless minstrels in the reign of James IV, when the current structure had been built upon the Norman bastion begun by thirteenth century kings. Ryan and Gina had done a fantastic job playing the daughter of the laird and the stable boy with whom she had fallen tragically in love during the reign of Mary, Queen of Scots. Thayer--the wild card in their s.e.xtet--had proved himself more than capable of portraying a laird accused of witchcraft in the time of James VI. And they had all run around as kitchen wenches or servants for one another.

Beyond a doubt, the crowd was into the show. Below, they waited. So Toni continued.

"Alas, it was right here, as I stand now, where, tragically, Annalise met with her husband, that great man of inestimable prowess and, unfortunately, jealousy and rage. Believing the stories regarding his beautiful wife, he curled his fingers around her throat, squeezing the life from her before tossing her callously down the staircase in a fit of uncontrollable wrath. Since he was the great laird of the castle, his servants helped him dispose of the body, and Laird MacNiall went on to fight another day. He was, however, to receive his own just rewards. Though he had bested many, and countless troops had been slaughtered beneath his leaders.h.i.+p, Cromwell was to seize the man at last. He received the ultimate punishment, being castrated, disemboweled, decapitated, dismembered and dispersed. His pieces were then gathered by his descendants, and he now lies buried deep within the crypt of these very stone walls! Ah, yes, his mortal remains are buried here. But it's said that his soul wanders, not just around the castle itself, but through the surrounding hills and braes, and he is known to haunt the forest just beyond the ruins of the old town wall."

Her words were met with a collective "Ooh!" that was most encouraging. Toni flashed a smile to Gina, hovering in a room off the second floor landing, watching. Any minute now, Ryan would come riding into the main hall.

"They say he roams his lands still, hunting for his wife, anxious to see her face, filled with love and l.u.s.t...and a fury seizes him each time he would hold her in all her spectral beauty!"

She glanced at Gina, frowning. Ryan should have made his appearance by now.

Gina looked at her and shrugged, then lifted her hands, indicating that Toni should finish up, however she could manage.

"That night the great laird of the castle came bursting through his doorway!"

As if on cue, a fantastic flash of lightning suddenly tore through the darkness, followed by a ma.s.sive roar of thunder.

The doors burst open.. .and a man appeared.

Toni inhaled on a sharp breath of disbelief. It wasn't Ryan. The man was on the biggest black stallion Toni had ever seen. She thought that the prancing animal might breathe fire at any instant.