Increment by increment, she set her feet under her and rose and wobbled the few paces to the door and tried the knob. It was locked. She swung around too fast and had to lean a shoulder against the wall. Then she stumbled to check the two vertical windows and blinked. The rectangles of light showed bright in the darkening room and she could see that the cranks to open the windows had been removed.

Crap! She’d been kidnapped and was locked in a room of an empty house.

A house everyone knew she wouldn’t visit.

She breathed slowly through her nose, examined the room. She’d done a quick surface cleaning but the service she’d hired for the deep cleaning wouldn’t be coming for days; they’d been backed up. Arlene, the agent who’d be handling the sale, wouldn’t be checking on it for a week or so, and wouldn’t be checking on Clare for a couple of days. Arlene had dropped by to see how the move was going and left five gorgeous bouquets for individual rooms along with effusive thanks.

Clare’s mouth dried, and she tasted bile and swallowed the burn back down. Her breathing turned fast and ragged. Weakening knees had her staggering back to the cot, sitting again and rubbing her head—her temples, touching the bump, owie!—and pushing her fingers through her hair. She tugged, trying to clear more fogginess from her mind.

Think!

Panting, she worked through who would miss her and how soon. Zach. No, they’d broken up. Wait, wait. She’d told him that she’d finish the ledgers and messenger them to Rickman.

Her mouth turned down. She hadn’t told Zach how close to done she had been with the records; he might expect them in two to three days.

She sucked in a shaky breath. Time to effing figure out what was going on. Again she swallowed hard, wished for some water to rinse out her mouth, and stood.

The door opened.

She rushed forward, met outstretched arms that shoved her to the floor, and her mind began to whirl again. Oww! A couple of seconds passed before she croaked, “Who . . . who?”

A snort, and simply the sound of it clued her in.

“Ted Mather!”

“That’s right.” He stood at the threshold of her room with shadows clinging to him, but unlike the ghosts she’d been communicating with lately, Ted was all too dreadfully solid. “Get back on the cot.”

“But . . . but why?”

A sound of disbelief. “You are slow, aren’t you.” His head tilted. “Though I s’pose the hit on your head didn’t help. Sorry about that,” he said cheerfully.

Clare rose painfully and sat on the cot. She eased her fingers through her hair, ran into some clumped blood near her wound. Ick.

“Why?” she repeated.

“Because you can talk to ghosts, probably can talk to the ghost of Jack Slade, and he knows where the gold is from the robbery he masterminded,” Ted said, as if that were reasonable.

She stared at him, feeling her pupils dilate even more than needed in the twilight. How could the research assistant have possibly guessed? Did he have some sort of psychic gift, too?

Clare grasped for rational thought. “That’s an interesting theory,” she said. “But Jack Slade died in Virginia City, Montana. He didn’t even spend much time in Denver.”

Ted shrugged and didn’t come any closer. “You began acting odd at the library. I followed you once to an upscale shrink’s office, heard something about ‘ghosts,’ and then you added books on being psychic and mediumistic to your reading pile.”

She glared at him, outraged. “You followed me!”

He nodded, then waved a casual hand. “Then there was that whole business outside the library during lunch. You were obviously interacting with someone or something.”

Suppressing a wince, Clare stared at him. “It was you,” she accused. “You spread the word that I was a medium.”

“Just wanted to see what would happen. It was interesting, especially when you got rid of that Native American ghost. I was watching then, too. So I knew you were the real deal.”

“Believing in ghosts is crazy.”

“‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’” Ted quoted. “I guess you proved that to me.” He rubbed his hands and smiled, and Clare knew the man wasn’t quite sane. “Now, let’s get down to business. You tell me where the missing gold shipment is.”

“There is no missing gold shipment.”

Ted tsked. “Now that is wrong. The robbery occurred, that’s a fact.”

“When?”

“Eighteen hundred and sixty-three.”

Clare gritted her teeth. “When?”

“Dunno. I found an entry in the library for gold receipts, but by that time I knew you were my best and fastest lead.”

“Jack Slade did not mastermind the robbery.”

Ted pursed his lips. “Everything online says he did.”

“Don’t you know that you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet? What of your own studies?”

He jerked a shrug. Even in the gloom, she could see his lip curl. “It was taking too long. Summer doesn’t last forever, you know, especially at higher elevations when you want to dig something up. You know about digging up treasure, don’t you, Clare?”

This time her stomach seemed to swoop inside her. She blocked the image of an “almost whole” ear. “I didn’t dig up a chest.”

“No, it didn’t look like that,” Ted agreed.

He’d been there, watching! And she hadn’t even sensed him. Hadn’t seen a car. Neither of the ghosts had informed her of that. Geez, she’d been so clueless. And worried about the wrong people observing her.

His smile widened, showing the edges of his teeth now. “I’d prefer you to talk to your friendly ghost sooner rather than later so we can get on with this.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.” She moved her tongue across her teeth to get a little moisture going in her mouth. “What are you going to do to me?”

“Oh, I’ll let you go when you tell me what I want to know. I don’t think you’ll be able to hold out very long. This house is hot and I’m not going to let you have any food, and not much water. You’re not a woman accustomed to that, are you?”

She just stared, could feel her throat dry as he spoke.

“So why don’t you tell me about the gold?” he persisted.

“I don’t know anything about that gold.”

He tilted his head in the opposite direction. “You know, I believe you. After all, with your new inheritance you don’t need money, do you? You inherited upward of twenty million, didn’t you?”

He’d been researching her! Fury helped drive the fear away.

Ted jutted his chin. “Just talk to Slade for me, why don’t you?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Clare said.

“Oh, I believe you can ‘call’ him or ‘summon’ him or whatever”—another casual gesture—“whenever you want. After all, your great-aunt Sandra Cermak boasted that in an interview or two I’ve read.”

Geez.

She blinked rapidly, sorting through arguments. “I’ll be missed.”

A ripe chuckle. “I don’t think so. I saw that touching farewell to your ex-lover; that was a break for me. Your new house’s security hasn’t been breached, though I did disable the garage door. All will look fine, there. And I drove you here in your own car.”

“My neighbors here will—”

“Accept that you came back for some reason . . . and if we can’t reach an agreement in a couple of hours, I’ll move it, leave you alone here in the dark.”

That really didn’t matter to her much, but she managed a flinch as if it would.

“I’ll let you stew all night.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’m sure the room won’t be very pleasant when I come back in the morning, and it will be harder to sell a house when someone’s urinated and defecated in a room, won’t it? All lose-lose options for you, Clare.”

She might vomit first.

“Perhaps I should offer some incentive.”

He stepped back and locked the door, but returned in under a minute.