"Why should I be?"

Hunter hesitated. Though Charles and Tony had seemed to believe him about the girls being abducted - and had talked about attempting a rescue - they still didn't trust him very much.

"I just hope he's all right," Hunter said.

"Why wouldn't he be?" Charles had a sharpness in his voice. "Is someone up there?"

"No. Not really."

"Not really?"

"I mean no," Hunter said. "Nobody's up there. You went upstairs. You didn't see anyone, did you?"

"Plenty of places to hide. If you've got a... an accomplice or something upstairs..."

"I don't."

Charles tipped back his head and frowned up the stairway. "Tony!" he shouted.

No answer came.

"TONY?" he shouted again.

When silence answered this shout, too, Charles lowered his eyes to Hunter and raised the sword off his shoulder. "What's going on?"

"I don't know."

He saw the look in Charles's eyes.

"I don't!" he insisted. "But some weird stuff happened up there with Eleanor. She got... she almost got hanged, but nobody was there."

"What're you...?"

"It was like someone invisible put a cord around her neck and he was dragging her across the floor with it."

"But no one was there?"

"T know it sounds..."

"Old man Witherspoon?"

"I don't... no, it wasn't anybody. Nobody was there."

"He's supposed to be a ghost," Charles explained.

"Huh?"

"I don't know. Shit. Laura and Shannon, they say they've got these ghosts. But... TONY!" he shouted.

Again, no answer.

Gazing up the stairway, Charles muttered, "Shit."

"Can ghosts hang people?" Hunter asked.

"How do I know? No. They've never done anything to Laura or Shannon... scared 'em a few times... if they even. thought maybe the gals were pulling our legs... TONY!"

Gripping the banister, Hunter rose to his feet. "We'd better go up and look."

Charles glared at him. "Is this some kinda trick?"

"I wish."

"I don't know if we oughta go up there. TONY! DAMN WHAT'S GOING ON? ARE YOU OKAY? ANSWER ME, DAMN IT!"

Tony didn't answer.

"I'll go up," Hunter said.

"You're supposed to stay here."

"Give me the sword."

"No." Raising it high, Charles backed away from the stairs, "You've got your knife. I'll keep the sword."

"You coming?"

"Yeah. Okay. But you go first."

Pulling Eleanor's knife from its sheath, Hunter raced up the stairs. He stopped at the top. Stopped and looked around.

Charles, halfway down, asked, "What're you doing?"

The hallway was dark. So was every doorway. The lights in every room seemed to be off.

"Where was he going?" Hunter asked.

"Shannon's bedroom."

"It's dark," he said. "They're all dark. There were lights on when I was up here before."

"When I came up, too," said Charles. "I think almost every room was lighted."

"You didn't turn any off?"

"No."

Remaining at the top of the stairs, Hunter called out, "TONY?"

He stood motionless and listened. He heard only the sounds of the old house creaking, the sounds of the wind sighing and howling outside.

And the pounding of his heart.

No reason to be scared, he told himself. Whatever it is, I've dealt with it before. I saved Eleanor and it didn't hurt me. It let both of us go.

From halfway down the stairs, Charles said in little more than a whisper, "Shannon's room's the second doorway from..."

"I know where it is."

He took a deep breath, slowly exhaled, then stepped around the banister and walked down the dark hall to Shannon's room.

Standing in the doorway, he gazed in. Shapes of black. Shapes of gray. No light at all except for a dim, dusty paleness coming in from the windows.

"Tony?" he asked. Quietly.

No answer.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Charles motionless at the top of the stairs.

"Go on in," Charles whispered.

Hunter moved the knife to his left hand, wiped his sweaty right hand on a leg of his jeans, then leaned into the room and felt along the wall until he found the light switch.

He flipped the switch.

Tony lay sprawled on his back in front of the dresser, his deerstalker hat on the floor nearby. His face looked gray. His eyes bulged and his tongue stuck out.

Around his neck, a thin black noose.

Hunter knelt beside him for a closer look.

The noose was a wire clothes hanger. Someone must've spread it open, dropped it over his head, then viciously twisted it tight from behind.

"Oh, my God."

Hunter looked around. Charles stood in the doorway, a hand to his mouth.

"He's dead," Hunter said.

Suddenly gagging, Charles lurched out of sight. Moments later, Hunter heard choking sounds, gushes and splashes.

He rose to his feet and looked around. Just in front of Shannon's closet, a pink robe lay on the floor. It looked like the same one she'd been wearing when Hunter first saw her.

The robe she'd taken off and hung in her closet before roaming around naked.

The closet that had frightened Eleanor so badly.

Hunter glanced down at Tony.

The guy must've been standing at the dresser when his killer crept up behind him with the hanger. In spite of the mirror, he hadn't seen anyone coming.

Of course not, Hunter thought. Nothing to see.

The top drawer of Shannon's dresser still stood open.

Hunter stepped over Tony's feet and looked in.

A tumble of colorful bras and panties... and a pistol.

That's what he came up here for! Tony had planned to help rescue the gals, all right, and he'd come up here to get Shannon's pistol.

This'll save the day.

Though it was partly hidden under a pair of glossy blue panties, it appeared to be a semi-automatic. Maybe a.380 or a 9 mm.

"I'm calling the police!" Charles yelled from somewhere in the distance.

"Don't!"

Hunter reached in, brushed aside the panties, and saw the shiny chunk of metal around the pistol's trigger guard.

What's that?

He picked up the pistol and looked more closely.

The strange attachment had three small wheels with numbers on them.

What is it, a combination lock?

"Oh, Jesus," he muttered.

Then he heard an outcry of alarm followed by heavy thuds and tumbling sounds.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

"Dad?"

Jeff glanced back at Mandy, then slowed down. She caught and ran alongside him.

"This is weird," she said.