He shot her a droll look. “You do care about me, after all. Don’t worry, I’m sure the big bad clock isn’t going to hurt me.”
“Don’t be so sure about that. It might.”
He removed his hand, then began to snap a few pictures of the clock, long shots, close-ups. And of the face itself, still showing the broken glass from where a stray bullet had hit the white surface in her vision, that currently read two minutes to midnight. The pendulum swung evenly back and forth counting off the seconds.
Amanda attempted to ignore the muscles that flexed in Jacob’s arms, the way his back moved, the hard planes of his chest, how well those jeans fitted his muscled thighs and lean hips. Her attention moved to his green eyes and short dark hair and she absently wondered if it was as soft as it looked.
He eyed her. “Are you just going to gawk at me or are you going to write anything down in that notebook of yours?”
A flush came to her cheeks yet again. She wasn’t gawking. Much.
Suddenly Catherine appeared next to her in a pulse of soft light.
“You must leave.” The ghost cast a tense look at the clock. “It’s not safe for you here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What?” Jacob asked absently.
“I’m speaking to the ghost. She’s next to me right now.”
“Oh…well, carry on.” He continued to take pictures.
Catherine looked very stressed for a ghost. “There’s no time left. It’s almost midnight. My aunt’s magic…the clock…you need to trust me. Go now.”
“I don’t understand,” Amanda said. “I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to determine exactly what the problem with the clock is and I need data to take back with me—”
“Then leave this room just for now. Come back in an hour. But you can’t be here when the clock strikes midnight!”
Which was less than a minute away.
“Why not?” Amanda’s eyes began to widen. “What happens at midnight? I know you and Nathan will disappear.”
“It’s more than that. The clock’s magic strips away one’s ability to think and act rationally, which is what happened to myself and Nathan. We lost control.”
“Lost control?” Amanda repeated.
Jacob stopped taking pictures for a moment. “Is there a problem?”
“The door to this room should have been locked.” Catherine wrung her transparent hands together. “That horrible woman, the one who wants us to leave, she must have unlocked it.” She swept a glance over the room and scrunched her nose with distaste. “And she’s replaced the bedding. The color palette she’s chosen is not attractive at all.”
“Forget the colors,” Amanda protested, feeling panic well inside her. “Let’s get back on the topic. You want us to leave but I need to know why. It might help with our investigation. It might help you.”
“Catherine,” Nathan appeared next to her. His face was much more serene than hers now. “Leave them be. It’s fate that they’re here.”
“Fate.” She spat the word like a curse. “Fate is what got us into this situation in the first place, isn’t it?”
His lips thinned and a momentary doubt crossed his gaze as he looked at Catherine. “Do you wish it had been different for us?”
Instead of snapping at him or getting angry, her features softened as their eyes met and held. “They don’t realize what this means.”
“They will,” Nathan whispered. “Besides, it’s already too late.”
“What the hell are you—?” Amanda began again, confused and deeply disturbed by the exchange she was witnessing.
The clock struck midnight.
CHAPTER 5
Catherine looked upset, but Nathan looked smug as the chimes sounded out from the clock.
Amanda’s eyes widened. “What’s going to happen now?”
Jacob reacted to the tense tone in her voice by coming to her side, staring around at the otherwise empty room and the ghosts he couldn’t see.
Nathan smiled at her. “You and your friend are as doomed as we are.”
“What can we do?”
“Nothing.” He glanced at Catherine’s stern expression and his smile turned sadder. “Till tomorrow, my love.”
“Tomorrow,” she murmured as the last chime echoed through the room.
The ghosts disappeared in separate flashes of light.
Jacob and Amanda stood, frozen in place, staring at each other.
“What’s happening?” Jacob asked.
“The ghosts say we’re doomed,” she replied, glancing at the clock which now read exactly midnight. “Oh shit.”
“What?”
“The clock. It’s…it’s glowing…”
He looked at it to see it surrounded by a soft white light. The clock itself had frozen at the last stroke of midnight, its pendulum still. “Why the hell is it glowing?”
“Because it’s midnight.”
“What does that mean?”
The next moment, the glow turned into a blinding pulse of light that blanketed the entire bedroom for a split second before disappearing. The door to the room slammed shut and a thunderbolt of pain ripped through Amanda’s head. She brought her hands up to her temples. Her knees buckled. Jacob caught her before she hit the ground. When she looked up into his face she found it looked as tense as she felt.
“What the hell?” he managed. “What was that?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”