Serafina and the Virtual Man Read Online Free Page B

to bring one.”
    She had to crick her neck to look him in the eye. She wished she wasn’t so aware of his tall, strong body only inches from hers, and confusion made her snappish.
    “You’re not my problem, pal. Look, just walk past me and out the door.”
    She stepped aside with a strange mixture of relief and disappointment. He glanced at the door. His brows twitched. Then he took one pace forward and stopped. Suddenly, he looked lost, and, stupidly, her heart tugged as if he were an abandoned child.
    “Come on,” she muttered ungraciously. “I have to get out of here anyway. Follow me.” She marched to the door, turned to make sure he was coming too—and found an empty room.
    She stared carefully around, even looking under the bench this time, but there was no sign of him. All the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
    This she really couldn’t understand.
    Swallowing, she turned away, then suddenly recalled her flash drive still attached to the computer. She ran and grabbed it. At least she remembered to remove all trace of it from the computer before she left the room and hit the Close and Lock button on the keypad.
    Something weird was going on in this house. It just wasn’t like anything she’d imagined. When she reached the sitting room again, still deep in thought about her encounter with the vanishing stranger who thought he was dead, the door suddenly flew open and Dale Ewan almost mowed her down.
    Jilly stepped back smartly to avoid contact.
    “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
    “Just wandering around taking readings,” Jilly said mildly. “It’s necessary to understand what we’re dealing with. How’d you get on, Sera?”
    “It’s big and it’s angry and it’s got to go,” Sera said flippantly. Jilly breezed past Dale and into the room, where she sat on the arm of Sera’s sofa once more and got the laptop back out of her bag. Hastily, she opened a Notepad and keyed in: Adam? Then, as the Ewans approached, she erased it and called up the environmental data files.
    “Yes, the psychic energy was all focused in here,” Sera said sagely as if picking this up from the computer readings.
    “Did you learn anything useful about it?” Jilly asked.
    “Yes, a bit. It’s extraordinarily angry, negative parts of a spirit left behind, I’d say.” She frowned as if remembering something, then glanced up at the hovering Ewans. “Does the name Adam mean anything to you?”
    Neither of them blinked.
    “Of course,” Dale said in surprise. “My ex-partner. He founded the company with me in 2004. He died last year.”
    ****
     
    “What’s the matter with you?” Sera demanded as soon as they were in the car. “You’re white as a sheet.”
    “Go, just go,” Jilly said urgently. Sera started the car, turned it, and began to drive away from the house. Jilly forced her tense shoulders to drop. A laugh tried to surge up in her throat. “Fuck, Sera. I think I’ve seen a ghost.”
    Sera swerved slightly as she jerked her head around to stare. She righted the car, satisfying herself with short sharp glances at Jilly instead.
    Jilly drew a shuddering breath, controlling the threatening hysteria. “Adam. The dead partner. In Dale’s secret test lab, hidden behind the study. He told me he was shot.”
    Sera frowned. “They told me he didn’t die in the house and that his death was expected. I assumed he’d died of cancer or some other long-term illness.”
    Jilly chewed her lip. “Could he have died somewhere else and his spirit gone back there?”
    “I suppose so,” Sera said doubtfully. “Or it could be some other manifestation of the spirit trashing their house. Was he an angry ghost?”
    “No, he seemed pretty laid-back about the whole thing, considering. A bit lost, maybe, but quite accepting.”
    “Well, the poltergeist is the most focused anger I’ve ever come across.”
    “Could it be the negative half of my ghost?”
    “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Sera