Free The Abandoned by Amanda Stevens Page A

really is trying to communicate with you?”
    Ree thought about that warning touch at her neck right before the lights went out. “I don’t know what I believe right now.” She massaged her temples with her fingertips.
    She didn’t want to talk about Ilsa’s ghost anymore. She wanted to talk about what she’d seen in that file. She’d told Hayden most of it over the phone, but she still needed to process it. “What was done to Ilsa that night was a secret that would bind those men together forever. No one dared speak the truth because if one fell, they all fell.”
    Hayden said nothing but his gaze was very intense.
    “She was lured to the cemetery that night by her own stepbrother. And when he was finished with her, he left her there for the others. Instead of seeking justice, James Tisdale covered it up. He sacrificed Ilsa in order to protect his son and the family’s political aspirations. She never ran away to Europe. She was committed to an insane asylum.”
    He reached over and took her hand. He seemed to understand that she needed to talk about what she’d read in those files, as if sharing the horror would somehow diminish it.
    “Her family abandoned her, leaving Milton Farrante free to conduct his gruesome experiments. She was subjected to electroconvulsive shock therapy more than ten years before the procedure was formally introduced. He may have performed one of the first lobotomies on her.”
    “Unbelievable that he could do all that without anyone knowing,” Hayden said.
    “The asylums were full of the forgotten back then, including Ilsa’s baby. Violet was born perfectly healthy, but she spent her whole life inside that hospital, a human experiment from birth to death for three generations of Farrantes. Poor Ilsa died when Violet was just seven years old.”
    “But I don’t think she moved on,” Hayden said. “I believe her ghost remained in the asylum with Violet. Think about it. All those years, helpless to stop the experiments as she watched her daughter grow into a lonely old woman. But the moment Violet died, Ilsa was set free. And there you were, at Violet’s bedside, a way for Ilsa to finally leave the hospital.”
    “I’m sorry, Hayden, but I just can’t believe something that—”
    “Irrational? Illogical? Crazy? How else can you explain the dream?”
    “I can’t. But there has to be another reason. Maybe something I read or heard a long time ago stuck in my subconscious and Miss Violet’s death triggered it.”
    “What about the cold spots, the frosted windows, the frigid breath at your neck? That’s not your subconscious or imagination. She’s there, Ree. You can’t see her, but she’s there. And she’s not going away until you give her what she wants.”
    “And what is that?”
    His hand tightened around hers. “Put yourself in her place. After everything that was done to her and her daughter, what would you want?”
    “Revenge,” Ree said and shuddered.
    “Exactly. And she needs a conduit, a way to channel her rage.”
    Ree drew her hand away. “That’s crazy. Even ghosts, even Ilsa , can’t make me do something against my will. She can’t use me unless I let her.”
    Hayden’s dark eyes burned into hers. “I wish that were so, but we really have no idea what we’re up against.”
    The Charleston Institute for ParapsychologyElsewhere, it’s called the Institute for Parapsychology Studies, not Paranormal Studies.
    Studies was located on the fringes of the historic district, in a glorious old antebellum with long, gleaming columns and three levels of piazzas to catch the Lowcountry breezes. Hayden let himself in the side entrance and made his way down the hall. He’d called ahead to make sure Dr. Shaw would see him at so late an hour and the older man had agreed. Now he looked up curiously as Hayden entered the office, and motioned for him to take a seat. Tall and dignified, with vivid blue eyes and a shock of white hair, he’d always struck Hayden as