Free The Dead Tell (Magical Temptations Collection) by Jaycee Clark Page A

develop. As he waited, he took a few more shots with the digital.
    Would she like them? Surely she would, they were the dolls to end all dolls. She deserved them.
    They were perfect.
    Soon, soon , he’d share this all with her.
     
    * * *
    Paige jerked awake when a coldness shivered over her. She lay there for a minute, felt the heat of Mike at her back.
    He ’d been there for the last several days, barely letting her out of his sight. If he wasn’t around, then it seemed Sammy was, or one of the Riggio brothers. She had never liked being under a microscope. Too many years of people carefully watching her, of people wondering if she was seeing things, hearing voices, and whatnot.
    When she’d mentioned it to Sammy, Sammy told her she was just paranoid. No one was watching her.
    S he knew none of her friends were actually doing that but it felt that way. She knew they cared and worried. And from things Sammy had mentioned before, she got the feeling the Riggio family had their own secrets and their own brand of knowing things.
    Might be why they were never shocked when Sammy blurted out at some family dinner years ago t hat Paige talked to dead people. No one had shifted or shied away. Never asked her why she wasn’t on meds, or seeing a counselor.
    They simply accepted it, accepted her.
    She often wondered if Sammy understood how precious that was.
    Paige had never really told her friend how bad it had been for her when she was younger. Though Sammy probably wondered, maybe even knew, since Paige had alluded. She’d just never wanted to share it all.
    Mike shifted and again the difference in his warmth and the cold of the room skimmed over her.
    Not again.
    “ Please, go away,” she whispered. “Not now.”
    “ Now. Before. To come,” a voice whispered.
    There was a sha dow in the corner, or was there?
    The voice she heard , she knew she had, but to whom the voice belonged, she couldn’t tell.
    “ Not now. Let me sleep.” Please.
    She heard a sigh and then the room warmed slightly.
    But she lay there looking into the darkness. Was this another girl some man and killed and left in a cemetery, or was this a new ghost? One that belonged to the building?
    No one had ever told her about the guilt. She ’d felt it before when she’d ignored the others, but never on this level. How did she deal with it? And why did she feel guilty? They were dead, not like she could change that fact. Didn’t she deserve a life free of them , at least for a few hours? Is this what it was always going to be like for her?
    She’d gone so long without acknowledging the others, now that they were always there, she didn’t know what to do, how to help them more. How to get a moments peace.
    Lately she was seeing them all the time, she hadn’t told Mike that.
    There were the two —possibly three?—women from the cemeteries.
    But there was an old man as well. Who he was, she had no clue, but she saw him out of the corner of her eye on her way to the shop and when she walked home. She just ignored him. And the young boy probably from the last century going by the clothes he wore.  There was also a girl she’d seen in the alley. They weren’t all connected to the first ghost though.
    She ’d spoken with the first ghost that fateful morning and now look what happened. Every other girl the bastard killed followed the first right to her doorstep, or bedroom and invited more. She wanted to help them, she just didn’t know how , more than telling Mike when a new girl showed up that she knew was connected to his case.
    She hadn ’t told Mike about the pop-ins. He might have an issue knowing the ghosts were watching at odd hours.
    Not that she paid attention to too much but Mike when he was around, but still. What if they watched ?
    Freaky.
    Settling back against Mike, she wondered why her. Why did they keep coming to her ? Why now? Were her defenses just down? Was there some sort of connection between her and the girls? Not that she knew,