Free Fear Familiar Bundle by Caroline Burnes Page B

garage.
    The parking lot was subterranean, but it had never bothered her before. She didn't care for the sense of being buried but wasn't afraid of the perpetual murkiness. At least she hadn't been. Now, as if her imagination were being deliberately perverse, she remembered the phone call from the night before. The cruelty of it made her angry again. She'd cut her ties with Carter and his past. No one had the right to use her dead husband as a scare tactic. No one.
    The voice had sounded more than a little like Carter. Or at least it had sounded like she remembered Carter's voice. Nine years was a long time, especially for a memory she didn't particularly relish. If she found out who was practicing such ugly jokes, she'd certainly press criminal charges.
    She slipped from behind the wheel and gathered her purchases. The grocery package was light, and she was anxious to get inside the warm building. As she dropped the keys into her purse, she heard the scuffing of leather on the concrete floor. It was a small sound that rang through her head like an alarm. She held herself perfectly still to listen better. Only the emptiness of the parking lot came back to her.
    "I'm letting my imagination get away with me," she said out loud, realizing even as she spoke that she was imitating the young boy who whistled in the graveyard. All of her senses were vitally alert. There was something about the garage that didn't strike her as right. It was too silent, too dark. She started toward the elevator.
    Her footsteps echoed emptily on the concrete, a steady, comforting sound. She walked faster, unable to stop herself from glancing between the cars. The elevator was only a hundred yards away.
    "Eleanor!"
    Her whispered name seemed to echo around the concrete columns. She froze.
    "Eleanor!"
    She turned, swinging her gaze in a 360-degree sweep on all sides. The parking lot was completely devoid of other human beings. There wasn't even the sound of an idling motor. The voice had come from the shadowed corners, from the air. From the lips of a dead man.
    "I've been waiting a long, long time, Eleanor."
    The voice penetrated her spine. Fear deeper than any she'd ever known tingled through her muscles.
    "Who are you?"
    "How cute, still the innocent little Eleanor."
    The voice! She knew it for certain now! She knew that teasing note, the edge of familiarity.
    "Where are you?" Her own voice echoed eerily through the garage, striking the concrete walls and vibrating back to her.
    "I'm here, Eleanor. Watching you." There was a deep, satisfied laugh. "You thought I was gone forever. Glad to see my car at the bottom of the cliff, weren't you? I messed up your neat little life."
    "Carter!" The word was barely a whisper as it came from Eleanor's throat. "Carter, is it you?"
    "Oh, yes, it's me. Back from the dead. Back to claim my wife."
    "I'm not your wife anymore." She swirled suddenly, hoping to find him behind her. But the garage was as empty as it had been the last time she looked. "Quit playing stupid games, Carter, and come out."
    "Come out, come out, wherever you are," he mocked her. "Did you mourn me when I died, Eleanor? I don't think so. You packed up and left Colorado. You didn't even tell our friends goodbye."
    "Your friends, Carter." She turned on her heel and started to walk away, wobbling slightly. The garage had become a landscape for a nightmare. She had to escape, to get away from the sound of his voice so that she could think clearly. She started to run.
    Carter Wells was dead. Dead and buried, and she was standing in the garage of her building having a conversation with her imagination. Or maybe her guilty conscience. She hadn't allowed herself to feel anything for a man…until Peter. And now that she was beginning to warm to a spark of interest, her mind had opened up to give her the ugly reminders of Carter. There was nothing real in the voice she heard, only her own repressed guilt.
    "Hey! I've come a long way to see you."
    She turned