Dexter's Haunting Page 3

  “Sounds good. I can’t believe it’s almost Halloween already. I suppose you aren’t going to get much in the way of trick-or-treaters.”

  “Not with the gated entry. And no other houses on this side of the hill anyway.” When Mace yawned, I smiled. “Go on and get some rest. I may not give you a call tomorrow unless there’s something you need to know. You need to concentrate on your case and everything’s good here.”

  “All right. Night, Jules.”

  “Goodnight.” And I disconnected.

  I found myself drawn to the sliding door to look at the backyard. This time, I turned the lock, and slid open the door, stepping outside.

  I flipped on the outside lights. The pool looked nice, but remained covered—wrong time of year to go for a swim anyway. I took a step toward the gazebo, but something made me turn and look back at the house, toward the upstairs.

  My chest tightened and my breath stilled.

  Standing at the window of my bedroom that overlooked the backyard was Dexter Larabee.

  “Dexter?” I whispered.

  He looked directly at me and his lips curved into a smile.

  Obviously the wine had gotten to my head. Or was someone in the house?

  I hurried inside, set down the wineglass, and ran upstairs. I flipped the switch, illuminating the room. The empty room. No Dexter standing there. No one at all.

  “God, what the hell is wrong with me?”

  I ignored the picture on the wall, which seemed to beckon me, and went back downstairs. I pan-fried a chicken breast and ate it with a salad, than went outside to turn off the backyard lights.

  It felt cold, breezy, with fog rolling in from the ocean.

  As I turned to go inside, I heard the tingling bell-like laugh of a woman, drifting from the direction of the pool.

  Then a very distinct, “Oh, Lawrence. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Hello?”

  But I saw no one and nothing, and I managed to convince myself the sounds had to have come from a neighbor’s house—even if there weren’t any other houses on this side of the hilltop.

  Once back inside, I locked up and went to my room. I got undressed and into bed, almost deciding to read one of the few books I’d brought with me, but then discarding the notion when I found myself feeling more tired than I thought. My eyelids felt heavy, my mind unfocused. I turned off the bedside lamp instead and prepared to sleep.

  I wasn’t sure how much later, but as I drifted off, I became aware of a hot mouth sucking my cock. The tongue swirled around the tip, then the mouth drew me in deeper, deeper, until it was deep-throating me.

  “Fuck,” I groaned. “Oh, Dexter, please.”

  He cupped my balls, rolling them with the fingers of one hand while the other hand spread my cheeks, a finger pushing into me, probing. Mad with lust, I rose, pushing further into the suction.

  Then abruptly, he pulled off and I whined in protest. His rich, sensual laugh washed over me as he leaned over my body to kiss my lips. I opened my mouth to allow his tongue entrance, our kisses turning desperate, hard and almost punishing.

  “I love you,” he whispered against my lips.

  Dexter broke the kiss and straddled my crotch. He pulled his cheeks apart as he lowered himself, impaling his ass on my achingly hard cock.

  “Yes,” I cried. “God, yes.” I began to pump deep into him, my hands grasping his hips as he rode me. Moonlight streamed in from the window, painting his chest hair with light. Again and again I rose into him as he pushed down, bucking wildly.

  I closed a fist over his long, thick cock, sliding along the length. He threw back his head and mewled. Cum shot from his staff, flicking over my belly and chest. The sight and smell of it spurred on my own release, and soon, I yelled myself hoarse as I released into him.

  He lay beside me. Somewhere distant, in the far reaches of my brain, I knew this couldn’t be right. Dexter could not be real. He’d died long before I’d even been born. And there were no such things as ghosts. Besides, my life was with Mace.

  But the thoughts, distant and almost surreal, drifted away to the point they no longer concerned me. He wrapped himself around me, turning my face to kiss me languidly. Eventually, I fell asleep.

  * * * *

  In the morning, when I awoke, he still lay in bed with me, spooned behind me. Confused, I began to speak, but he shushed me with a kiss on the back of my neck and entered me, and soon all I could think about was us, making love.

  Afterward, sweaty and exhausted, I faced him.

  “I should work on the cellar,” I murmured, though I couldn’t think of why or even that I wanted to move from that spot.

  “Stay in bed with me today. The cellar can wait.”

  And he was right somehow, it could. It would.

  I felt foggy-brained anyway. Not quite myself, and yet, not bad. Just unwilling to do anything but be with Dexter.

  Dex.

  The name suddenly felt right and flowed freely in my mind and on my tongue.

  I shook my head. “I have to pee.”

  He smiled, showing white teeth. “Go ahead, then come back to me.”

  I rose from the bed—our bed, I thought—naked and uncaring. I briefly turned to glance out the window. The day looked overcast, the clouds dark and stormy. The perfect day to stay inside, fucking.

  “You should eat something, too,” he called after me.

  Once I got to the bathroom and peed, I decided to take a quick shower to wash off the sweat and sexual fluids.

  Afterward, I went downstairs with only a towel around my waist—not that I expected to see anyone—and made myself two pieces of toast with butter and jam.

  My cell phone lay on the island, but I found myself entirely uninterested in it. Weirdly, I guess, I wasn’t interested in much of anything but Dex. I should care about Mace, the thought occurred to me. But yet, try as I might, the caring wasn’t there. Here I was, basically having sex with someone else, an affair, perhaps, and I absolutely should care.

  After I finished eating, I returned upstairs and brushed my teeth before going back to the bedroom. For a moment, I feared I’d find it empty, that Dex would be gone. And I was nuts. It was all some sort of fucked-up illusion, and I had lost my mind.

  But no. Dex was there, standing at the window, looking out to sea. He turned and smiled as I entered the room. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  He held open his arms, and without even thinking about it, I went into them, sighing in relief when they closed around me and pulled me close. He released the towel from around my waist and it pooled at our feet.

  “Shall I fuck you right here against the window?” he asked, his voice low and rough.

  “Where anyone can see? You have a need to be watched having sex?” I teased, as his hand possessively held onto my ass.

  “No one can see, We used to fuck this way all the time.”

  Something pulled at my brain, a question, something elusive. It was there, then gone in an instant. My disconnect from the real world should bother me more, I told myself. This couldn’t be real. And yet, Dex felt as real and as solid as any man I’d ever been with. More real.

  And so, without any protest, I let him take me there, at the window, my hands braced against the glass, my breath fogging it, as rain began to fall as I’d expected.

  When we finished there, we returned to bed, lazily kissing and stroking each other. At times, I dozed off, only to wake up and make love. I lost track of how many times I orgasmed. Lost track of my very self, I think, but I couldn’t begin to care.

  Chapter 5

  When the next morning came, I was alone in bed, in the room, with no sign of Dex. My head seemed a bit clearer than the day before.

  With a frown, I got out of bed, noting how sore I felt everywhere. And yet, it had to have all been a dream, I once more told myself. There was no way I’d spent the day in blissful ecstasy with Dexter Larabee.

  Likely, I’d caught a cold or
the flu and had been delirious. That would certainly explain the body aches.

  I took a long hot shower that helped with the aches and cleared any remaining delirium from my mind.

  As I made my way downstairs, I noted the day had come clear and bright. I decided after I got myself a cup of coffee, I’d make my way outside, where surely I would enjoy an ever clearer head.

  Rather than the backyard this time, I chose the front yard, heading to the gargoyle fountain. Surprisingly, I noticed several pumpkins had been placed around the front, and I realized the gardener Georgia had mentioned must have placed them there. It made me think how really out of it I had been, since I clearly hadn’t noticed any gardener since moving into the house.

  I decided to go into the little seaside Embarcadero and maybe have breakfast at one of the cafés. I went inside, snatched my car keys and phone, then paused at the foot of the stairs. The urge to go to the bedroom rather than out the front door proved almost overwhelming.

  Pushing down temptation as best I could, I went to the front door and turned the knob.

  And that’s when the sound of people laughing, glasses clinking, music, partying sounds, came from behind me. I turned sharply and the sounds faded.

  I went outside, closed and locked the door.

  The drive to the Embarcadero took me under ten minutes, and I parked at one of the curbs in front of a small café called Maurice. A harried woman got me seated at a table for two by the window that looked over the bay, promising to bring me coffee.

  Being there made me feel both better and not better. Part of me, part of my attention, remained on the house. Dexter. Coming here felt…wrong. Yet I stayed, determined not to give into the inexplicable pull.

  My cell rang and I saw it was Mace.

  “Hey, you,” I said cheerfully, though my gut twisted from guilt. I’d barely thought about him since I’d moved into the house. And when I had, I felt little. I hadn’t missed him. And I should have, right?

  “Did you have a good day yesterday?”

  For one startled moment, I thought he had somehow become aware of my liaison with Dex. Then I reminded myself he couldn’t know. And anyway, it was only a dream.

  “Yeah, though I didn’t get much done. Rained all day.”

  “It rains more up there. Was sunny down here.”

  “Uh-huh. Hang on.” The waitress came with my coffee, so I made a quick order of chicken-fried steak and eggs with biscuits. “Sorry. I’m at a café ordering breakfast.”

  “Oh, that’s good. So you’re out in town?”

  “Decided some fresh air would do me good. How’s your case?”

  “I’m not making much progress.”

  He started telling me all about it, but my thoughts drifted away, and all I could make out was his droning voice. I used to be interested in his cases, I reminded myself, but just then, I couldn’t have cared less. I watched the sailboats going past the restaurant with a lot more interest than whatever Mace was saying.

  When he paused for breath, I said, “Hey, sorry, but I really have to go. Breakfast is here.”

  It wasn’t. But it was a good opportunity to end things.

  “Oh. Okay. Are you going to call me later?”

  “Probably not. Once I get back to the house, I plan on doing a lot of work, so I’m going to be busy. Talk soon though, okay?”

  “Um. Sure. Jules, I—”

  “Bye, Mace.” I ended the call like a coward because I didn’t want to hear him say he loved me. That was fucked up and I knew it. What in the hell was wrong with me?

  The waitress brought my breakfast a short time later and I firmly pushed away my guilty feelings concerning Mace. I really was just busy trying to get the place ready, I told myself, and the weird, vivid sex dreams certainly weren’t helping.

  Should I have mentioned the dreams to Mace? Probably not. No one wants to hear about the person you loved being with other men, even in a dream.

  I ate about half the breakfast, then slapped down some money for the bill and left. I felt really anxious to return to the Manor, which I decided I really needed to fight against. It wasn’t the house that called to me, but Dex.

  Near the restaurant was a wooden plank on which people could walk to get closer to the bay, so I headed to the water’s edge. Nearby otters played, and in the distance I spotted sea lines lying on a buoy.

  This was why I’d chosen this place to live. But those concerns now only seemed nominal, and at this point, I barely considered them.

  “Not thinking of jumping in, are you?”

  The voice at my elbow startled me into turning fast. An old woman, half my size, stood beside me, looking at the bay. She had one of those knitted shawls wrapped around her bony shoulders.

  “No. Why would I?”

  She shrugged. “You’d be surprised about the things that go on around here. You aren’t from here, are you?”

  “Not originally. I bought Dexter Manor.”

  She nodded. “I see. How’s that going?”

  “Lot of work.”

  She chuckled, though I wasn’t sure why. “I imagine so. I suppose you know all the stories, then.”

  “Most of them, I suppose. Dexter killed himself because of a fight with his director…his lover. Something like that.”

  This time she snorted. “That wasn’t it at all. Young people. Them and their fanciful stories.”

  “So he didn’t kill himself?”

  She shrugged again. “Well, he didn’t hang himself from the rafters, if that’s what you mean. But I suppose, in a manner of speaking, he did.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Died of a broken heart. Or that’s the term they used then. Now I guess you’d say he drank himself to death. Drugs, alcohol. But yes, it was over his lover. But it wasn’t the director. Oh, maybe they had a thing, I don’t know. But if so, it was long over before Owen came into the picture.”

  “Owen?” And the breath froze in my lungs. Owen.

  “The nephew of the director of the movie Dexter was making. Or was, at the time he started things with Owen. Owen had a bit part in it, nothing more, but Dexter fell for him and, by all accounts, he for Dexter. They were hot and heavy for months. Discreet, of course, as you had to be then, to a point anyway, but Dexter never much cared for normal social conventions, mind you. Owen moved in to the Manor after a time. Driving back and forth between LA and here became tedious.”

  “How do you know all this?” I wondered aloud, fascinated beyond belief, but also curious as hell. “You some sort of local historian?”

  “Something like that. They were very happy living up there on the hill. Until Owen was murdered.”

  “M-murdered?”

  She turned away her face. “The director, his uncle, was very disturbed by their growing relationship. Whether because he wanted Dexter for himself or whether he thought the relationship was keeping Dexter from working in more movies, I don’t know. He confronted Owen one night. Told him that the family didn’t approve of his homosexual lifestyle and wanted him to marry a young socialite they’d picked out for him. Owen didn’t like what his uncle had to say and it became a fight. The fight turned ugly, then violent. It was out in the backyard by the pool. The uncle picked up a glass pitcher and struck Owen in the head.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Owen fell into the pool. It made a terrible bloody mess. They were unable to revive him. He was dead. Dexter Larabee was devastated. The director was arrested and charged, of course. But poor Dexter was never the same. Until he died, as I said, of a broken heart.” She glanced at her wristwatch “I must be going, young man. Have a good day.”

  “Um. Thanks for the information.”

  I gazed at the bay, deeply unsettled by her story. So different from the one the bellboy at the hotel had relayed. “Hey wait,” I called as I turned to ask her why the stories were so different.

  She was gone.

  “Damn, she walked fast,” I said to no one but myself, my gaze drawn
to the hills beyond the Embarcadero. I realized I could see the front of Dexter Manor from where I stood. I shivered a little, though I wasn’t particularly cold.

  If the old woman’s story was true, then Dexter’s life really had been incredibly tragic.

  And I needed to get back to the house. To whatever awaited me there. I was no longer completely convinced I had dreamed Dexter and our lovemaking. Maybe I had never been convinced as much as I thought I was.

  But I decided to stop fighting the pull to the house. Back to Dexter.

  I went to my car and made it to the manor in less than ten minutes. I closed the gate behind me, then parked and locked my car.

  For a moment, I stood looking at the English Tudor-style home.

  I didn’t believe in ghosts, haunted houses, any of that. But exactly what explanation did I have for what was happening to me?

  I went inside to stand in the foyer. “Dexter? Where are you? Are you here? Dexter?”

  Chapter 6

  I received no answer to my call, and for a moment, I wondered what I had even expected. The reminder that I didn’t believe in ghosts and hauntings began as a thought once more, but before it could fully form, it vanished.

  Something was going on.

  Rather than head upstairs to the bedroom, where I seemed to spend far too much time, I opened the cellar door. I flicked on the light and headed downstairs.

  It was empty, of course. I had expected nothing less. And yet, I also could not entirely shake the feeling I was being watched by someone.

  I stepped toward the photos still leaning against one of the walls, going through them once more. I had stopped at Dex’s picture the other day.

  Now, I looked at the other pictures I had already viewed, the ones of the pool party guests. This second showed mostly women, though I saw a man or two amongst them, laughing and holding fancy drinks. They wore swimsuits in the old-fashioned style of the day.

  Then, one of the women caught my eye, and my heart sped up. “It can’t be,” I whispered.

  But the woman certainly appeared to be the same, albeit much younger here than when I had seen her by the dock.