The Taking by Erin McCarthy

methodical swing of both doors simultaneously, like someone had a hand on each of them and was pushing.
    “Chris.” She felt around for his arm, not taking her eyes off the doors, but wanting physical contact with him.
    “Yeah?”
    She squeezed his hand when she found it. “Will you stay here tonight?”
    “Am I going to need a garlic necklace?”
    They watched the doors finish their slow journey outward then stop when they were fully open. Regan jumped involuntarily when the door stops dropped down onto the wood floor to maintain the open position.
    “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That’s for vampires. I think we just have a ghost. One who apparently needs fresh air.”
    She had wanted to find something within the walls of her old house, and it looked like she had.
    “Maybe they know where the hooch is hidden.”
    “I’ll let you ask.”
    “So what do we do?” He squeezed her hand back, his own voice a low murmur. “I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe—or in this case, monkey—to drop.”
    “I think we go out onto the balcony and act like nothing is wrong.”
    “Well, I’m good at that. I act like nothing is wrong on a regular basis. But what if we walk through her or something?”
    They shuffled forward, still holding hands.
    “Oh God, don’t say that.”
    But even as she was speaking, Regan felt a gust of air sweep over her, so cold and empty that it felt like the breath was being sucked right out of her lungs. She stopped, unable to move, the sensation frightening and unlike anything she’d ever felt, her hair whipping across her face like she was outside in a sharp wind. Then the air seemed to snap, and the rush of cold was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
    She looked at Chris, unable to speak. His eyes were round, his breathing heavy. “Did you feel that?” he asked.
    Regan nodded, still speechless.
    “Screw the balcony. Let’s go get dinner and a drink.”
    “Good idea,” she said, swallowing hard.
    They edged forward, flicked up the doorstops, and pulled the French doors closed, then practically fell over each other getting down the stairs.
    “I bought a haunted house,” she told Chris as they burst out onto the street. She was stunned, and not sure how she felt about the whole thing.
    “Yes, you did. And for nine bajillion dollars. Guess you can’t even get haunted houses for cheap anymore.”

Chapter Five

    Felix stood outside the coffee shop for a second, watching Regan through the window. She had her bag cuddled in her lap and she was reading a magazine—a pretty woman, and yet unremarkable in many ways. Just another attractive twenty-something mortal woman.
    What was her connection to Alcroft? Why the hell had he married her? And what perverse chain of events had Felix set in motion when he had asked her to take off the ring that bound her body and soul to Alcroft?
    It was hard for him to believe that her husband would readily give in to a divorce. If he had wanted her, he wouldn’t have appreciated her being the one to walk away. If Alcroft was fighting the divorce, Felix was wading into dangerous, shark-infested waters.
    But he had told himself that it was in his own self-interest to see what was in Camille’s journal. If he could protect Regan at the same time, all the better.
    He walked in, strode around the front of her table, and sat down across from her.
    Regan looked up with a tentative smile, her hair up in a ponytail. “Hi, how are you?”
    She was wearing dark jeans and a white shirt. It was a casual outfit, yet somehow she still managed to look pulled together. Beyond pulled together, and veering in to uptight. Muted. It wasn’t that she was emotionally reserved, because he didn’t get that impression, but it was as if the clothes she chose were intended for someone else, for a corporate woman.
    He didn’t know what Regan did for a living, if anything, but he didn’t for one minute think it was a corporate job.
    “Hi. How was moving