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The Presence

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Chapter One

The scream rose and echoed in the night with a blood-curdling resonance that only the truly young, and truly terrified, could create.

Her parents ran into the room, called by instinct to battle whatever force had brought about such absolute horror in their beloved child.

Yet there was nothing. Nothing but their nine-year-old, standing on the bed, arms locked at her side, fingers curled into her fists with a terrible rigidity, as if she had suddenly become an old woman. She was screaming, the sound coming again and again, high, screeching, tearing, like the sound of fingernails dragged down the length of a blackboard.

Both parents looked desperately around the room, then their eyes met.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart!"

Her mother came for her unnoticed and tried to take the girl into her arms, but she was inflexible. The father came forward, calling her name, taking her and then shaking her. Once again, she gave no notice.

Then she went down. She simply crumpled into a heap in the center of the bed. Again the parents looked at one another, then the mother rushed forward, sweeping the girl into her arms, cradling her to her breast. "Sweetie, please, please ...!"

Blue eyes, the color of a soft summer sky, opened to hers. Theywere filled with angelic innocence. The child's head was haloed by her wealth of white-blond hair, and she smiled sleepily at the sight of her mother's face, as if nothing had happened, as if the bone-jar-ring sounds had never come from her lips.

"Did you have a nightmare?" her mother asked anxiously.

Then a troubled frown knit her brow. "No!" she whispered, and the sky-blue eyes darkened, the fragile little body began to shake.

The mother looked at her husband, shaking her head. "We've got to call the doctor."

"It's two in the morning. She's had a nightmare."

"We need to call someone."

"No," her father said firmly. "We need to tuck her back into bed and discuss it in the morning."

"But -"

"If we call the doctor, we'll be referred to the emergency room. And if we go to the emergency room, we'll sit there for hours, and they'll tell us to take her to a shrink in the morning."

"Donald!"

"It's true, Ellen, and you know it."

Ellen looked down. Her daughter was staring at her with huge eyes, shaking now.

"The police!" she whispered.

"The police?" Ellen asked.

"I saw him, Mommy. I saw what that awful man did to the lady."

"What lady, darling?"

"She was on the street, stopping cars. She had big red hair and a short silver skirt. The man stopped for her in a red car with no top, like Uncle Ted's. She got in with him and he drove and then ... and then ..."

Donald walked across the room and took hold of his daughter's shoulders. "Stop this! You're lying. You haven't been out of this room!"

Ellen shoved her husband away. "Stop it! She's terrified as it is."

"And she wants us to call the police? Our only child will wind up on the front page of the papers, and if they don't catch this psycho murdering women, he'll come after her! No, Ellen."

"Maybe they can catch him," Ellen suggested softly.

"You have to forget it!" Donald said sternly to his daughter.

She nodded gravely, then shook her head. "I have to tell it!" she whispered.

Ellen seldom argued with Donald. But tonight she had picked her battle.

"When this happens ... you have to let her talk."

"No police!" Donald insisted.

"I'll call Adam."

"That shyster!"

"He's no shyster and you know it."

Donald's eyes slid from his wife's to those of his daughter, which were awash in misery and a fear she shouldn't have to know. "Call the man," he said.

* * *

He was very old; that was Toni's first opinion of Adam Harrison. His face was long, his body was thin, and his hair was snow-white. But his eyes were the kindest, most knowing, she had seen in her nine years on earth.

He came to the bedside, took her hand, clasped it firmly between his own and smiled slowly. She had been shaking, but his gentle hold eased the trembling from her, just as it warmed her. He was very special. He understood that she had seen what she had seen without ever leaving the house. And she knew, of course, that it was ridiculous. Such things didn't happen. But it had happened.

She hated it. Loathed it. And she understood her father's concern. It was a very bad thing. People would make fun of her - or they would want to use her ability for their own purposes.

"So, tell me about it," Adam said to her, after he had explained that he was an old friend of her mother's family.

"I saw it," she whispered, and the shaking began again.

"Tell me what you saw."

"There was a woman on the street, trying to get cars to stop. One stopped. She leaned into it, and she started to talk to the man about money. Then she went with him. She got into the car. It was red."

"It was a convertible?"

"Like Uncle Ted's car."

"Right," he said, squeezing her hand again.

Her voice became a monotone. She repeated some of the conversation between the man and woman word for word. Perspiration broke out on her body as she felt the woman's growing sense of fear. She couldn't breathe as she described the knife. She was drenched with sweat at the end, and cold. So cold. He talked to her and assured her.

Then the police arrived, called by neighbors who were awakened by her screams.

The two officers flanked her bed and started firing questions at her, demanding to know what she had seen - or what had been done to her.

Despite the terror, she felt all right because of Adam. But then huge tears formed in her eyes. "Nothing, nothing! I saw nothing!"

Adam rose, his voice firm and filled with such authority that even the men with their guns and badges listened to him. They left the room. Adam winked at her and went with the men, telling her that he would talk to them.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Presence by Heather Graham Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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