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glasses. “Trust me, Erin. You must trust me.”
    “I can’t! I can’t trust anyone!”
    “Then you’ll never be free of the monsters.” He retreated into the blackness and vanished before hervery eyes. She spun back to the window, but Megan had already disappeared, too.
    And Erin was all alone.
    She woke up crying. Shivering violently, she lay huddled on the couch, watching the patterns on the ceiling shift and change like stones in a giant kaleidoscope. Just images, she told herself. Just nightmares.
    We’ve been waiting for you, Erin,
the wind moaned outside.
    “You won’t get me,” Erin whispered. “You don’t exist.” But her hands were trembling as she clutched the silver cross to her heart.

CHAPTER THREE
    E rin was amazed at how quickly the autopsy was performed and the body released to her for burial. She saw no reason to delay. After all, there was no other family to be considered, just her. With Detective Slade’s help and encouragement, the simple memorial services were hastily arranged and conducted late that afternoon.
    It was a perfect day for a funeral, overcast and cold, with sharp gusts of wind, which tugged at the hem of Erin’s white wool coat. By the time the small procession arrived at the cemetery, the rain had come. The sky grew ever blacker, more threatening, flapping the black canvas awning covering the grave like the wings of a giant bat.
    Erin stood at the edge of the open grave and wished she was anywhere but here. She’d written about funerals. Dozens. Usually it was the heroine’s mother she had buried in her books. But never the sister. Never had Erin imagined what it would be like to bury her own sister.
    Cold and shivering, she watched as Father Grady said the final prayer, then tossed a handful of dirt into the grave. He motioned to Erin, and she stepped forward.Unfastening her necklace, she dropped it into the grave.
    The silver cross seemed to glow with an ethereal light as it lay atop the ebony coffin. It was the last thing—the only thing—Erin could give to her sister to thwart the darkness that had tormented them both for years. Megan needed it more than Erin did now, but as Erin stood at the edge of the grave, an almost overwhelming sense of foreboding stole over her.
    As if drawn by a magnet, she turned her head and glanced over her shoulder. Through the misty veil of rain, she saw a male figure dressed all in black standing at the edge of the cemetery as if hovering on the threshold of a room he was forbidden to enter.
    The form seemed to waver in the drizzle while the mist swirled around him with an unnatural movement. Erin couldn’t see a face, but somehow his dark gaze penetrated the layers of fog as easily as a beam of concentrated light. There was something familiar about the apparition, she thought. Something…dangerous.
    Something evil.
    Erin began to shake. She struggled to look away, but his dark gaze held her imprisoned. A strange lethargy crept over her. She tried to fight it, but slowly Erin felt herself drifting away, floating on a mystical cloud that seemed to carry her to this menacing stranger. She heard a voice, a dark, persuasive voice borne by the wind.
We’ve been waiting for you,
itwhispered.
Your sister’s here, Erin. I can take you to her. Don’t let her down this time.
    A wave of dizziness washed over Erin, and a blackness so cold and so swift it seemed as if icy waters were closing over her head. She felt herself sway, and then her knees began to buckle. She was falling, plunging toward Megan’s open grave, descending toward that yawning abyss, that dark place from which there would be no return….
    Erin! Help me!
    Was that Megan’s voice that called to her? Was that Megan’s cry she heard?
    Suddenly Erin no longer had the will to fight. She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her.
    A gasp rose from the crowd. Just as she was about to pitch forward into the grave, someone grabbed her and pulled her back, with a hand that