Secret Sanctuary. Amanda Stevens

about ghosts and witches, do you? That stuff was made up just to attract tourists. None of it’s true.”

      “What about those women who were murdered in Moriah’s Landing fifteen years ago?” Claire challenged. “Did they make that up, too?”

      “Claire!” Brie Dudley warned in a low voice.

      Claire clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, God, Kat. I’m so sorry. I forgot.”

      Kat shrugged. “It’s okay. I forget sometimes myself.”

      But Elizabeth didn’t think that was true. Kat’s mother was thought to be the first victim of a serial killer who had terrorized Moriah’s Landing fifteen years ago. Before his gruesome reign ended, three more young women had lost their lives, and Elizabeth knew that in spite of what Kat said, her mother’s death still haunted her. The killings haunted the entire town because the murderer had never been caught.

      Gooseflesh prickled the back of Elizabeth’s neck. She fervently wanted to believe they had nothing to fear tonight—from the killer or from Leary’s ghost—but she couldn’t seem to shake her disquiet.

      But at fifteen, she was the baby of the group. The other girls were 18, and Elizabeth was always conscious of the age difference. She wasn’t about to be the first to suggest they turn back.

      “Elizabeth?”

      She blinked as the beam of someone’s flashlight caught her in the face.

      “You okay?” Brie asked worriedly. “You’re being awfully quiet. You haven’t said a word since we got here.”

      Elizabeth shrugged. “I’ve just been thinking.”

      Kat glanced over her shoulder. “About McFarland Leary?” she teased.

      “Who else?” Elizabeth tried to say lightly, but her tone sounded a bit defensive even to her.

      “You believe in ghosts, too, don’t you?” Claire whispered beside her.

      Elizabeth hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she believed in. She just knew there were things in this world that couldn’t be explained.

      “Look!” Tasha Pierce said on a breathless whisper. “There it is!”

      Tasha and Kat were in front, and they came to a stop as Tasha angled her light over Leary’s grave. Weather and time had worn smooth the face of the headstone, until all but a faint trace of carving remained. But they knew it was Leary’s grave.

      Lightning flickered overhead as wind gusted through the cemetery. Shivering, Tasha tucked her blond hair inside her collar. “We’d better get started before the storm hits.”

      The girls dropped to their knees, forming a circle around the grave. Tasha placed her flashlight in the center, then removed an ornate wooden box from her backpack and held it up to the light.

      “Inside are five scrolls,” she intoned solemnly, her voice rising over the wind. “All but one are blank. Whosoever chooses the image of McFarland Leary must enter the haunted mausoleum. Alone.”

      Elizabeth was the last to draw. The others had waited for her, and now they all unrolled the tiny scrolls they’d each selected.

      Beside her, Claire gave a horrified gasp. She held up the slip of paper so that everyone could see the etching of McFarland Leary.

      Of all the girls, Claire was the least prepared to enter the haunted crypt alone. She was the most sensitive, the most easily frightened.

      Elizabeth swallowed back her own fear. “I’ll go in your place, Claire.”

      “No,” Brie said. “You’re the youngest, Elizabeth. I’m not letting you go anywhere alone. I’ll go.”

      “I will.” Tasha wadded up her scroll and stuffed it in her pocket. “This graveyard is full of Pierces. They’ll protect one of their own.”

      “I say none of us go.” Kat slammed the box shut and glanced around the circle. The wind whipped her black hair straight back from her face, making her look almost otherworldly. “They can’t make us do this. Hazing went out with the Dark Ages.”

      There were murmurs of assent all around, but Claire shook her head and got to her feet. “It’s not really hazing. Not the bad kind anyway. It’s a tradition, and besides, I don’t want to be the cause of any of us getting blackballed.”

      Kat scowled. “Who gives a flying—”

      “I care,” Claire said softly. “I can do this. I need to do this. I’ll be fine.”

      Ignoring their protests, she picked up her flashlight and headed toward the ancient, crumbling mausoleum. In the intermittent flickers of lightning, Elizabeth could see a broken cross silhouetted against the stormy sky.

      Slowly, Claire climbed the stone steps, opened the door, and then, glancing back only once, stepped through the dark portal. For a moment, they could see her light playing off the walls, and then the door creaked shut behind her.

      “I’m going in there with her.” Kat started to get to her feet, but Tasha grabbed her hand.

      “No, wait. Maybe this really is something she wants to do on her own. Besides, we’ll be right here if she needs us.”

      “Then we have to do our part,” Brie said. “Are we all agreed?”

      “Agreed,” Elizabeth murmured, but guilt washed over her because as frightened as she was for Claire, a part of her was glad she wasn’t the one inside that crypt.

      “Once we join hands, the circle must not be broken,” Tasha warned. “Physically or mentally.”

      Elizabeth squeezed her eyes closed as the girls joined hands, forming a protective circle as they summoned the natural forces of earth, air, fire and water to guard Claire from the ghosts of McFarland Leary and any other evil creatures who might roam the night.

      But for just a split second, Elizabeth’s mind wandered, and she thought about Cullen Ryan, a boy she’d had a crush on for ages. In trouble with the law, he’d dropped out of high school the year before and left town in the middle of the night. Elizabeth had no idea where he’d gone, or if she would ever see him again. But she prayed that wherever he was, he was safe, too.

      And at the very moment when her concentration was weakened, when the spiritual circle was broken, thunder cracked overhead and a scream ripped through the darkness.

      Claire!

      The girls scrambled to their feet and raced toward the mausoleum. The door was stuck at first, but Kat managed to shove it open. The beam of her flashlight chased away shadows and shimmered off cobwebs suspended from the ornate ceiling. The scent of death and decay permeated the air, but there was no sign of Claire.

      Elizabeth’s heart started to pound with a terrible fear, a horrible premonition. She knew what had happened. While she’d been thinking about Cullen, the protective circle had been broken. The evil had been allowed in, and now Claire was gone.

      And it was all Elizabeth’s fault.

      Chapter One

      Five years later…

      Elizabeth peered through her rain-spattered windshield as she wended her way around the curving drive toward the lighted mansion. February-bare oaks reached skeletal arms across the narrow lane, entwining with one another to form a natural arbor through which only thin tendrils of light could creep. The night was very dark.

      Comprising well over a hundred acres of landscaped grounds, the Pierce compound—hidden from prying eyes by eight-foot, ivy-covered stone walls and thick stands of evergreens—was a masterpiece of design and privacy. The focal point was a lavish brick colonial owned by William and Maureen Pierce, the town’s most prominent citizens.

      A Pierce ancestor had founded Moriah’s Landing in 1652, and the descendants had lived there ever since. The family