by Paige Tyler
Beside Presley, Robert was nodding again. “That’d be enough to scare anyone, but then the wife claims she saw something else even more terrifying, something that freaked her out so much she refused to spend another night in the place. That was three months ago.”
“What did she see?” Presley asked.
“We don’t know for sure,” he admitted. “The wife was a little bit confusing on the details.”
That sounded hokey. Why wouldn’t the woman tell them what she’d seen? Was it a ghost or wasn’t it? Then abruptly it hit her. Robert was making the whole thing up for her benefit.
Presley looked at Brielle, then at Mav, and finally at Logan. None of their faces gave anything away. When she admitted she was a little bummed she hadn’t seen a ghost last night, they must have decided to make up one so she could feel as if she was getting her money’s worth. It was a sneaky thing to do when she thought about it, but she had no choice other than to play along.
“If the woman wouldn’t tell you what she saw, then how do you know the place is even haunted? Maybe the house turned out to be a money pit and claiming it’s haunted is their way of trying to get out of paying the mortgage.”
Logan looked at her over his shoulder. “And how exactly would claiming the house is haunted get them out of paying the mortgage?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they thought you’d give them some kind of official documentation saying it’s haunted or something.”
“Official documentation. Right. That’d get them out of their mortgage.” He shook his head. “You should stick to writing romance books.”
Presley gritted her teeth. Okay, so maybe that didn’t make sense. “All right, so assuming the house is haunted, what’s the plan?”
“Plan?” Logan asked.
“Yeah. Do we do the same thing we did at the house we went to last night? Or is there a different procedure when you suspect a place is actually haunted?”
Logan started to answer, but Mav beat him to it.
“We do the same thing,” he said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror. “And if it turns out the house is haunted, we’ll try to cleanse it.”
“Cleanse it?”
“The thing Logan did with the salt and the herbs last night,” Brielle explained.
“Oh.”
Presley hoped they’d do something a little more exciting than season the place with herbs. She felt like she was hanging out with a team of chefs, not ghost hunters. But then she reminded herself they were making up the whole thing anyway, so it didn’t matter what they did. She had definitely wasted her money. She knew that in her heart.
When they arrived in Delhi two hours later, Presley had a hard time suppressing a shiver as they pulled up in front of the house. An old multi-story Victorian with turret rooms to either side of the front door and a wraparound porch, it must have been a spectacular home at one time. Now, in the dim light of dusk, it looked more like something straight out of an Edgar Allen Poe tale. Logan and his team couldn’t have picked a house that looked any more haunted. It didn’t help that the wrought-iron gate swung ever so slightly in the evening breeze, either. Even though she knew it probably wasn’t any more haunted than the house they’d gone to last night, she felt goosebumps chase up her arms as she climbed out of the Hummer.
Presley glanced at Brielle and was surprised to see the other woman wet her lips nervously as she stared at the house. Maybe the guys hadn’t let her in on the plan, and she thought the place truly was haunted. Presley didn’t know if she was feeding off Brielle’s apparent uneasiness or what, but her heart started to race as she fell into step beside the woman as they walked up the broken path to the front door. Logan and Mav were already on the porch waiting for them. Unlike last night, there wasn’t a lockbox on the door, which made sense since the place wasn’t for sale. Instead, Robert pulled a key out of his pocket and fitted it into the lock. Presley was surprised to see his hand tremble. Since he’d told the story, she thought for sure he was in on things. Maybe he was trying to sell it.
The door creaked as he pushed it open and a chill ran down Presley’s back at the sound. Logan and Mav went in first, leaving the rest of them to follow.
The inside had the same creepy vibe as the outside, and Presley took an unconscious step closer to the others as she played the flashlight Brielle gave her over the ornate molding and peeling wallpaper in the entryway. Obviously, the people who owned the house hadn’t gotten around to fixing it up very much before they left.
Mav flicked the light switch by the door. “Power’s already turned off.”
“Good,” Logan said. “I’ll take the first and second floor. Mav, you take the third floor and the attic. Robert and Brielle, take Presley with you and check out the basement. If you guys get any EMF readings at all down there, give a shout.”
Presley felt like Logan was forcing her to go off with Shaggy and Scooby as she followed Brielle and Robert toward the back of the house. She hadn’t expected Logan to invite her to tag along, but she’d been hoping Mav might. While she enjoyed hanging out with Brielle and Robert, she needed to get the real scoop on ghosts, and she simply didn't think that was going to happen if she kept hanging out with the B-team. She sighed. Well, at least Logan hadn’t deliberately left her out this time.
She wasn’t thrilled about checking the basement, though. Basements were always these unfinished, drafty places full of bugs and spiderwebs. To her surprise, however, the one in this house was finished. Or at least the part she could see, anyway. Someone had subdivided the basement into separate rooms, so it was kind of like a maze. It made her feel as if she was in a creepy fun house. It didn’t help that there were no windows. The place was darker than hell. Presley could barely see anything with her sorry excuse for a flashlight.
Presley stuck close to Brielle and Robert as they made their way through the dark. She looked for movement on the EMF meter, but the needle didn’t budge. She glanced at the digital readout on the thermal scanner Brielle was holding and saw that the temperature was holding steady at a chilly fifty-eight degrees.
Since this was turning out to be another snooze-fest, Presley decided to dig for some info on Logan.
“What’s the deal with Logan?” she asked Brielle as they walked. “I was looking at the photos in his office when he came in and he practically bit my head off.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Brielle said. “That’s how he is sometimes.”
That didn’t answer her question. “I saw that he used to be a cop. Did something happen back then to make him so utterly charming?”
Brielle was silent for a moment. “He doesn’t want anyone getting hurt, that’s all.”
“Hurt ghost hunting?” Presley snorted. “What are we going to do, trip over something in the dark?”
The other woman didn’t say anything. Presley was about to prompt her when Robert abruptly stopped in his tracks.
“I’ve got something,” he said.
At the words, she and Brielle immediately crowded in close to look at the EMF meter. The needle had moved midway up the scale and was now hovering there. That was way more of a reading than Logan had gotten last night. Even though she’d already decided the place wasn’t haunted, her pulse quickened.
“Is it a ghost?” she couldn’t help asking.
Of course it wasn’t, right?
Robert pushed his glasses up on his nose with his free hand. “Not necessarily. Remember, this thing can pick up anything electromagnetic. Maybe we’re picking up something from the washer and dryer over there.”
Presley had been so caught up in talking to Brielle about Logan, she hadn’t even realized they’d wandered into a laundry room. There was a beat-up washer and dryer on the far side of the room, a utility sink along one wall and a pile of cleaning supplies in the corner.
“Nice theory,” Brielle said. “But the power is off, remember? No power, no EMF.”
“Oh. Yeah, right. I forgot.” The hand holding the EMF
meter trembled a little. “I suppose it could be…”
His words tailed off as the needle when the EMF meter suddenly vibrated wildly as it detected a spike in electromagnetic energy. Presley jumped and played her flashlight over the small laundry room, looking for a ghost. But all she saw were the washer and dryer.
She turned her attention back to the EMF meter Robert was holding when the air in the room suddenly went from a chilly to freaking cold. She shivered.
“Did you feel that?” she asked Brielle and Robert.
Brielle nodded. “It’s a cold spot. The thermometer dropped twenty degrees.”
“Oh crap,” Robert muttered.
“We should go get Logan,” Brielle said nervously. “Now.”
Before any of them could move, a dark, indistinct figure began to take shape over by the washing machine. Presley stared at it open-mouthed, watching in disbelief as the thing slowly coalesced into a human form. No way. This had to be fake.
“Turn off your lights,” Robert whispered.
Presley wasn’t sure why he wanted them to turn off their flashlights, but she obediently thumbed the switch anyway. So did Brielle. Beside them, Robert was fumbling in his duffel bag for something.
“I have to get this on video,” he said. “This is the absolute coolest thing ever.”
Presley frowned as Robert took out a small, hand-held video camera and turned it on. She wasn’t sure what kind of image he expected to get in the dark. She was about to ask him as much when she realized the ghostly shape was no longer a dark, indistinct form, but instead had turned into the figure of a woman so white and pearlescent it was practically glowing.
This looked exactly like the stuff she had seen in the hospital—right down to the white glow. “Tell me I'm really seeing this.”
“Yeah, you’re seeing it,” Robert mumbled. “A white, glowing human-shaped figure, it’s approximately five feet tall. But it’s hovering a little above the floor, so it’s hard to tell exactly how tall it is.”
Presley abruptly realized Robert was speaking for the video camera’s benefit. He was describing what he was seeing. But why was he saying it a human-shaped figure? It was far more detailed than that.
About Presley’s age, the woman had red hair and was dressed in a long nightgown. As Presley watched, an iron appeared in her hand. A moment later, an ironing board materialized in front of the ghost and she moved her hand back and forth as if she were ironing clothes. There was no way this could be fake. It looked too real.
Presley threw Brielle and Robert a quick glance over her shoulder to assure herself they were seeing the same thing she was. One look at the amazed expressions on their faces told her they were. Okay, so her eyes weren’t playing trick on her. It was a ghost.
“It’s a woman,” Brielle whispered. “She’s ironing clothes. I can see it now. Can you two see it?”
Robert nodded and focused his camera. Well, at least they were seeing the same think she was now.
Presley turned her attention back to the apparition and saw that the woman had stopped ironing and was now folding clothes. It suddenly occurred to Presley that she should be terrified of the woman, but instead she was mesmerized.
“I’ll be damned,” Robert breathed.
Presley glanced at him. “Is it okay for us to talk? Won’t we disturb her?”
He shook his head, his gaze glued to the video camera’s view screen. “She can’t hear us. She’s not even here. We’re seeing an electromagnetic representation of her soul, trapped in a simple task she enjoyed doing while she was alive. She’ll keep ironing and folding until the electromagnetic force dissipates and her soul finally moves on. She’s literally in a world of her own making and has absolutely no idea we’re here. You could walk right over to her and…”
His words trailed off as the ghost whirled around to look at them with wide, frightened eyes. Or at least Presley thought she was looking at them. After a moment, she realized the woman wasn’t looking at them at all, but at something only she could see.
All of a sudden, another ghostly figure took shape. Although this new ghost had its back to her, Presley could tell from the height and the width of its shoulders the apparition was a man. She didn’t know whether it was because she was channeling the female ghost’s fear or because the male ghost had a distinct air of menace to him, but the hair on the back of Presley’s neck stood up.
On the far side of the room, the woman cringed and backed away as the man advanced on her. She shook her head and said something to him, but no sound accompanied the words. Even though Presley couldn’t hear what the female ghost was saying, she could tell from the beseeching look on the woman’s face that she was begging him not to hurt her.
Her words fell on deaf ears. Reaching out, the man grabbed the female ghost by the arm and yanked her forward to give her a shake. Tears glistened in the woman’s eyes and she shook her head frantically as he reached for the iron.
The asshole was going to burn her with the damn thing.
Presley automatically took a step forward, but Brielle put a hand on her arm.
“You can’t help her,” Brielle said. “Ghosts are only an electromagnetic field. They aren’t real people. They’re playing out a scene that happened to them when they were alive. What you’re seeing happened a long, long time ago.”
Although that was all very rational, Presley still couldn’t stand there and do nothing while he abused the poor woman. Even if she did nothing more than disrupt the electromagnetic field surrounding them so the scene wouldn’t play out any further.
Spotting the dust mop leaning against the wall, Presley picked it up. Gripping the handle tightly, she took a step forward before either Brielle or Robert could stop her and swung it as hard as she could across the male ghost’s back.
She wasn’t surprised when it passed straight through the apparition without any resistance. She was shocked at the ice-cold jolt that surged up her arm, though. While it wasn’t painful, it wasn’t pleasurable, either. She dropped the mop and jumped back with a little yelp.
Brielle was at her side immediately. “Are you okay?”
Presley nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. I think.” She rubbed her arm with her free hand. “It zapped me.”
Brielle turned on Robert. He was staring at Presley wide-eyed, the video camera in his hand forgotten.
“I thought we couldn’t interact with ghosts,” Brielle said.
He shook his head in obvious bewilderment. “We can’t. At least Logan and Mav said we couldn’t. According to them, a manifestation shouldn’t be able to touch our plane of existence. There should be no way for Presley to get zapped by one.”
“Shows what the hell they know,” Presley muttered.
Brielle swore under her breath. “Come on. Let’s go find Logan and Mav before this ghost does something else it shouldn’t be able to do.”
Although Presley wanted to get out of there as much as Brielle did, she was reluctant to leave the female ghost with her abuser. But when Presley looked in their direction, she saw that both apparitions had disappeared. Hoping it meant the poor woman wouldn’t have to relive that horrible moment for this night at least, Presley turned to follow Brielle and Robert from the room only to come to an abrupt halt when the male ghost suddenly reappeared in the doorway, blocking their escape.
“Is it my imagination or is he looking right at us?” Brielle whispered.
Presley took a step closer to the other woman. “He’s definitely looking at us.”
She’d thought the ghost was scary before, but now he seemed even more terrifying. Not only was he big enough to be a linebacker, but the eyes that regarded them were cold and hard and absolutely devoid of any mercy. Presley could only imagine the hell that poor woman must have endured at his hands when she was alive.
“He can’t be looking at us,” Robert said. “Ghosts are residual energy. They don’t have conscious thought.”
“Yeah, well maybe you should tell him that,” Presley sa
id. “I don’t know about you two, but I’ve had enough ghost hunting for one night. I say we get the hell out of here.”
Brielle nodded. “I’m all for that.”
When they went to slip around the ghost, it moved with them so it still blocked the way out. Those cold eyes locked on Presley. Then, without warning, it charged, coming straight at her.
* * * * *
Presley instinctively threw herself to the side in an effort to avoid the ghost. Even though the ghost only brushed against her, the zap it gave her still felt freaky and she let out a little cry as she fell to the floor. Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Damn thing.
Brielle grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before it comes back.”
Presley didn’t need any more encouragement. With only Brielle’s tiny flashlight leading the way, it was difficult to navigate the dark basement and Presley dug in the pocket of her coat for hers as she hurried after the woman. She took it out and was about to turn it on when the ghost suddenly materialized ahead of her.
Startled, she jerked to a halt. Behind her, Robert skidded to a stop.
“Go,” he said breathlessly. “I’ll try to keep the ghost away from you.”
Presley wanted to ask how he planned to do that, but she didn’t feel like getting zapped again, so she took off after Brielle.
She looked around wildly for the ghost as she ran, but she couldn’t see him until he materialized in front of her and by then, it was too late. Brielle and Robert tried to put themselves between the ghost and her on the mad dash for the steps, but the apparition moved through them as if they weren’t even there and zapped Presley anyway.
“Depart our presence immediately!” Robert shouted at the ghost as they ran. “You’re not wanted here!”
Presley bit back a yelp as another zap of ice-cold electricity surged through her. Apparently, the ghost didn’t care what they wanted. He was pissed and he was going to take it out on her.
