Shuttered Secrets

by Melissa Erin Jackson

Just as she reached it, the motion sensor was triggered again, by her this time, filling the space with light. It revealed that the bathroom was empty; no one was crouched low in the tub or standing in the glass-walled shower. All the drawers were closed. Nothing was out of order. The motion sensor on the bathroom counter had nothing immediate in its path that could have set it off earlier. She was bent over the sink, checking the area around the sensor’s sides and base when the sense that someone was behind her made her whirl around.

  The woman from the stairs stood in the bathroom with her now, but she didn’t seem to notice Riley. She held her tape recorder out, ready to ask, Are you Iris or Amy? Riley lightly cleared her throat, so as to not startle the woman. No reaction. Heart hammering, Riley waved a hand near her as if she too were a motion sensor she could trigger to react to her presence. The woman only had eyes for the medicine cabinet above one of the two bowl sinks. Riley slipped the recorder into her pocket; it wouldn’t be of much use if the ghost wasn’t a talker.

  Riley took a few steps back, moving farther into the bathroom to give the woman some room. Instead of screaming bloody murder and bolting for the safety of the living with Nina and Olivia, Riley forced her shoulders to relax and her breathing to slow.

  Trust your instincts.

  As the ghost woman hobbled for the medicine cabinet, Riley studied her. She wore the same outfit she’d been wearing before taking that tumble down the stairs—a T-shirt, jeans, and bathrobe. Her black hair was up in that same messy ponytail, and scrapes marred her arms in a few places, as well as her cheek. The woman stopped at the counter, and though she reached for the medicine cabinet, she was caught off guard by her own reflection. She touched her cheek gently with two fingers, then her swollen lip. Pulling her lips back from her teeth, she was taken even more off guard when she noted that one of her front teeth was cracked. She whimpered and tenderly touched a pointer finger to the jagged edge.

  “I gotta go, lady!” a male voice suddenly called out.

  The ghost woman turned and walked unsteadily toward the doorway of the master bedroom, a bit like a newborn deer. Riley followed her but froze when a young man appeared there. She reminded herself that he wasn’t actually here; Nina and Olivia would have reacted if someone else had entered the house at two in the morning. Riley made herself study this person, too. The guy was eighteen or so, but had one of those youthful faces, where he could have just as easily been fifteen on one end of the spectrum, or twenty-five on the other.

  “My ride is here.” The young man’s dark brows bunched as he took in the woman’s appearance. Frowning, he said, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, thank you. I really appreciate your help.”

  “No problem,” he said, but his words lacked conviction. He wore a backpack and held a skateboard by his side. “I think if you get really dizzy or something, you should go to the hospital. Aren’t you not supposed to sleep if you have a concussion?” He shifted, holding the skateboard in front of him now with both hands, the rows of wheels flush with his forearms.

  She lightly waved him away. “I don’t think I have a concussion. I’ll be okay.”

  “Seems like you fell pretty hard,” he said, weight switching from foot to foot. “Is the headache still bad? I could get you some more pills—”

  Another dismissive wave of her hand. “Three did the trick. I’m feeling much better.”

  His mouth bunched up on one side. “Well, okay. Promise you’ll go to the doctor if it gets worse, yeah?”

  “I will. Thank you,” she said. “You’re a good kid.”

  He ducked his head. “Thanks. Take care.”

  “You too.”

  The thud of his footsteps down the stairs was quickly followed by the slam of a door. Riley and the woman both jumped at the sound. The woman turned toward the bathroom but must have moved too quickly, because she listed to the side and collided with one of the posters of her bed. She grabbed and held on, her arms wrapped around it as if it were a mast of a ship that was capsizing beneath her. Once the wave of vertigo seemed to have passed, she moved into the bathroom again. Riley watched from the doorway as the woman went about washing her face, touching up the cuts on her cheek and arms, and putting an ointment on her split lip. The longer she watched the woman, the more spacey the woman became, as if she’d forgotten what she’d been doing in the middle of the act. She walked out into the bedroom twice, stopped halfway toward the master bedroom door, and then returned to the bathroom to repeat things she’d already done. She brushed her teeth three separate times in what must have spanned fifteen minutes.

  After the third brushing, the woman’s behavior grew even more erratic, her breathing became shallow, and she scratched absently at her arm. Small red welts had sprung up on her arms.

  “Oh God,” she muttered, hand to her temple. “Oh God. He gave me the wrong ones. Oh … shit.”

  She stumbled for the bedroom, staggered across the space, and accidentally bumped her shoulder into the doorway that led out into the hall. The jolt gave her the spins, and she grabbed hold of her head as she waited for the world to right itself. Another stumble. She groped at the wall.

  Riley recognized the scene now and called out, “She’s heading for the stairs!” Though she was startled to hear her own voice after all this time in silence, the sound didn’t affect the stumbling woman.

  By the time Nina and Olivia had joined her, the spirit was swaying atop the staircase. When her foot slipped out from underneath her, Riley turned her back to the scene, not needing to witness it again. Hearing the horrible crash of her body tumbling downstairs, colliding with the wall, railing, and the hard, unforgiving edges of the steps was bad enough.

  “Oh, damn,” Olivia muttered behind her. “God, she felt so … sick when she fell. Her arms and face itched. Her stomach was a mess. She was so … confused. Even before she fell.”

  Riley turned then, relieved that the body at the bottom of the steps had vanished. The haunting was residual in a lot of ways, where the spirit appeared unaware that she was reliving her death on a loop, while also unaware that Riley, Nina, and Olivia witnessed it. Yet, she had looked toward Riley the last time she was here, and she’d lifted and dropped that credenza to get her attention before the fall. She’d wanted Riley to see it, and now she wanted Riley to see what had led up to it.

  Olivia leaned against the bannister, a hand pressed to her stomach.

  Nina approached her, hand out. “You okay?”

  Olivia waved her away, much like the woman had dismissed the young man, preventing Nina from touching her. “Just … give me a minute. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

  When Olivia had righted herself, hands on hips and taking in large pulls of air that she slowly let out through her mouth, Riley asked, “Did either of you see her?”

  “Nope,” Olivia said.

  “Tell us what you saw,” Nina said.

  Riley recounted the scene she’d been shown. “I can’t be sure, but—”

  “Trust your instincts,” Nina said.

  “Okay … so the young kid who was here … he mentioned a fall, which obviously happened before this one.” Riley pointed at the stairs. “I think she fell—outside, I’m guessing—and this kid saw it. He helped her inside and got her some pills for her headache. Based on what Olivia said about how she was feeling, I’m wondering if she had an allergic reaction to the meds the kid brought her?”

  “That would make sense,” Olivia said. “I know you said she had scrapes on her arms and face, but the itchiness I felt was … everywhere. Like all of my skin itched. It reminded me of the time I fell in poison ivy as a kid. That feeling I got from her definitely jibes with an allergic reaction.”

  Nina said, “But we still don’t know why she’s haunting this house every night. Why keep showing us her fall down the stairs? This is clearly an intelligent haunting even if it has elements of a residential one.”

  Riley had no idea. “Do we know yet if she’s Iris or Amy?
”

  “No,” Nina said. “We might have gotten a name confirmation on the tapes.”

  After another half hour of EVP sessions, they called it a night. The woman made no further appearances no matter what was asked or who asked the questions, even though they were now armed with new information. Julie had agreed not to return to the house until late morning, so Nina would leave the cameras running overnight to see if anything further was caught once the house was empty of living occupants.

  The motion sensor lights were left where they were; Nina would box them up in the morning. Riley and Olivia handed over their tape recorders. Nina’s task tomorrow was to sift through the hours of recordings in search of ghostly replies from one of the Velasco women.

  After they locked up the house, Olivia wished them a good night and headed for her own car.

  “I know you have a tendency to go into internet wormholes when you have a piece of information,” Nina told Riley as they stood beside her car. “If you want to try searching for Iris and Amy online, I’m fine with that. I wanted your first session here to be as organic as possible, uninfluenced by outside information. But now that you’ve been here, go for it. Research can be a big part of this job, too.”

  Riley had to admit that part of it did appeal to her. “Thanks for letting me tag along,” she said as she headed across the street.

  “Of course. Have a good night … what’s left of it.”

  Riley sat in her car, staring up at Julie’s house for a long time even after Olivia and Nina had driven away. Nothing shifted the curtains on the upstairs windows, no lights flickered on inside. The house was still.

  She grabbed her phone, swiping away text messages from her friends, parents, and Michael, all asking how the ghost hunt went, and instead pulled up a search engine. Twenty minutes of searches eventually revealed what she’d been looking for: a social media page for Amy Velasco. Dozens of people had posted their condolences on her wall about the death of her mother on the 15th of March last year. It had been almost exactly a year and a half since the day of Iris’s death.

  One of the posts was an article about dealing with the death of a parent due to suicide. It was the only post Amy had replied to. I know you mean well, the message said, but my mom didn’t kill herself.

  Riley glanced back up at the house, squinting as her eyes adjusted to darkness after staring at the bright screen of her phone for so long. It seemed bizarre that a fall down the stairs had been labeled a suicide, as that seemed like such a hard thing to prove. Lethal accidents happened in people’s own houses—what had made the medical examiner determine suicide?

  “She’s desperate to tell us something, though,” Olivia had said.

  Of all the things Iris could have shown them, she repeatedly shared her fall down the stairs. From what Iris had shown Riley, she’d suffered from a concussion somehow, the young man had helped her inside, and had then fetched pills for her to lessen the pain of her headache. In her confusion, Iris possibly hadn’t warned him which meds she was allergic to, or he hadn’t understood Iris’s instructions—either way, he’d given her “the wrong ones.” The allergic reaction caused even more confusion, which led to a second fall down the stairs, which was what had killed her.

  Clearly, from the posts on Amy’s wall, the reported cause of death was suicide. Rumor had even reached Julie by way of a neighbor. Iris wanted them to know it wasn’t true.

  Putting her phone back in her purse, Riley finally started the drive home. She had cold-called someone with information from the other side before, but it had been nerve-wracking. Grief was a sticky landscape to wade through anyway, but when adding in a psychic medium element to it, things got even stickier. She was glad in that moment that this was ultimately Nina’s job; Riley was just along for the ride. She’d share her findings with Nina in the morning.

  Riley crawled into bed that night, comforted that a spirit had conveyed a message and she’d understood it. Maybe she’d find a way to get a handle on this after all.

  CHAPTER 11

  On Thursday, her day off, she awoke close to 10 am. When she checked her phone for messages, she had a few from Jade stating that she’d officially hired Ian Chambers as her photographer. There was a good morning text from Michael, and a link from Rochelle to an article about Tiana’s Circle being renewed for another two seasons, followed by a row of celebratory emojis. She was in the middle of typing a reply to Rochelle when another message popped up, this one from Nina.

  I have some EVPs and video ready. I usually bring the relevant clips for the client to check out, and then I tell them my findings. Would you be willing to go to Julie’s tomorrow to see what a post-investigation looks like, as well as share your discoveries with her?

  Riley supposed breaking the news to Julie, someone with no familial ties to Iris Velasco, that Iris had died by way of an accidental allergic reaction and not a suicide would be easier than contacting Iris’ daughter out of the blue. Julie would be the test run.

  Sure. I have to work from 12 to 7, but I can come by any time before or after.

  Perfect. She was hoping for something around 10 AM. Let’s meet at my place around 9 so we can discuss things before the consult, and then we can head to Julie’s together.

  See you then!

  She had just switched back to her message to Rochelle when she heard a gentle rumble outside that made her sit bolt upright. The mail truck! She flung back her comforter and scurried into her living room, peering out the window with the side of her face smashed against the glass to give her the best view of the bank of mailboxes below. When she saw the boxy white vehicle round the corner out of sight, she let out a squeal, quickly changed her clothes, and ran down the steps like a kid on Christmas morning who was sure she had a new bicycle waiting for her under the tree. The mailman today, however, was the older guy who moved at the pace of a mortally wounded snail. The wait forced her to clean out her car. She spent an inordinate length of time prying a melted hard candy off her floor mat.

  When the ancient mailman finally got back in his truck and made the short trek to the next bank of mailboxes, she’d speed-walked across the parking lot to open her box. A brown package lay inside.

  Her little-kid-excitement made a veering turn into grown-adult-panic once the package was in her hands. The fact that the package arrived without an FBI escort was likely a good sign, but what if the pictures were something weird, like someone’s doll collection?

  Deciding she would need company when she opened the package, she hurried back inside to send a group text to Jade and Michael.

  Riley: The pictures have arrived. I’m too scared to look.

  Jade: Holy crap! I can come by after work.

  Michael: I’m debating about whether I want pictures of the pictures, or if I should just wait until Ry is here tomorrow night.

  Jade: You should wait. Seeing them live and in person will be so much better.

  Michael: Easy for you to say! I’m stuck over an hour away and have to wait a full day.

  Jade: I would say I’m sorry, but that’s a lie.

  Michael: I would say I’m offended, but if this situation were reversed, I would have no sympathy for your plight.

  Jade: Fair.

  This would be the longest day off in her life.

  Dramatically throwing herself onto her couch, she turned on the TV. As usual, it was set to a local news station. The 11:00 hour of news was coming to a close, and nothing about Francis Hank Carras had come up, nor was anything about him scrolling along the bottom of the screen.

  Just before she switched to Netflix, her true-crime-loving brain was tickled when a female news anchor said, “And now for a disturbing story that we first reported on last night. Several women from uptown Albuquerque, namely in Nob Hill, have contacted our station about a man, seen here, that has been prowling the streets late at night, peeping in women’s windows.”

  Goosebumps sprang up on Riley’s arms.

  The picture shown wasn’t of
Hank, of course, but the memories of being stalked by him came slinking back. On screen was a grainy photo of a person wearing all black—dark pants, dark boots, gloves, and a black bandana tied over half his face. He had light hair, likely blond or sandy brown, but since the picture was in black and white and taken from a low-quality security camera, it was hard to tell. Age-wise, it was only clear that he wasn’t a teen, and likely wasn’t older than forty-five. Height was hard to discern from the picture.

  “The police have been informed of the situation and are investigating,” the news anchor said. “Concerned young women in the area are speaking out because they’re hoping someone in the community can help them identify the man, who is causing a widespread sense of fear among the female population in Nob Hill.”

  The screen switched to a pair of twenty-something Caucasian women standing beside a chain link fence with a field of dying grass wafting beyond it. Riley supposed the women didn’t want to be interviewed in a spot that would give away their location. They were both girl-next-door brunettes, and either college students or young professionals.

  “This has been going on for a full week,” one of the young women said. “Yesterday, I had been sleeping in after a long night of studying and woke up when I heard someone whispering. I woke up totally freaked-out because I thought someone was in my bedroom, but it was this guy outside my window. He had a black bandana over his face, and the hood of his sweatshirt was up so I couldn’t really see any features other than blue eyes. He said he’d been partying too hard last night to drive home, so he’d slept in his car, but hadn’t turned it off and had run his battery down. He said his cell phone was dead, and that he just needed an Uber. He asked me if I could call one for him.”

  “Did you?” the reporter asked.

  “No,” said her friend. “I was in the other room getting ready for work and I went to check on her since she’d only gone to bed a few hours before. And then I see this man outside her window. I screamed at him to get the hell away and he took off.”