Haunted on the Gulf Coast (Gulf Coast Paranormal Trilogy Book 2)

by M. L. Bullock

  She paused and stared at him blankly. “I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet, but I do want to go downstairs if you don’t mind. I feel like there’s a presence there.”

  I said, “I’ll make that happen for you sometime tonight. Cassidy, we will be back in about thirty minutes.”

  As I walked away, Cassidy mouthed, “Hurry up!” I smiled and waved before walking into the parlor with Sierra.

  Chapter Ten—Midas

  “Midas, I have something to tell you,” Sierra said as she settled down at the bar in the basement. We didn’t have to wait for dark down here; it was pitch black with the blinds closed. The basement only had a few high windows in it, and they were mostly covered by thick bushes anyway. We flipped off the lights, and I grabbed some trigger objects and spread them out on the bar. I pulled a garter out of my pocket, an old one that I stole from a margarita glass a few years ago, and slid it up on my arm over my t-shirt sleeve.

  “Now, tell me the truth. Do I look like a 1920s bartender?”

  “Um, no. I need to tell you something.”

  “You’re having twins?”

  She reached across the bar and playfully punched my arm. “That’s not even funny. No, it’s about this case, moron, and the one after it. And after that. I think I really should take some time off. I can’t seem to get my emotions under control. There’s plenty to do around the office, so I was thinking I would just focus my efforts on HQ.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Only two months.”

  “So, another seven months of not having you in the field?” I asked. When I saw her face, I grinned. “I think you’ll need about that much time to get the place organized. Sara left it a mess.”

  With a sigh of relief, she thanked me. “Great. Well, I’m helping with this one, but after that, I’m your off-site research gal. Speaking of which…I haven’t told the team yet, but I have the evidence to prove that Darren Carpenter is alive and well.”

  “What? That’s big news to keep to yourself, Little Sister.”

  “I know, I know, but I have to verify it. He didn’t die. He got snatched by his birth mother, Peaches Carpenter. Snatched right from this property.”

  “You’re joking! When did you find this out? The team might like knowing that, Sierra.”

  “I just learned it this afternoon and put in a call to Darren. His cousin gave me his number. So far, Darren hasn’t returned my calls. I’m not sure that he ever will. From what his cousin says, he knows it’s a problem for his mother and can’t bring himself to get her into trouble.”

  “Can you blame him, though? God, it’s got to be a horrible position to be in. Does his dad know?” I shook my head at the thought.

  “Cash Carpenter died a few years ago. He never saw his son again. The cousin, Lucius Carpenter, says that Cash was a selfish man. He never cared about his kid. He didn’t waste any time getting married again and having a whole other family.”

  “Wow, that’s hurtful. Well, if Erma’s here, she would want to know that.”

  “She’s here, Midas. Let’s try to make contact. If she comes through, can I tell her about Darren?”

  “Heck yeah. She’s been waiting a long time to hear this news. Imagine after all this time.” I shook my head at the idea of Darren staying under the radar even after he was old enough to know what happened. “It boggles the mind how they stayed hidden from law enforcement all this time.”

  “It’s not unheard of.” Sierra put the digital voice recorder on the bar so we could get a better shot at picking up Erma.

  “Okay, back to the business at hand. I don’t think Erma is down here, or at least no one has reported seeing an older lady in the basement. I want to do some Bruce-type stuff. You pretend to order a drink, and I’ll be the bartender. I’ll play some jazz music on my phone.”

  “You really want to do this?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “We’ve done weirder things.” I cleared my throat. “Yes, little lady, this speakeasy is back in business, and I’m the boss here now. What can I get you to drink?”

  With a shrug that said, All right, I’ll play along, she nodded. “I’ll have a…have…what did they drink in those days?”

  “I know what you need, little lady. How about a sidecar?” I tapped on my phone, and the jazz music played softly. This was a cool idea; I was feeling it. Sara used to tell me I was a bit of a ham anyway.

  “Sidecar, please, Bugsy!”

  “Coming right up, little lady!” I turned to grab one of the empty bottles I brought and caught a weird image in the cloudy mirror behind me. “Shoot!” I dropped the bottle, and glass shot out everywhere. “Damn! I made a mess back here.”

  “We’ll have to clean it up. Oh gosh, Midas, look! You’ve got a light flashing on the recorder. You caught something! Let me play it back.”

  Next thing I knew, the digital recorder went flying across the room. Thankfully, it landed on a chair cushion and not the floor. Sierra stared at me. “Um, what just happened?”

  “I think that’s someone’s way of saying they want to talk to us.” I reached for the walkie-talkie on my hip. “See if you can get it to work while I walkie for Beverly.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  “Midas to base, over.”

  “Cassidy to Midas. What’s up? Got a battery drain? Need to trade places?”

  I pretended I didn’t hear the desperation in her voice. “No, I need Beverly to head to the basement with a broom and a dustpan.”

  “Broom? Never mind. I’m sure I don’t want to know. She’s on the way now.”

  While we waited for the psychic to join us, Sierra cued the recorder back. The recording happened when I was speaking, joking about being the boss. There was another voice, and jazz music—music that wasn’t mine—played in the background.

  I’m the boss around here, Bub!

  The gravelly voice was not a friendly one.

  “I think you made a fan, Midas. Did you hear it when it happened?”

  “No, I would have said something if I had heard that. That’s just…I’m not sure. Ghost voices always sound so ominous. I know I have to keep an open mind, but man, that is downright creepy right there. I wonder if his was the face I saw in the mirror a minute ago. That’s why I dropped the bottle. He surprised the hell out of me.”

  “Get out! Seriously?” Stepping lightly over the glass, she stood in front of the mirror and shined her flashlight at it. “Dang, I don’t see anything but me. All the good stuff on this investigation has happened to you, Midas. Or should I call you Bub now?”

  “Okay, that was definitely an intelligent haunt. He knows we are here, and…”

  “And…he doesn’t like it.”

  “Well, I’m here to stay. So unless he wants to fight, he’ll just have to deal with it.” I suddenly had the sensation that red hot knives were slicing my back. I yelped in pain, and Sierra ran to my side.

  “Oh my God! What happened?”

  “I got scratched. I hate it when they do that.”

  “Well, you did challenge him, Midas. I think that’s a sign that your challenge was accepted.”

  “Oof! This is stinging. Can you take a look at it?”

  “Yes, but not here. Let’s get you out of here before it attacks you again. I think it might be smart to clean those wounds too.” Sierra probed the painful area as I winced. “Yeah, that’s deep.”

  “All right, let’s head up.”

  We walked up the stairs as Beverly came down. “Sorry, Bev. I broke a glass and—”

  “And Midas got scratched by a ghost,” Sierra finished.

  “Are you sure it was a ghost?” Beverly asked sincerely.

  “Don’t know, but I’m checking Midas out. He’ll be back soon. I’ll send Cassidy to come down here with you, okay?”

  “No, I don’t think that’s such a great idea. The ghosts down here would find her very interesting. I’d like to keep her away from the basement, if at all possible. She should be safe
by the pool. There’s only one spirit around there, and I think she’s just curious about her. This place has a real feeling about it, doesn’t it?”

  “Be careful, Beverly. We’ve got to go!” Blood was pouring out of my back now, and Sierra was doing her best to get me to the van ASAP. As I went up the stairs, I felt dizzy, so dizzy.

  Then my head began to spin and I held on to the railing, trying not to come crashing down on top of Sierra. I heard a woman’s laughter in my ears. “You can’t leave yet, pretty boy. You haven’t served me my drink!” Then her tiny hand was in mine, and she squeezed. The feel of her cold fingers in mine made me sick. She whispered in my ear, “Come away with me. He’ll never find us.” I don’t know how I had the courage to, but I opened my eyes. In front of me on the stairs was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Dangling diamonds sparkled at her ears, her hair was a mass of dark curls and her painted lips were perfect. Her heavily painted eyes looked mysterious and full of desire for me.

  But who did she think I was? A dead guy?

  Out of the blue, someone slapped me in the face, and with that slap the speakeasy transformed into an old basement with no tinkling piano or soaring saxophones. There were no partiers gathered here, just my friends looking at me with wide eyes. I gasped at finding myself back with them, feeling both relief and a little bit of a letdown. I would have liked to have followed the dark-eyed girl with the red lips.

  And I think she wanted me to.

  Chapter Eleven—Cassidy

  “Only you would pick a fight with a ghost, Midas.” I dabbed at his wounds with alcohol-soaked cotton balls. He winced but didn’t openly complain.

  “This isn’t the first time that’s happened.” Sierra rolled her eyes as she slapped a giant bandage on his back and smoothed it out. I thought Midas would yelp, but he just clamped his lips shut and closed his eyes for a few seconds.

  “I think I experienced a time slip back there. I wasn’t me. I was somebody else…someone Vita knew. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I know what I saw.”

  Beverly came charging toward us with a distressed look on her face. “This place is certainly haunted, and these spirits want to talk; they want to know who we are and what we want. Most of the spirits in that basement are just here to have a good time. I don’t think they even realize we’re here. They are in their own time, enjoying a drink, but a few others have serious issues. For example,” she said as she rubbed her hands together again, “a female spirit is causing quite a stir. She says she was murdered here. Her name starts with a V.”

  “Vita!” I blurted out before I remembered to withhold information from the psychic. She’d told me that to help prove she was on the up and up, she preferred to gather her own information.

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind if you give me confirmation when I get something right. Yes, she’s here. Vita. Oh, she likes you, Midas, but she wasn’t the one who scratched you. Oh no, she’s stepping back now. There’s another one coming forward. He’s angry. Yes, he’s angry at you. You thought you would come and take his spot—he feels threatened. And he thinks that these people, the new people who own this place, would make him leave. But he won’t let that happen because he keeps her here. He’s staring at you right now. His name is Rick…Ricky?” I felt disappointed; I didn’t know of anyone named Rick. “Oh wait, that’s wrong,” she continued. “That’s his last name, something with Rick in it.”

  “Myrick?”

  “Yes, that’s it!” Beverly shouted. “Myrick.” Joshua gave me an incredulous look, but I didn’t care. I believed in Beverly’s powers at this point. “I’m trying to hear him, but he’s shouting at Midas and not helping me. You better have those digital recorders going because this man wants to be heard. He has an ax to grind with you, Midas. His name is Dan or Don…”

  “Yes, it’s Don Myrick. He was Vita’s half brother.”

  “That’s interesting.” She walked around the pool and stared at the water. “And here’s where it happened. He took her life in the pool. He stole her life and her youth, and he kept her away from the other one forever.”

  “How sad,” I whispered. I watched the water swirl slightly, as if confirming what Beverly was saying. “What else, Beverly? What else do you see?” I felt like I was being pushy, but I really wanted to know.

  Suddenly, her face paled and she glanced around nervously, as if she could see a threat that we couldn’t. Could she? “I need to step away, Midas, if you’re done with me tonight. I think I should go home and cleanse. I know I haven’t done much, but I need to get clear. I haven’t had this much spiritual residue on me since high school.”

  “Absolutely, thanks.”

  “I’ll give you my full report tomorrow. Thank you for calling me in.” She paused before leaving. “Keep yourself protected, Cassidy. I sense you have an openness that might make you a target for negative entities. Not everyone who asks for help deserves it.” With that, she hugged me and whispered, “I’m praying for you.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered back, completely blown away by that.

  She patted my hand gently. “If at all possible, don’t be alone. Stay with Midas; he’ll keep them at bay. He has a big aura, like those muscles of his.”

  My cheeks flushed. “Um, I live by myself. I mean, we don’t live together.”

  “Well, think about it. Might be worth it when they find you. Good night, everyone!”

  “Good night,” we all called to her in unison. That was an odd thing to suggest. I wondered what that meant. Who was going to find me? What was I supposed to do with that vague information?

  Midas clasped his hands and said, “Given all the strange events, I think we should call tonight’s investigation a wrap. And since we are cutting out early, maybe Josh and Sierra wouldn’t mind checking out the evidence that we have now. I know there is something on that recorder, and I want to review that swimming pool splash again. Let’s see if we can find more evidence for Helen.”

  Joshua and Sierra didn’t jump up and down about it, just eyed me suspiciously. No doubt they wondered why the new girl wasn’t helping. I couldn’t blame them.

  “You want to come home with me, Cassidy? I don’t mind if you stay over tonight. I’m sure Pete could get lost, if he really wanted to.”

  I looked at Peter’s face and realized that he had nowhere else to go. If he really did have choices, as he liked to pretend, he wouldn’t have ended up at his estranged friend’s house looking for a couch to crash on.

  “No, I think I should help out. I have to pull my weight around here. I’ll call you later.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes,” I said as I gave him the scout’s honor sign.

  He dropped the three of us off at the Gulf Coast Paranormal office, and we got ready to review the footage from our investigation. At least there wouldn’t be too much of it. We’d only been at the house about six hours total.

  We set up quietly in the conference room. Sierra made coffee, and I dug around in the pantry for snacks. The choices were paltry, but nobody wanted to order out this late.

  Joshua got everything set up for us. “Okay, Cassidy. I’d like you to listen to the audio; it’s mostly Sierra and Midas. I’m going to review the footage of the pool, the old stuff and the new. Sierra, babe, you have the cameras for the speakeasy.”

  “Roger that!” We all slid our headphones on and began the long, arduous task of sorting through all the footage. When I got to the bit with Midas saying he was the new boss, the response surprised me. “Okay, whoa! Joshua, you have to listen to this. This is in the speakeasy—I mean, the basement. It’s Sierra and Midas. He says…well, I’ll let you listen to it, but right after him, there’s another voice.”

  I’m the boss around here, Bub!

  “Mark the time, Cass.”

  “Stop calling her that, Joshua. She hates it.”

  I twisted my lips and looked at the two of them. “You know, I used to hate that nickname, but when you call me that, I know it’s �
��cause you like me and not ’cause you want to pick on me and call me ‘Ca-ass’ like my ex, Mike. He was such a jerk. So you two can call me that. But just you two.”

  Sierra smiled proudly. I felt good about it.

  “Well, back to it. Let’s keep searching.” I put my headphones back on and listened for another twenty minutes before Joshua began tapping my arm.

  “You two have to hear this,” he said. “It’s amazing. Everyone has left the basement by now. Sierra, you and Midas left the recorder playing. All of a sudden, you can hear what sounds like two men fighting, maybe more. I mean, you can hear chairs breaking, glass shattering, swearing, the sounds of men panting and growling at one another. I would swear that someone had been in that basement that night. But I know nobody was. It has to be wrong.”

  “That gives me the chills. We’d better mark it to share. Can you make out anything they’re saying, Joshua?”

  We all gave it another listen but couldn’t distinguish words, only grunts and growls. It was definitely some kind of struggle.

  Sierra tapped on my shoulder. “Okay, I’m pulling the pregnancy card, sweetie. I’m not going to be able to hang on much longer. I’m so tired. Please take me home, Joshua. We can finish this in the morning.”

  “Fine, but I’ll let you tell Midas we didn’t finish.”

  I smiled. “He would understand, I’m sure of it.”

  Joshua raised his eyebrows but didn’t argue with me. “If you say so. Let’s go, honey.”

  Ten minutes later, the three of us left and I headed home. I was tired too, and it was only 11:30. I had stayed up way past my bedtime. But I knew I wasn’t going home to sleep. There would be no sleeping for me tonight. I would be painting, if I could get to my apartment safely. My heart was pounding as I parked my car, but nobody bothered me. I walked in the building, and nobody bothered me. In fact, I didn’t see a single soul. I walked to the elevator, my palms sweaty, my mind racing. The elevator door opened, but there was no one inside. I stepped in and tapped the button quickly and repeatedly. The car began to lift up and up, and in just a few seconds I was on my floor. I cautiously stepped off and saw no one around, thankfully. No corridor full of strangers. No ghosts. No one at all.