The Ghoul Next Door

by Victoria Laurie

  “VICTORIA LAURIE IS THE QUEEN OF PARANORMAL MYSTERIES.”

  —BookReview.com

  Praise for the New York Times Bestselling Ghost Hunter Mystery Series

  “Fabulously entertaining. . . . The setup is marvelous, the pace is quick, and the stakes are high; Laurie wastes no time plunging you straight into the center of the action and doesn’t pause to let you catch your breath until she’s got you good and hooked.”

  —The Season for Romance

  “A series that combines suspenseful tension with humor, romance, and mystery.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Filled with laugh-out-loud moments and nail-biting, hair-raising tension, this fast-paced, action-packed ghost story will keep readers hooked from beginning to end.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Paranormal mystery fans, look no further.”

  —SciFiChick.com

  “Fabulously entertaining. . . . [Laurie] has a genuine talent for creating unique spirits with compelling origin stories and then using those creations to scare . . . her characters and her readers alike.”

  —The Maine Suspect

  “Paranormal thrills and chills . . . [and] a healthy dose of fun and romance.”

  —Once Upon a Romance

  “Without question, this is one of the most bewitching and flat-out-fun series available today!”

  —Romantic Times

  “A lighthearted, humorous haunted hotel horror thriller kept focused by ‘graveyard’ serious M.J.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s bunch, Laurie’s enthusiastic, punchy ghost busters make this paranormal series one teens can also enjoy.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Ms. Laurie has penned a fabulous read and packed it with ghost-hunting action at its best. With a chilling mystery, a danger-filled investigation, a bit of romance, and a wonderful dose of humor, there’s little chance that readers will be able to set this book down.”

  —Darque Reviews

  “Victoria Laurie continues to excite and entertain with her ideas and characters and also inform John Q. Public in matters metaphysical. Cannot wait for the next from Ms. Laurie!”

  —AuthorsDen.com

  “Perhaps what makes this story and this series so good is that Victoria Laurie is actually a professional medium. She knows what she’s talking about, and she sure can write a good story.”

  —A Bibliophile’s Bookshelf

  “A great, fast-paced, addicting read.”

  —Enchanting Reviews

  “A great story.”

  —MyShelf.com

  “Entertaining. . . . With witty dialogue, adventurous mystery, and laugh-out-loud humor, this is a novel that you can curl up with [and] get lost in.”

  —Nocturne Romance Reads

  Praise for the

  Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye Mysteries

  “Victoria Laurie has crafted a fantastic tale in this latest Psychic Eye Mystery. There are few things in life that upset Abby Cooper, but ghosts and her parents feature high on her list . . . giving the reader a few real frights and a lot of laughs.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Fabulous. . . . Fans will highly praise this fine ghostly murder mystery.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “A great new series . . . plenty of action.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  ALSO BY VICTORIA LAURIE

  The Ghost Hunter Mystery Series

  What’s a Ghoul to Do?

  Demons Are a Ghoul’s Best Friend

  Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun

  Ghouls Gone Wild

  Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls

  Ghoul, Interrupted

  What a Ghoul Wants

  The Psychic Eye Mystery Series

  Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye

  Better Read Than Dead

  A Vision of Murder

  Killer Insight

  Crime Seen

  Death Perception

  Doom with a View

  A Glimpse of Evil

  Vision Impossible

  Lethal Outlook

  Deadly Forecast

  THE GHOUL NEXT DOOR

  A GHOST HUNTER MYSTERY

  Victoria Laurie

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  First Printing, January 2014

  Copyright © Victoria Laurie, 2014

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  ISBN 978-1-101-63494-3

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by Victoria Laurie

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Excerpt from NO GHOULS ALLOWED

  For Dr. Stephen Pap.

  RIP my dear friend.

  Acknowledgments

  I’m not gonna lie. This is my third pass at writing these. Normally, I look forward to kicking out the acknowledgments—when do you ever get such an awesome chance to tell all the amazing people in your life how much you love them?

  But this time it’s different. This time . . . it’s just hard.

  Like most of my characters, Dr. Steven Sable is based on a real guy. Years ago, about the time my agent and I were pitching the idea of a ghostbusting mystery series to my publisher, I slipped off the back porch steps and broke my hand. The break was a bad one, which required surgery, and so the hospital placed me with one of their top guys, Dr. Stephen Pap.

  From the minute I met “Pappy,” I liked him. He was tall and suave and he had the sexiest accent. I had a serious crush from our first meeting. When he learned that I was a writer on a deadline, he took the greatest care to make sure that I’d be back to typing in no time. He had one of the best bedside manners of any doctor I’ve ever met.

  Initially, I thought a character based on him would make the perfect love match for M.J., and he allowed me the indulgence. I also believ
e he was secretly pleased by it. At least I hope so.

  In the two years following my hand surgery, Stephen and I kept in touch, and I soon learned that he was head over heels for a beautiful woman named Holly. The two were married shortly thereafter, and by the time I left Boston back in 2006, they were expecting their first child. I remember talking to Pappy on the phone a few days before my move, and I remember thinking how happy and content he sounded. He had the world by the tail.

  A year ago last August, Stephen sent me an e-mail. He wanted a psychic reading. I hadn’t heard from him in years, and I was insanely busy with a recent move and deadlines, so I told him to wait a few weeks until I could clear my schedule. I wish so much that I’d listened to my gut, which told me to talk to him sooner.

  Anyway, the moment I heard his voice on the phone during our session, I knew something was terribly wrong. He sounded eighty years old, his voice so thin that it was barely above a whisper, and he had difficulty forming words. He told me he was sick with some mysterious disease that no one could diagnose. I remember asking him if they’d tested him for ALS—Lou Gehrig’s disease. He insisted they had and had ruled it out.

  He asked me if there was hope, and when I looked at his energy, I saw something amazing. Sometime in the very early spring, I saw him so healthy and full of life that I could hardly believe the transformation. I told him that I didn’t know what he had, but I thought he’d be feeling incredible by March or April. He asked me if he’d be well enough to return to his practice—he’d had to abandon it as he was bed bound—and I told him that I didn’t see him doing that, but I did see him doing something else like consulting and helping people in a different way. I couldn’t figure out what his new role would be, but I knew he’d love it whatever it was.

  But then I saw something odd in the ether. I saw that he and his wife were going to separate. It felt abrupt and sudden and I couldn’t quite account for it. I could only feel her exhaustion, then his amazing transformation, then a separation. I asked him how he was getting on with her, and he replied, “Better than ever. She’s my angel. I couldn’t do this without her.”

  I decided not to tell Stephen about the separation—reasoning that I could very well be misinterpreting. Instead I told him to hang in there and continue to look for an accurate diagnosis. I also told him to keep me in the loop about his health.

  The following February when I was about halfway through writing this book, Stephen was very much on my mind. I realized I’d never gotten an update from him, so I reached out with an e-mail of my own. His reply was so sweetly simple, it completely and utterly broke my heart. “Sorry to have bad news,” he wrote. “I am dying of ALS. I have weeks to live. It was wonderful to enjoy your friendship; take care of yourself and live life to the fullest. My best to you and your family. Stephen.”

  Stephen died just three weeks later.

  Later, when I had a chance to think about it, I realized that all the odd little pieces of his reading could now slide into place. His amazing “recovery” wasn’t a physical recovery—it was his crossing over. And the exhaustion of his wife and then their separation also made absolute sense. So much so that it’s a wonder I didn’t put the pieces together sooner, but I adored Stephen, and I’m quite certain that, because of my fondness for him, I avoided looking too deeply into the ether about his chances for survival. I just assumed that this amazing man, whom I’d only known to have so much vitality and life, couldn’t be felled by a mere illness. Of course he’d recover.

  The moment I got the news of his passing, however, this book came to a standstill. I was gutted. Just gutted by the loss. I felt a terrible guilt for not penciling him into my schedule sooner, and for not putting the pieces together during his reading. I wanted to wallow in a well of self-pity and sadness and ask all those questions of “WHY?!!” because he wasn’t just a good man—he was amazing and it was SO unfair that this young, vibrant, smart, funny, nurturing doctor with three young children, and a beautiful wife, and patients to cure, and a life to live was taken so abruptly from the world.

  And then Stephen sent me a sign that I simply couldn’t ignore. He sent me several, in fact, each one a little miracle in and of itself, and I realized he was giving me a little kick in the butt to get on with my own life—to live it to the fullest. I owed him that. In fact, that was the least I could do. So I got on with the book, determined to finish the damn thing.

  It took a long time. Sometimes I’d write only a paragraph a day. And I worried constantly about his portrayal. Would he be flattered or offended? Would he be amused or insulted? More signs from Stephen on the other side came and I realized that I couldn’t worry about it. I’d just have to write the book I wanted and finish it.

  And here is the result. Overall, I’m actually quite pleased with it. Especially the final scene. (No peeking!) It took weeks to work up the courage to write those last few pages, but when I did, I felt Stephen so present, peeking over my shoulder, saying, “Good job, Victoria.”

  I get fewer signs from Stephen these days. I’m sure he’s quite busy over there, but sometimes when I’m out for a run, I’ll feel him “pop” into my mind to say hello. I’ve also followed his advice to live life to the fullest—big-time—and I think he’s at least proud of me for that.

  So these acknowledgments are mostly all about Stephen, who was a lovely, lovely man, and is now a lovely, lovely soul. If you read these words and you’re a Steven Sable fan, send my friend Pappy a wave; I think he’d get a real kick out of it.

  While I’m here, allow me to quickly acknowledge all of the amazing people who helped me get through the days when writing about M.J. and Steven felt impossible:

  My amazing editor, Sandra Harding, thank you sooooo much for your patience and kindness. You didn’t once push me even though I was crazy late with this manuscript. You just let me whittle away at it the best I could until I could pull it together. It means the world to me and I thank you.

  Thank you also to my amazing team at New American Library: Elizabeth Bistrow, Kayleigh Clark, Sharon Gamboa, Michele Alpern, Stanley Chow, and Claire Zion.

  My agent, Jim McCarthy, who patiently took every weepy phone call and just kept reiterating his belief in me. There’s no way I could have gotten to the end without you. It’s like Michelle Rowen says, “Jim McCarthy, you is made of magic!”

  Katie Coppedge . . . can I just write “No words” here? Because there ARE NO WORDS to describe how grateful I am for your friendship, understanding, and sage advice. You da bestest, my BFF. And I luffs you.

  Sandy Upham. NO WORDS! Other than I love you, and look forward every day to our chats. Best sister EVER!

  Team Lo (Katie Coppedge, Karen Ditmars, Leanne Tierney): ladies, you are—each of you—my personal heroes, and I’m beeeeyond lucky to know you and call you friends.

  Brian G., I love you. Thank you for coming to find me in Austin. (And, Stephen, thank you, thank you, thank you for sending him back to me.)

  Additional thanks go to: Nicole Gray, Steve McGrory, Matt and Mike Morrill, Hilary Laurie, Nora, Bob, and Mike Brosseau, Silas Hudson, Thomas Robinson, Laurie Proux, Drue Rowean, Suzanne Parsons, Betty and Pippa Stocking, John Kwaitkowski, Matt McDougall, Sally Woods, Anne Kimbol, McKenna Jordan, Jennifer Melkonian, Shannon Anderson, Juan Tamayo, Molly Boyle, Martha Bushko, Juliet Blackwell, Nicole Peeler, and Sophie Littlefield.

  You guys remind me every day what living life to the fullest is all about. Love you and I thank you.

  Chapter 1

  Being a psychic medium definitely has its downers. As a group, we’re a pretty haunted lot. (Yes, I went there. . . .) Many, if not most, of us had troubled childhoods that caused us to develop a sixth sense in order to cope. And I’m no exception. My mother died on an autumn morning when I was eleven, and in his subsequent grief, my father turned to the bottle and his work. In many ways I lost both parents that day.

  It took years,
but Daddy finally let go of the grip he had on his daily half gallon of vodka and sought help. He’s been sober for about sixteen years now, but the residual damage to our relationship remains. During my teenage years we fought constantly. In fact, I spent most of my junior and senior years of high school at my best friend Gilley Gillespie’s house, being looked after by Gil’s wonderful mother, who’d been treating me like one of her own from the moment my own mama passed away.

  Things didn’t improve even after high school when Gil and I moved from Valdosta, Georgia, to Boston. Daddy and I just couldn’t seem to make peace even with those twelve hundred miles separating us. And every visit back to Valdosta thereafter was torture for me—usually ending with an early flight home to Boston. Recently, however, that’s changed, and I can safely say that these days we’ve never gotten along better. Although that could be because we haven’t spoken to each other since I started showcasing my talents on TV.

  Daddy was willing to tolerate my rather, as he put it, “disturbing” ability to talk to the dead as long as I didn’t make a public spectacle of myself. Nearly two years ago I’d done a cable special on haunted objects, and since then I’ve landed a nice contract working on my own ghostbusting cable TV series, called Ghoul Getters. News of my success on the airwaves spread like wildfire in Valdosta, fueled no doubt by Mrs. Gillespie, who’s crazy proud of both Gilley and me. The consequences, however, are that now the only acknowledgments I get from Daddy are a Christmas present (picked out by his secretary) and a birthday card (also picked out by his secretary) with a check inside (probably forged by his secretary).

  And as I brought the mail inside my office in Boston, so happy to be home again after a grueling four-month filming schedule, my mood dampened the moment I saw the return address on a small package mixed in with the bills and ads.

  “Well, I guess my birthday is next week,” I said with a sigh, passing through the inner lobby of the little office space I rent out on Mass Avenue, about three blocks away from my condo. After setting the other mail aside, I searched my desk for a pair of scissors.