by Sonia Singh
ghost, interrupted
SONIA SINGH
For my brother, Samir,
who spent countless hours
critiquing the chapters in this book.
I know, I know,
I should have come to you sooner.
P.S. Sorry about the double vision.
From Ghosts and Ghoulies
and Long-legged Beasties and
Things that go BUMP in the Night,
May the Good Lord Deliver Us!
—Old Cornish prayer
Contents
Epigraph
My thanks to
Your house may be haunted
1
Anjali
When Anjali was a kid her parents made her promise…
2
Scott
“Are you on welfare?”
3
Coulter
Coulter Marshall figured the old saying applied to the giant…
4
Mill University’s parapsychology department was housed in an old ivy-covered…
5
The Sunset Grill just off Union Square featured light jazz…
6
Somewhere along the Idaho and Nevada border, Coulter found himself…
7
Anjali knew she was being followed.
8
Coulter was at a diner called Lenny’s off Mission Street…
9
The sun was shining. The birds were chirping. And Anjali…
10
Coulter hadn’t hustled any pool, cheated anyone at cards, or…
11
Vivica Bates was in a foul mood.
12
A carved wooden entrance sign informed Anjali she was in the…
13
A bar brawl was too risky.
14
Anjali stared at the house and felt her stomach clench.
15
Scott didn’t expect another case to fall into his lap…
16
The medical director of the Oakland Imaging Facility was an…
17
“Welcome to 1313 Mockingbird Lane,” Scott said.
18
During a brief stint in Texas, Coulter had romanced a…
19
“She cursed me,” Fitch whispered.
20
So a psychic and a ghost hunter walk into a…
21
Scott hit stop on the TV remote, and the footage…
22
Sunglasses shading her eyes from the morning sun, Anjali gazed…
23
The ringing of the doorbell startled Coulter out of a…
24
By the time they drove back to the city, regrouped,…
25
Looking around the room at the blinking lights and the…
26
“Anjali, it’s Zarina. Can you buzz me up?”
27
“Why’d you turn off Slayer?” Coulter demanded. They were driving…
28
“So,” Anjali said. “Is there a special woman you’re trying…
29
The next morning they were on their way back to…
30
Anjali sat on her sofa and stared at the coffee…
31
Scott drove around the Embarcadero looking for parking. Tourists thronged…
32
Vivica glared at the three men. “What do you mean…
33
Promptly at eight o’clock, Scott, Anjali, and Coulter were in…
34
Seven pairs of eyes were focused on Anjali.
35
She felt a wave of cold fright slide over her…
36
“What in God’s name are you making?” Scott stared in…
37
Pacific Grove was a ritzy beach town in Monterey County.
38
They drove up the mansion’s gravelly drive, dead leaves and…
39
“Well, someone should answer it,” Coulter said.
40
“We have to split up,” Scott said.
41
She lay on her back staring up at the ceiling.
42
Relax, Anjali told herself, blinking in the bright lights the…
43
A month had passed since the Booth House case.
44
The call came the next morning.
45
The Blaine military base would soon be home to thousands…
46
Both groups assembled promptly at four o’clock in front of…
47
An hour later they were back in the conference room…
48
Vivica waited at the entrance to the center with Maddox,…
49
The phone’s ringing woke Anjali up.
50
Anjali walked into the Flight Control Center.
51
She was hanging by a thread.
52
“Scott, people are staring at me,” Anjali said.
53
“I’m sorry I missed your cousin’s party,” Coulter said from…
Epilogue
Three very pale men wearing Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirts, and…
Sonia Singh
Other Books by Sonia Singh
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
My thanks to:
Kimberly Whalen, for buying me drinks and for being cool with my neurotic, insecure, mood-swinging, over-eating, genre-changing self.
Lyssa Keusch, who didn’t bat an eye when I followed a chick-lit novel about Bollywood with a comedic novel about ghost hunting.
Avon Books, for giving me the best book covers in the business.
Lucinda Ferguson and Shelly DeSimone, the critique goddesses.
Your house may be haunted
If you find your head spinning uncontrollably in a clockwise direction or a counterclockwise direction. The direction really doesn’t matter.
If you ask a question in an empty room and the room answers you.
If unseen forces move your furniture around, particularly in the direction of your head.
If your child comes to you one day and informs you that the TV is the conduit to another dimension inhabited by the spirits of people buried under the house, and the spirits really want to play.
If the exterminator tells you that the knocking in your wall isn’t caused by rats but by an ancient Babylonian demon named Mazuzu.
If a priest, a rabbi, and a nun aren’t the beginning of a joke, but a list of visitors you’ve had over recently.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in the list above are solely those of the individual providing them and do not reflect the opinions of The Cold Spot: Paranormal Investigations, its parent, affiliate, or subsidiary companies.
1
Anjali
San Jose, California
When Anjali was a kid her parents made her promise never to tell anyone she was psychic.
Personally, she’d found such a precaution unnecessary but she swore anyway.
Honestly, did her parents think she’d go around making introductions like, “Hi, my name is Anjali Kumar and I can communicate with the dead. What’s your name?”
That’s right.
Anjali could communicate with the dead, but she couldn’t beat the house in Vegas.
Go figure.
She was the black sheep in the family, the skeleton in the closet (although thanks to a certain fondness for vodka and chocolate, she hardly considered herself bone-thin).
But Anjali wasn’t in the psychiatrist’s office that gloomy
afternoon to talk about her parents…much.
She was there to talk about the whole psychic thing. Or rather, a way to shut it off.
Namely drugs.
If Prozac could quiet a child’s love of starting fires, then surely it could help her—a woman too psychic to function.
Across the cherrywood desk, Dr. Feldman held court in a plush leather armchair. The smile she leveled carried a distinctly patronizing glint. “You realize, Anjali, that everyone is born with some extrasensory ability. Knowing the phone is going to ring before it does. Disliking someone you just met without knowing why…but reading minds, communing with spirits…well, that just doesn’t exist. All of the world’s so-called psychics have proven to be frauds.”
Great.
How could Dr. Feldman—a psychiatrist who bore an eerie resemblance to Barbra Streisand—possibly help her when she didn’t believe psychic abilities were real? When she didn’t believe Anjali’s problems were real?
Anjali wished she’d never made the appointment. She’d gotten her hopes up after seeing an ad on TV. The actress in the commercial with the soothing voice had promised, “Whatever your problem, a little white pill can help.”
Whatever her problem…
After she hit puberty, Anjali’s abilities had zoomed into warp drive. She had only to touch an object to know who held it last. Any wonder she wasn’t a big fan of vintage clothing?
Anjali had no clue where her so-called gift came from. According to what she’d read, a person was usually born with ESP, inherited through DNA like blue eyes or male pattern baldness. At twenty-eight she had the same golden skin, brown eyes, and wavy black hair as the rest of her family. But to her knowledge, none of the other Kumars ever slapped a bumper sticker on a car that read: Honk if you’re telepathic.
Sometimes Anjali wished she was just plain old crazy.
There was nothing wrong with crazy. They had a cure for crazy. Crazy was good.
Sanity was overrated.
Dr. Feldman steepled her hands and narrowed her eyes, focusing on her patient. “Now Anjali, this problem you have of being overly sensitive to the world around you—”
Translation: Another neurotic basket case.
“—merely nerves. A change of scene might be in order.”
I co-own a sanitarium.
“There are methods of relaxation you can try—”
Electroshock therapy is making a comeback.
Great. Of all the luck, she’d managed to find the one psychiatrist in the nation who didn’t leap at the chance to prescribe medication. And Dr. Feldman was the only shrink in the area she could afford. Her crappy-ass health insurance didn’t cover psychiatric consultations.
She’d tried everything and every form of therapy to gain control of and subdue her ability: yoga, transcendental meditation, regular meditation, therapeutic art classes, rebirthing, past life regression, interpretive dancing, and sensory deprivation. Nothing worked.
“Let’s get back to high school,” the good doctor delved. “You’d begun describing those years to me.”
The words slipped from her lips before she could stop them. “They called me Carrie.”
“Carrie?”
“You know the movie with Sissy Spacek? Pig’s blood on prom night?”
“And how did that make you feel?”
Lame question alert!
“Angry, of course…but eventually the teasing stopped.”
“Oh?”
“Well, I reminded them of what happened at the end of the movie. Carrie mentally locked the doors of the gym and everyone inside was burned alive.”
“Aha.” Dr. Feldman began scribbling something in her notepad.
Anjali took a deep breath. She had to give this one more shot. “Dr. Feldman, I really think what I need is an antidepressant or maybe a tranquilizer? Just something to dull my senses, help me get through the day?”
“Tell me more about wanting to kill your classmates,” the doctor prompted.
Anjali dug her nails into her palms and bit back a scream of frustration. Dr. Feldman was no Barbra Streisand and this wasn’t The Prince of Tides. She’d get no help with her demons.
She took a deep breath and tried to center herself. After all, it could’ve been worse. Dr. Feldman could have prescribed what countless relatives had—a husband. Time and time again she’d heard, “You’re a pretty girl but you’re nearly thirty—Hai Ram!—and your looks won’t last forever.”
Oh, who was she kidding? There was no antidepressant on earth that could shut down her sixth sense.
Unlike most people’s image of a psychic, Anjali Kumar did not have gruesome dreams of serial killers committing their crimes, nor did she make millions dispensing advice via a 1-900 number.
Being psychic was not as cool as it sounded.
2
Scott
San Francisco
“Are you on welfare?”
In the middle of adjusting the optical zoom on his digital camcorder, Scott looked up to see a chubby, frecklefaced, ginger-haired boy of about eight or nine hovering in the doorway of the guest bedroom. “Sorry?” he asked.
The boy entered the room and went straight for Scott’s camera. “Granddad says anyone who isn’t at work during the day is a bum on welfare.” He pressed his fingers against the LCD screen and began twisting the lens.
Scott gently removed the boy’s hands from his expensive equipment and tried not to grimace at how sticky the fingers were. “Cody…right? Your grandmother asked me to check out the strange noises she’s been hearing in the walls.”
Cody stuck one of his sticky fingers into a nostril and began digging. “That doesn’t sound like a real job.”
Scott shuddered and looked away from Cody’s nasal excavation. “Now you sound like my father.”
When Scott informed his family he was quitting his job as stockbroker to pursue his passion full-time, his father, Garrison Wilder II, had been somewhere between infuriated and deranged. Garrison refused to tell his friends and colleagues that his namesake, Garrison “Scott” Wilder III, was now a full-fledged ghost hunter.
Scott’s response was to inform his father that his correct title was paranormal investigator. The term ghost hunter conjured up an image of a sunburned, straw-haired Australian, dressed in khaki shirt, matching shorts, and brown boots, stomping through a haunted house shouting, “Crikey! Ghosts rule!”
Scott’s father failed to see the difference.
Scott’s mother was a bit more understanding. She’d been the one to tuck her young son in bed at night, gently stroking his brow and removing the book he’d fallen asleep reading. Books with titles like Decapitated Spirits: The Ghosts of Windsor Castle and Violent Deaths: Why Ghosts Demand Revenge.
Meanwhile, Scott’s younger brother, Ethan, was off skiing in Zermatt with his fiancée and could not be reached for comment.
At thirty-four, Scott looked like a typical Wilder male. He possessed the classic Wilder attributes: dark hair, dark eyes, strong white teeth, height, and a shrewd financial instinct. From what he’d learned, none of his predecessors, however, had ever possessed the slightest interest in the paranormal.
“Spookology,” his father called it.
“Granddad says people who don’t work are degenerates and drug addicts,” Cody said, reaching for the camera again.
Scott intercepted him with a look, and Cody reluctantly pulled his hand back.
Wondering why the boy wasn’t deep-frying his brains in front of the television like other kids his age, Scott double-checked that the camera was mounted securely in the corner. From that angle, the entire room was visible. Hidden Dolby speakers on either side of the camcorder would pick up the slightest noise. He intended to leave the machine on until the following morning. All his cameras came with a night shot infrared system that could capture any image in total darkness, smoke, or fog.
He had one more camera to set up. Case in hand, he ushered Cody out of the room, shut the door, and took the
stairs up to the attic at a sprint, confident the pudgy boy would be slow in following. Other than nose picking, Cody didn’t seem to get much exercise.
The attic door was stuck. As in many old houses, the wood had a tendency to swell. He had to push against the door several times to open it.
The room was filled with old furniture draped in white cloth. Sunbeams slanted through the dusty window. Carefully, Scott set his camera case on the floor and pulled out a slim black machine about the size of a Palm Pilot—his EMF (electromagnetic frequency) meter.
Large fluctuations in electromagnetic fields occurred in areas where paranormal activity took place.
Sweeping the instrument in an arc around the room, he checked the readings.
A tingling began at the base of his spine.
He had already double-checked the neighborhood for power lines, underground metal deposits, and anything that could possibly account for unusual levels of electromagnetic energy, but he’d discovered nothing out of the ordinary.
Which meant that the high fluctuation in electromagnetic frequency the meter was picking up now originated in the attic.
Excitement welled inside him. However, since Wilders were not prone to excessive enthusiasm (exhibiting such emotion was considered bad form), Scott merely allowed himself a small smile.
