southern ghost hunters 01 - southern spirits

by fox, angie

  He let out a huff. "What are you doing?" he asked, not half as relieved to see me as I was to find him.

  I climbed the ladder fast as a whip. He placed the light on the floor and helped me out of the cellar. He never looked so good, so right and strong as he wrapped an arm around my back and steadied me.

  Maybe I had a damsel in distress complex or maybe the sheer adrenaline of the night had gotten to me, but in that moment, I could have kissed him.

  I surprised him with a monster hug instead. "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." I clung to him. He felt so good. Smelled good. So warm. So real.

  "I—" He began, trailing off. I was hugging him too long.

  I didn't care.

  But I was a little surprised when I pulled a few inches away and realized he was still hugging me back.

  I gave him a squeeze. "I'm really glad it was you."

  He dropped his hands like I was on fire.

  I hadn't meant anything by it, but just that fast, we'd lost our moment. He rubbed at the back of his neck, as if he wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands. For a split second, I wondered what would have happened if I had kissed him. Scandal, no doubt.

  I almost wished I had kissed him. It's not like this night could get any stranger. Besides, the man looked amazing in uniform.

  "Stay here," he said, bringing a hand down to the Glock on his gun belt, as if to remind him who he was. "I'm going to check out the property."

  Oh, no. "Not without me."

  I could tell he wanted to argue, but he stopped himself. Yes, I was a liability and I'd probably slow him down, but we both understood that I didn't want to be alone.

  "He came through the side door," Ellis said, straightening. "Kicked it right in." We made our way over there and Ellis frowned as he inspected the broken metal. "I should have gone for new locks, and not kept the antique hardware."

  "You wanted to do right by the building," I said. He couldn't know the old locks would break so easily.

  "Should have done right by you," he said under his breath.

  I followed Ellis outside as he shone a light down onto the brick patio.

  "He stopped the car out front," I said, following Ellis along the side of the carriage house, careful to step only where he stepped. "Then moved around here to the side." We shone our lights on the cracked and broken asphalt, looking for tire tracks.

  We found nothing.

  "I think it was a lone intruder," I told him, as we headed up the steps, trusting that Frankie had gotten it right.

  Ellis nodded. "I saw him slide in the driver's side and take off down the road as I pulled up. I called it in, but so far none of our other units have spotted the car. He had the license plate covered with cardboard and left fast."

  He'd come to check on me instead of chasing the person who trespassed on his land? "You didn't try to follow," I said, surprised. Ellis wasn't the type to let go easily.

  He let out a huff, his expression impossible to read. "I needed to make sure you were okay."

  "Thanks." That I hadn't expected. I wasn't sure what else to say. "So inside here is safe?" I asked, pausing outside the door.

  He opened it for me. "Stay alert, but I think so." He glanced down the road, as if that would trace them. "Did he see you?"

  "Yes. He got a look at my face and everything." The headlights had shone directly on me.

  He swore under his breath. "I've got to be more careful with you."

  "Okay," I said, not exactly sure how he planned to accomplish that. In fact, now that the adrenaline had begun to wear off, I found I didn't have the energy to say much more. I was tired of being alone in this place, and more than a little relieved to have him here. He'd surprised me tonight by being supportive and brave and on my side. It felt good, even if it set me off course a bit. I realized I was shaking. My bag slipped off my shoulder. "Damn it," I said, reaching down to grab it.

  "Let go." He eased my bag out of my grip, placing it down on the steps, "It's all right. I'm here."

  I gazed down toward the main road, afraid of the vulnerability he'd see if I faced him.

  "Look at me." The beam from his Mag-Lite illuminated the porch. His expression was earnest, his tone sincere. "Tell me what happened."

  "He drove straight up the drive, as if he didn't expect anyone to be here." Of course, my presence hadn't stopped him. "I didn't get a good description. I'm sorry." I let Ellis hold me by the shoulders as I explained, the warmth of him seeping into me, giving me strength. I told him how I'd decided to head down into the cellar, and how scared I'd been.

  He not only listened, but I could tell he really thought about everything I told him. It seemed Ellis wasn't the type to do things halfway. I don't know why I expected less, except that his brother had been very, very different.

  "We'll check the inside, but it sounds like our intruder is long gone," he said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. "I'm sorry to put you through this," he said, his hand warming my cheek as it lingered there. "I shouldn't have left you here by yourself."

  "You didn't know," I told him. None of us could have anticipated this.

  But he held firm, refusing to abdicate responsibility. "This property, it's strange. You hear things. You sometimes see them out of the corner of your eye. Or at least you swear you do." He stopped for a moment, his expression softening. "I was anxious to get you started tonight. Our talk at your place didn't do anything to calm me down, either." At my snort, he added, "What I'm trying to say is I'm sorry. I should have been more cautious."

  "Apology accepted," I said lightly." The truth was, I'd needed to hear that. Badly. Ellis and I may never be friends, but we didn't need to be at odds all the time. "Believe it or not, some good has come of this." I tilted my chin down. "When I was hiding in the cellar, I found a hidden passageway."

  He hesitated. "I don't know what you mean."

  "It's a tunnel," I clarified. "Or at least the beginning of one. There's a bunch of loose dirt, as if someone's been digging down there. I think it's what has the ghosts worked up. I'd hoped it was you."

  A muscle in his cheek jumped. "Son of a bitch." He pulled away from me. "I haven't been down there since we bought the property." He glanced in the direction of the trap door. "It's not the most practical space, so it wasn't a high priority." He thought for a moment. "Maybe we should take another look."

  "Oh, joy," I said, as he headed inside, and motioned for me to follow.

  He either missed my sarcasm…or ignored it. "When we're done with renovations, the cellar opening will be behind the wine bar. I'd thought about using it to store a few bottles."

  He placed his flashlight on the floor and forced the door open. I found myself cringing as he shone his light into the hole. He noticed. Not a lot got past Ellis Wydell. He braced a hand on his knee. "Are you up for another trip underground? If you can manage, I'd like for you to show me what you saw."

  "Only for you," I said, surprised that I meant it.

  His gaze lingered on me. "Before we go down, I'll secure the building. Just in case our visitor decides to come back."

  "Great," I said, as if that would make it better.

  Cold air seeped from the open trapdoor as he locked the carriage house doors, and double checked a lock on a door in the back. Then he dragged a heavy construction saw to block the side door. "Best I can do," he said, breathing heavy as he stepped away from it.

  A chill swept over me and I had the distinct feeling weren't alone. "Colonel?" I called softly.

  No response.

  When Ellis drew near, I cleared my throat. "Maybe we should wait until daytime," I told him. "I already saw most of what there is to see and, well…" I had to be honest. "I'm not getting a good feeling."

  "I'm not either," he said, in a way that made me wish he were the type to sugar coat things. "Which is why we should head down there. We'll figure this out together, okay?"

  Right. Together. I nodded.

  I let him go first down the ladder into the d
arkness. As he descended, I saw Frankie, standing in the doorway to the kitchen, motioning me back. Or at least that's what I thought he was doing. He'd lost the other leg from the knee down.

  "What?" I hissed. He needed to come over here and tell me if we were walking into an ambush. If he was just trying to warn me we were running out of time, I knew that.

  When the gangster started arguing with someone I couldn't see, I made my decision and followed Ellis down.

  ***

  Ellis shone his beam on onto the stone floor of the cellar as I stepped down off the ladder.

  This time, I witnessed no silver light, no ethereal objects. The space felt cold and dark, as if the ghosts had abandoned it. I reached for my flashlight and flicked it on.

  "This way," I whispered, screwing up my courage and pressing forward, leading us deeper through the subterranean rooms.

  "Did you see anything else down here?" he asked, studying the brick walls as the light bounced off them.

  "One secret passage isn't enough for you?" I asked, half-joking.

  "I like to be thorough," he said, moving slower than I'd have liked.

  The less time we spent down here, the better.

  We passed under the archway into the space where I'd found the tunnel. My beam caught the plywood board on the floor. "It was behind that."

  Ellis crouched over the board and turned it over. I watched it rattle against the cold stone. "This doesn't look like it's been down here long," Ellis mused.

  He was right. I didn't see any signs of wear, no cobwebs or water damage.

  I stood and ventured as far as the light allowed, rubbing my tennis shoe along the floor. The dirt was moist, fresh.

  "Is this where you tried to hide?" Ellis asked, closing in on the passageway cut out of the wall.

  "I was hoping to escape," I clarified. Too bad that hadn't worked out. It appeared smaller, more cramped than I remembered next to his overlarge frame. "I'm not sure we should go in." For all I knew, the poltergeist could cause a cave-in and bury us.

  He gave a slight grin at that. "I just want to take a quick look."

  I chewed my lip.

  "We can't get a good idea of what we're facing if we don't know all the facts," he pointed out. He sounded so reasonable. Too bad what we were dealing with went beyond normal logic.

  "Let's do it quick then," I said, ducking inside. "Follow me."

  Now that I wasn't scrambling for my life, I found myself noticing more. Where the cellar had been painstakingly constructed, this tunnel felt rushed. The bricks didn't line up as precisely, the space felt claustrophobically tight.

  Dirt covered the stone floor, or perhaps that was the floor. The ceiling dipped a few feet in and he had to duck in order to move farther.

  A cold chill slithered down my spine. Instinctively, I stepped back. Straight into Ellis.

  "Walk much?" he asked, catching me.

  "Hush," I said, forcing myself forward.

  I took one step, two. I made myself keep going.

  Ellis followed close behind. I could hear his deep breaths.

  When I didn't believe I could make myself move another inch, we came upon the wall of debris. I fought the urge to bite my lip. "It didn't occur to me before, but this could very well be a cave in," I said, tone hushed as if my voice alone could trigger disaster.

  The tangle of bricks and stone blocked the passageway and ate at my light. I lowered my focus to where the debris scattered over the ground, directing the beam so that I could see the immense pile in front of me. It reached as high as my chin and seemed to stretch back pretty far.

  Ellis stood close. "One sec," he said, touching my shoulder, reaching his other arm past me, in order to raise his light up over the blockage. He held it as far back as possible. The passage continued into the abyss, but to where, well, that was a mystery. "The ceiling's missing up ahead, but that's not what caused this pile ahead of us." He let out a small sigh, his warm breath tickling hair near my cheek. "One thing's clear," he continued, "a real, live person is in the process of excavating this tunnel. The next question is why."

  I slid my light off. I missed it immediately, but I had an idea. I began digging through my bag. "I have GPS on my cell phone. We can map the tunnel."

  I glanced up at Ellis and found him grinning at me. "I like how you think."

  It embarrassed me, to have him look at me that way. It also made me proud.

  "Think you can catch a signal down here?" he asked.

  "Can't hurt to try." My fingers felt clumsy as I called up the app. It took a few extra seconds. The signal wasn't especially great down here, but at least we were far enough outside the carriage house walls that I got one.

  Within moments, the app gave me a happy spin of a cartoon compass and followed up with a readout. "Do you have a pen?"

  Ellis pulled one out of his shirt pocket.

  I wrote the coordinates on my arm: 35.48944, -82.53370.

  He seemed amused at that. "What?" I double-checked. I'd copied them right.

  "You surprise me," he said, as I handed his pen back.

  As long as we were being honest, "You're not what I expected, either," I told him. "Now can we please get out of here? I want to see what's above this tunnel." And I wanted out. I'd never been crazy about closed-in spaces on a good day and this one had shot my last nerve.

  "Lead the way," he said, as I ducked out around him.

  It's not easy rushing out of a secret passage, especially being the last one out, with the darkness at my back. Each step felt like an eternity. And while I was glad to have Ellis down here with me, it didn't mean both of us wouldn't feel a ton better above ground.

  When we hit the underground room, Ellis lifted the board and covered the passage again. He even kicked the dirt back around the other side. "I'm going to install a camera down here."

  "Good," I said. In the meantime, I booked it straight for the ladder and launched myself right up in to the dark carriage house. I still felt the prickles on my neck, the sense that we weren't alone. "Hurry up," I called down into the hole. "You don't have to make it pretty."

  The hole remained dark and silent. Oh my word. Something had gotten him.

  "Ellis?" I asked.

  Nothing.

  I screwed up my courage. Lord almighty, I was going to have to go back down. I gave it one last shot. "Ellis?" I hissed, before I caught sight of a milky white light directly below. For a second, I thought it was a ghost. Then I realized it was simply the beam of Ellis's flashlight.

  He grinned as he made his way up the ladder. "I went back and got a few pictures."

  "You could have told me," I said, relieved. He placed the flashlight on the floor and slammed the trapdoor down. The boom echoed throughout the stables.

  But it was hard to stay too mad. We were out. Alive and together. A situation I most certainly did not take for granted as we both started for the front door.

  He quickly drew ahead—longer legs and all—so I picked up speed.

  Ellis pulled ahead again. "I don't know where you think you're going," I told him. "I have the coordinates."

  "And I have the door," he said, unlocking the front of the carriage house and swinging the large wooden door open for me.

  "Always a gentleman," I said, treading out onto the crumbling front steps.

  "That's open for debate," he muttered, joining me.

  I forced myself to slow down, if only to call up the GPS display on my phone. I plugged in the coordinates from my arm and it directed me to the right, toward the side yard and the old house.

  "This way," I said, following the compass, careful of the rocks and the discarded bricks. The security sensors popped on and cast the yard in light. "Nice," I murmured.

  "I installed them after someone or something tore up a section of my new brick patio."

  Earlier this evening, I'd have wondered if it was a ghost. Now, I suspected someone very much alive wanted to access whatever was housed in the tunnel.

  "Her
e," I said, leading him to the exact spot of the tunnel blockage, wishing the bricks under our feet could give any clue as to what lay underneath.

  "Son of a bitch." I turned back toward where Ellis stood and saw the bricks had been ripped up in a neat circle, about five feet farther out into the yard.

  Oh, wow. "If the tunnel continues straight, and if we could follow it…"

  "Then somebody's trying to find something right there," he finished. The bed of gravel underneath remained in place. "I'm still installing it and they're ripping it up." He took a stone from a mound that reached as high as his knees, turning the rock over in his hand. "This doesn't make sense if they're digging for something below. They'd get to it much faster underground."

  "Yeah, that's weird," I said. "And I really don't get what this has to do with the ghost in the kitchen."

  He shook his head, tossed a rock out into the yard behind us. "And here I thought owning this place would help me relax."

  I let out a small laugh. "Maybe after you figure this out."

  "Maybe," he mused. He absently wiped the dirt from his hands onto his shirt. "Thanks for staying. I know it wasn't easy. I think most people would have been out of here."

  "Not you," I pointed out.

  "Yeah, the corner of his mouth tipped up, "but I'm crazy."

  "Then that makes two of us." His praise, and that dose of respect, meant a lot after tonight. I had worked hard and it felt good that he noticed. "Didn't your brother ever tell you?" I asked. "Set me to a task and I'm like a tick on a hound dog."

  "No," he said, growing more somber at the mention of Beau and me. "No, he didn't."

  Of course everything hadn't exactly gone according to plan. My enthusiasm faded. "I have to show you what happened in the kitchen."

  "All right." We walked together in the dark, our footsteps loud in the utter silence surrounding us.

  "It's not as bad as before," I said quickly, leading him to the scene of the destruction.

  "Why do I get the feeling I'm still not going to like it?"

  "Because you won't. An angry ghost came straight at me. It smashed your lights and pummeled your stove."

  He shone his light upon the mess in the kitchen and I caught my first full view of it as well. Shattered glass littered the floor, the half-dozen lamps smashed amid the chaos. Heavy cookware had been tossed around like confetti. I was lucky I hadn't been hit.