southern ghost hunters 01 - southern spirits

by fox, angie

  Hale's nostrils flared. "He might have been in the report. I didn't get far." I could see his mind turning. "It's worth asking her. I only wish I could have gotten close. Maybe it was the property that made her squirrely. Every ghost that goes near the place gets jumpy. I don't know what it is." He looked from me to Ellis. "The night I followed her, I was attacked inside the carriage house."

  "Wow," I said. I glanced at Ellis "The poltergeist went after your uncle, too."

  "You've run into it?" the ghost frowned.

  "Unfortunately," I told him. "Do you know which spirit it is?"

  Hale's expression tightened. "It came at me too fast. I tried to ask around about Joy, but the ghosts there avoid me. They see me as an outsider," he said, taking one step toward me, then another. He crossed the blackened hole, his shoes squeaking on the bloody floor. "Watch yourselves. Stick together at all times. It's hard to explain, but in spirit form, you develop ties to places you love. I can feel the building and the land even now. There's some strong emotion tied to that place and it doesn't feel good. It's strong, aggressive."

  He pulled aside his uniform collar. His neck bloomed purple with bruises. They darkened by the second.

  Oh my God. "Did it try to hang you?"

  Hale drew close. I could feel his cold energy brush against my skin. "It tried to bury me."

  "In the ground?" I gasped.

  "I fought it off and escaped," he said, his eyes wide with fury. "But it's back there. It's waiting and it's angry."

  I swallowed hard. "How do we get rid of it?"

  "You don't," he said, backing me against the counter. "If I couldn't, you certainly can't handle it."

  "No," I said, my mind churning. I refused to believe that. Sure, Ellis and I had gotten beat up a little, but we were figuring this out. We couldn't give up now.

  "You run," Hale insisted. "You stay away."

  "We can't," I said. Not now. "We need to stop it."

  He leaned so close I could see the sweat beading on the skin of his cheeks. "Then I might be seeing you sooner than you think."

  And with that, he disappeared.

  ***

  I didn't tell Ellis about the bruises or the blood. I was shaking bad enough as it was. I didn't want to relive those things. And it would only upset him.

  "We have to go back to the property," he told me. "Now."

  I got that. It was our only option if we wanted to question Harry. But I had a feeling he had something else in mind. I stopped, studied him. "Why do you want to go?"

  "I want to see if we can dig up more on the poltergeist," he said, as if it were that simple.

  We made our way to the front door. "You think it could be the murdered girl," I said.

  "I don't know," he answered. "I also want to take another look at where you were pushed yesterday. I didn't call it in, but it is a crime scene."

  We'd been so focused on investigating for ourselves. "We should have told the police."

  He gave a short laugh. "I told you, I am the police."

  We stopped by the grocery store for sandwiches on our way down to Wilson's Creek and ate in the car while Ellis peppered me with questions about his uncle's warning, about the attack in the kitchen, and exactly what his uncle had said about the purse he'd found.

  He also called the station and put in a request for the case file on Joy Sullivan.

  "Records room is pulling it," he said, hanging up. "I can sign it out tomorrow."

  "Good," I said. "In the meantime, I have my own source of information."

  "Please don't," he groaned.

  "I'm going to tell her anyway," I said. We were too close for it to be any different. Besides, she could help with this.

  Melody answered on the first ring. "Where were you last night? I stopped by with a chicken."

  Damn. I'd be willing to bet Q never made Bond feel guilty for where he'd been the night before.

  "Well…?" she prodded. "Lucy was tickled pink to see me. It's like she'd been left alone for hours."

  I winced as I said it. "I spent the night—" Ellis's eyes grew wide. He waved me off, but I ignored him, "—at Ellis's house."

  "Urgh!" I heard from both Ellis and my sister.

  How sweet.

  "You," I said, pointing at Ellis, "should be glad I helped you." He opened his mouth, but I shut him down. "And Melody will not tell a soul."

  Not that I would clue her in on what happened yesterday. She'd never let me out of the house again.

  "You," I said over the racket Melody was making, "you owe me for the time you super glued my ponytail to my headboard."

  "This is way worse than that," she insisted.

  I didn't see how. "Listen. I need you. We think there is a distinct possibility Ellis's uncle was murdered."

  "What?" she sputtered. Okay, maybe I could have been a tad less blunt. "You're hanging out with your ex's brother and getting yourself involved with a murder?"

  She really didn't have to screech.

  "Nobody saw who shot Officer Hale," I said, pushing past her objections. We needed to keep our focus. "At the time, he was resurrecting a cold case involving a girl named Joy Sullivan."

  "I remember that story. She's still missing."

  "She's dead."

  "You don't know that."

  Unfortunately, I did. "Let's just say someone received some new information about the case. Ellis is going to dig into the files as soon as he can, but for now, can you look in the newspapers and get the facts of the case for us? That'll put us one step ahead of where we are."

  "What is this?" she protested. "Do you think you're some kind of detective now?"

  "I'm some kind of…something," I told her. Although I wouldn't be half as useful without the ghosts. "Just help me. Please," I added.

  "You know I will," she groused. "That's why you called. But promise me one thing," she added. I could feel her worry over the phone. "Be careful."

  "I'll do my best." It was all I could promise.

  "And don't kiss him."

  I wouldn't promise her that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I blew out a breath as we pulled up in front of the carriage house. We simply needed to locate the body of a missing girl, who could be holed up in a collapsing tunnel, with a poltergeist on the loose.

  And possibly avoid a murderous handyman.

  I must admit I'd had better days.

  I knew I was pushing it but, "I could use your help again, Frankie," I said as I slid out of the car. Clouds hung low over gray skies. I didn't see any sign of Harry the handyman or Joy Sullivan. Yet.

  Ellis shot me a curious glance.

  I slammed my door shut, a bit edgy. "Frankie's my friendly ghost, the one who tunes me in to the other side," I said, going out on a limb. The words hung between us, making me uncomfortable.

  "That's good to know," Ellis said, pausing while I adjusted my bag over my shoulder and tried to regain my sense of calm. "Thanks for helping us out, Frankie," he said into thin air.

  "That's it?" I asked a bit taken back that he'd accepted my ability with such calm.

  "I'm with the police department. I've seen weirder things on an average Tuesday."

  Point taken.

  We began walking to the carriage house. "I met Frankie when I dumped his urn out on my rosebushes," I said, for shock value, and perhaps to learn how much Ellis could accept about this. About me.

  He stopped. "That would only happen to you."

  "He's your Great, Great Uncle."

  I smiled when I saw the shock register on his face.

  "That would only happen to me," he said, his lips twisting into a wry grin.

  "True." I shook my head. "I can't believe how well you're taking this." Maybe I'd misjudged him.

  "Maybe I'm just glad to be alive after you landed on me." He became serious again. "Take a look at this," he said, running his boot over a slight dip in the earth. "The oak tree was about here. We filled it in." We continued to the side of the carriage house to
the place where we'd marked the tunnel location with a few loose bricks. Ellis stood over it. "My uncle said this is where he saw her," he mused, as if the place itself would give us answers.

  "Near as I can tell." I kept an eye out for both Hale and Frankie, although I didn't truly expect to see either of them. "It takes a lot of energy to manifest. I don't think Hale's going to be able to come out and help." And poor Frankie had been dead on his feet even before he'd helped us talk to Hale this afternoon.

  As for the rest? I waited for a moment. "I don't see evidence of any spirits right now," I said. Not a wisp, not a glimmer. Only rocks, scattered trees, grass, and the decrepit main house in the distance. No doubt that held a few ghosts too, but we had enough problems right here.

  Ellis drew his keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door. "Let's go inside." He motioned for me to enter ahead of him. Always the gentleman. Even when I didn't want him to be. And I didn't miss how he locked the door behind us.

  Shadows cloaked the inside of the building. It felt stark in here, empty. Ellis's work boots echoed off the century-old hardwood.

  Harry should have been there. A quick search of the place showed us he was not.

  "Do you think he's hiding?" I asked.

  Ellis frowned. "No." He appeared uneasy. "I don't know where he is. Come on," he said, continuing on to my least favorite spot on the planet. "Let's check out the tunnel."

  That was the last place I felt like searching, especially since Frankie's power hadn't kicked in. It must have shown clear on my face.

  "Don't worry," Ellis said. "We'll go down together."

  "Great."

  I had to get a grip if we were going to see this through. The ghost of Joy Sullivan had sunk into the ground, down into the tunnel. Hale had seen it with his own two eyes. It would be irresponsible of us not to investigate. I just wished it didn't scare me so much.

  "Come on, Frankie," I muttered. "Frankie the German," I added, resorting to his nickname, not sure if I was begging or trying to butter him up. I knew this was tough, but I just needed him one more time.

  But I felt nothing.

  I saw no silvery light, only the deceptive emptiness of the carriage house.

  "Hey," Ellis said, his voice echoing in the open space as he tried to lighten the mood. "At least we're not going to the cliffs."

  How sad was it when investigating a collapsing tunnel was the safer thing to do?

  I caught a spark of light near the entrance to the kitchen, merely a flicker, before it disappeared.

  We weren't alone.

  "You okay?" he asked as he reached the cellar door.

  "Sure," I lied. "Never better."

  With a hard grunt, he cracked the door open. It tried to slam back down, as if an unseen force wanted the cellar closed tight. Ellis fought it, the muscles in his back and arms straining, until the wood door gave way with a resounding boom.

  He glanced over his shoulder, slightly out of breath "Gets harder every time."

  I didn't want to know why.

  "Let's see what we've got," I said. He'd brought a Mag-Lite and I still had my keychain flashlight. We shone them both down the hole.

  An eerie silver light poured from the space.

  Thank God.

  "Looks the same to me," he murmured, casting the beam of his light down into the old cellar.

  "I'm tuned in," I murmured.

  He shot me a hard glance. "Good," he said, trying to sound casual.

  The air felt a least ten degrees colder. Tendrils of smoke crept out of the opening, tickling my ankles.

  Dread wound through me. I wondered if Harry experienced the same sense of unease, if it had kept him from sneaking around—or if he'd fought past it like we would.

  I gave an involuntary shudder.

  Ellis caught it. "I'll go first."

  "Thanks," I said, meaning it.

  I watched as Ellis began his descent, and when he was down, I followed. Ghostly cobwebs tickled my arms and legs. My fingers gripped the ladder a little tighter. One rung. Two. The air grew more frigid with each step down. Three. Four. I held my breath as the cobwebs wound against my cheeks and into my hair.

  Keep moving.

  Five rungs. Six. I froze when I heard the same faint, hollow sobbing echoing from the back of the cellar.

  I jumped the last two feet. "There's a girl down here," I said softly. "I heard her once before when I was down here."

  Ellis stood, grim in the silver light of the haunted cellar. "All right. We can do this."

  Goosebumps prickled up my arms. "Right." I hitched my bag over my shoulder and took a moment to get my bearings. The cellar had changed. It was now completely empty, save for cobwebs glittering in the corners.

  "There's a different ghost in charge down here," I said.

  Ellis turned his flashlight around toward me. "What?"

  I didn't need any lights. I could see the cellar perfectly in the gray ghostly glow. "How I see things depends on which ghost is in charge, whoever is dominant," I said. "Whoever has the most energy at the time." It must have been the colonel before, with his horse liniments and baskets of apples.

  And now? I didn't know.

  The air tasted stale, dead.

  Ghostly sobs echoed all around us and strangely enough, I could hear the faint, tinny sound of an old rock song: That'll Be the Day by Buddy Holly & the Crickets.

  "The ghost down here, the girl… she sounds upset." I said, pressing forward.

  The sobbing grew louder as we passed through the arched doorway and into the back room.

  Ellis's shoulders stiffened. "Can we get to her?" he asked, glancing at me.

  "We may not want to," I said, remembering the bruises on Hale's neck. While I didn't see Hale getting beat up by a woman on the mortal plane, the rules down here seemed to be centered around emotional strength and aggression. I wasn't about to put anything past a suffering spirit.

  The beam from his flashlight scrambled up the stone walls. I hated to break it to him, but we didn't need light to find the missing girl.

  I worried we'd lose her if she stopped crying, but was also a little afraid of what we might find. I never knew what to expect when encountering a spirit, especially one who had been killed violently.

  "Where are you, Joy?" I whispered, as her sobs faded.

  I aimed my light to the left, where shelves of ghostly mason jars had once lined the wall, to where the plywood board should have been wedged against the tunnel. My light shone into the narrow passageway instead. "She might be in there."

  Ellis drew a sharp breath. "I put the board back."

  My light bobbed over the freshly turned dirt at the entrance. "I have no doubt."

  We traded glances as he shone his light on several piles of rock outside the arched entry. "This wasn't here, either. I removed the rock I found. Someone else has been excavating."

  Dread settled in my stomach. "I hope they don't come back while we're down here."

  Ellis lifted the back of his shirt, displaying the handle of a gun. "I wouldn't mind if they did."

  The hair on my arms pricked as a small sob escaped the tunnel. "Help me."

  "She's in there," I whispered, ducking past Ellis, bracing myself as I entered the tunnel.

  I breathed in dust and decay. The temperature dropped with each step I took and this time, the silver light from the cellar didn't fade. The ghost was still influencing this space. I pressed forward, guided as much by the glimmering light as the solid brick tunnel looming over me. I flinched as the hair on top of my ponytail skimmed the ceiling.

  Ellis's footsteps scraped in the tunnel behind me. At least I hoped it was him.

  I turned, just to make sure.

  Shadows shrouded his features. "I'm here," he said, as if that would make this all right.

  As if anything could be right about creeping through a claustrophobic old tunnel underground, searching for a murdered girl.

  "Take it slow," he added, as the beam of his light found
a spot on the wall directly to my right. A white chalk mark slashed over the brick. "This is as far as I got." He paused, his voice lowering. "The rest is someone else's excavation."

  I eased past Ellis's line and stumbled over a large rock, then stepped directly onto another. The floor was rough with debris. I glanced up as the back of my head brushed a jagged piece of brick. "This is where they had the cave in." Packed dirt and plant roots clustered above my head. Broken bricks clung haphazardly to the ceiling. It appeared as if it could collapse at any second.

  This was insane. "We should turn back."

  Then I heard the voice again. "Help me."

  I swore under my breath. "Only a little farther." First I'd find Joy Sullivan. Then I'd escape. I'd run out of here so fast they'd never catch me.

  I stumbled over another rock. Whoever had cleared this section hadn't been neat or thorough. They'd been in a hurry.

  Jagged stones littered the ground, forcing me to walk over them, to crouch as I avoided the ceiling. I pressed forward until a waist-high pile of broken brick and rock blocked the way. My breath came in hard puffs. It felt like a refrigerator down here.

  A slight breeze tickled my cheeks.

  "I think we're close," I said, my voice sounding loud in the narrow space. "Talk to me, Joy." I pulled a large rock off the pile and tossed it to the side. There was either something buried here or we were about to break through to…what? "We're here to help," I said, digging away another rock. Then another. They clanked against each other, and on the cement floor of the tunnel. For the first time, I saw cement instead of dirt covering it.

  Ellis shone his light on the rocks in front of me. "Tell me what you see."

  "Nothing yet." It was unsettlingly dark beyond the rock pile. Which meant we were likely in the right spot. "But why did they stop digging here?"

  "Maybe they were interrupted," Ellis said, as he started clearing the rocks from around our feet.

  I knocked the top of the pile into the darkness, sending down a cascade of stones. I needed to see what our intruder had been digging for. What about this tunnel, this place, this jumble of stones was so important?