Aiden let out a whistle. “This is not going to be fun. That place has bad mojo.”
“What do you mean?” Derrick asked.
“It just feels bad,” Aiden replied with a shrug. “Dan and I went there a couple of years ago. It is easy to get freaked out in that place. I’m not really sure how to describe it other than evil.”
“Well it is a prison,” Lauren said. “It’s not like those who died there were angels.”
“True,” Aiden said as he reached over and turned the spirit box on. “Snow? You there?”
“I am,” came the staticky version of Snow’s clipped British voice from the round speaker.
“I’m assuming you heard that the TV show guys are going to be here this weekend, right?”
“Yes, I did, and I will add that your intuition about the place is correct. It houses some areas and spirits that can be very dangerous to the living.”
“How dangerous?” Lauren asked.
“In my opinion, someone who wasn’t being careful could easily find themselves on my side of the veil, leaving yours behind,” Snow said, not putting too fine of a point on it.
“They would die?” Derrick asked in surprise, both his eyebrows and his voice lifting as he questioned this.
“It is possible,” Snow said. “In some corners of that place, the less than savory characters have taken control. They could cause legitimate physical harm.” The three living ghost hunters frowned at this and looked down at the table in response, thinking.
“Oh! Snow, is Cadence with you?” It was Derrick who asked.
“I’m here,” Cadence said. “If only just.”
“What do you mean?” It was Aiden, posing the question this time.
“I was just given the clearance to return to work last night. This is my first day back,” Cadence said.
Aiden let out a low whistle. “Damn. Five weeks out? That asshole must have really done a number on you.”
“You have no idea, nor do you really want to,” Cadence said, her voice gaining a sour note.
Snow cast a glance to the back office, which was where Lauren kept the urn that Overton was now imprisoned in. He hoped the man was still locked in the cage but was not about to try to go in to be sure. “Yes, but he is once again entrapped. With Detective Riley back in the field, things are returning to normal.” Snow winced as he heard his voice coming out of the box. It went against all of his ingrained rules to speak to breathers so plainly.
“I hope so,” Lauren said. “I have a feeling we’ll need all hands on deck for this.” Snow was pleased to see that Lauren seemed to finally have moved on from blaming Cadence for Dan’s death.
“So if the TV guys have moved us up to this week,” Derrick said, “what are we going to do about the Owens family? Do you think we can give both of these projects our full attention?”
“I think we can give the Owens family our undivided attention,” Aiden said. “At least until Thursday night. We won’t know more about what the TV show is going to want from us until then. Not to mention, maybe we will get lucky, and this family’s issue is simply something along the lines of overexposure to EMF or bad plumbing.”
“I sincerely doubt that given what we know about it,” Lauren said.
“What’s going on with this Owens family?” Cadence’s voice came through the speaker of the ghost box.
“The Owens family,” Lauren said with a sigh as she turned pages in her notebook to reveal another page of notes. “The mother is convinced that the new invisible friend the young daughter has is a spirit. The Father isn’t convinced, but for the wife’s peace of mind, he is willing to let us come in and investigate.”
“How old is the Owens’ little girl?” Cadence moved to look over Lauren’s shoulder at the notepad.
“She’s five years old,” Lauren said in reply.
Snow asked the next question. “When do you plan on going to see this Owens family?” His voice coming out of the box was still jarring to him, but he was becoming used to it. As much as it rankled him to be breaking the rules so flagrantly, he had to admit it was expedient.
“They just got in touch with us yesterday,” Derrick said. “I’ve been doing research on their property.”
“We will head out to them tomorrow in the early afternoon. Mrs. Owens said the little girl has afternoon Pre-K, so we can do some initial talking and investigate without the child being there,” Aiden said.
“We will be meeting here around noon if you want to ride along,” Lauren offered.
“Thank you, I think we will,” Snow said. “We’ll do a little research on our end as well to see if we can’t learn something. What’s the address?”
Derrick gave them the address, and with the plans laid out for both investigations, Snow and Cadence exited the shop, the chimes in the window tinkling as they passed. In seconds they were back in the large office that the two partners shared together with Whitfield and occasionally Bethany Saxon from the guidance department. The other two were not there, however as Snow escorted Cadence to her desk before taking a seat at his own.
“Are you sure you’re going to be up for this?” Snow had been quiet, but once they were finally settled in their office, he gave voice to the question that had been gnawing at him.
“Really? How many times do I have to answer this?” Cadence was a bit annoyed at Snow’s question.
“Hear me out,” Snow said, holding up a hand to pause her from answering. “I am well aware Dr. Suarez said you were clear to come back to work, but I’m not sure he knew you would be diving into such an investigation-heavy schedule, nor such a dangerous place as Barrington Prison.”
Cadence nodded slowly. “I do see your point, and I appreciate your concern,” she said at length, trying to measure her response properly, instead of just flying off the handle. She knew he wasn’t saying she couldn’t do the job, just that he was concerned it might be too taxing for her after having only just recovered. “I’ll tell you what. I will let you know if I start feeling like it’s too much, okay? And I promise to not ignore pain or tiredness. But in promising you that, please, stop asking me if I am okay. I know you mean well, but it really grates on my nerves.”
Snow canted his head to one side as he thought about what Cadence had said. “That sounds fair enough,” he said with a nod. “Then why don’t you begin seeing if you can pull any information about the address of the Owens family while I see if I can track down Whitfield.”
“Where is he, anyway?” Cadence turned on her computer as she spoke.
“I’ve been able to field most things on my own and apparently there has been some severe shortage in the Non-Human Division. Agents have been going missing or winding up victims of the non-humans they are trying to deal with. The NHD asked to borrow him back from us since our team was taking it slowly without you.”
“Well, I’m back, and it looks like we’re going to need him,” Cadence said.
“Which is why you are doing the research while I go retrieve him,” Snow said with a smile. Cadence nodded to Snow and gave him a salute, then turned back to her computer to see what she could dig up.
Chapter 5
The chimes to the side of the door jangled delicately, indicating to the three ghost hunters gathered around one of the sales cases in the new age shop that at least one spirit had arrived. Lauren looked towards the chimes and smiled a little. Aiden and Derrick exchanged a quick look between each other in reaction to Lauren’s smile and shrugged.
“Snow and Cadence are here, let’s go,” Lauren said.
“Are they talking to you all the time now without needing the box?” It was Derrick who voiced the question although both men were thinking it.
“Who else would it be?” Lauren said with a shake of her head. “Oh come on, the process of elimination guys, catch up!” She walked around the case and made sure the sign on the door was flipped to “Closed.” Derrick and Aiden followed her out the door, and she took a moment to lock up before dropping her k
eys into her purse.
“It could always be a different spirit,” Aiden said. “In this case yeah, I’m sure you’re right. But just because they come around a lot doesn’t mean that it’s always going to be them or even someone with good intentions.”
Lauren smiled a little. She hadn’t yet told the guys about Sam being around and was afraid that his constant presence would weird them out a bit. She knew, however, that anything evil would have to go through him to get to her. That made her a bit more relaxed about the presence of spirits. She didn’t know if it was a side effect of her being more relaxed, or if it was just a coincidence, but she had also noticed that her powers seemed to be growing.
Once they were settled in the van with Aiden driving and Lauren riding shotgun, with Derrick, Snow, Sam, and Cade in the back, Lauren turned a little in her seat to look at Derrick. “Alright, research guru, what did you find out?”
“Well, as you know I did research on the property,” Derrick said. “Mrs. Owens was right in that it is new construction. The house was finished only a couple of months before they moved in. The property, on the other hand, used to be part of a larger parcel owned by the Barton family.”
“As in THE Barton family?” Aiden looked back in the rearview mirror at Derrick in surprise. The Barton family was an old, wealthy, well-established family in the area. They were one of the founding families of the town.
Derrick nodded. “The very ones. The original Barton patriarch, James, gave the parcel of land to his son Edgar as a wedding gift. There was some kind of tragedy several years later, and the entire house burned down, killing Edgar, his wife, and their two kids. Old man Barton had the remains of the estate on that land torn down and just let nature take it back. Three years ago, it was bought by the development company that built the neighborhood.”
“But none of the other neighbors are reporting anything weird?” Aiden asked.
“If they’re experiencing anything they aren’t telling anyone. None of my searches turned up anything,” Derrick said in answer.
Lauren turned on the spirit box so that everyone could hear the spirits in the car reply as she asked, “What about on your end guys? Did anything turn up?”
Cadence was the one to answer since Snow hated hearing his own voice so much. “There hasn’t been a reported haunting in that area at all, despite the tragedy that took place there. We did get a ping of energy about a mile away from the address about a month ago. We haven’t had any reason before to have surveillance in that area though so that energy could have been anything supernatural. We have no way of knowing definitively what it was.”
The neighborhood they turned into did not look like the kind of place you would find a ghost. The new construction and green lawns appeared too bright, clean, and modern to be harboring any ill-tempered ghosts. It only took a couple of turns until they pulled into the driveway of a two-storied, white house with dark blue trim. The three ghost hunters got out of the van with Snow, Cadence, and Sam right alongside them.
“Should we grab the gear?” Derrick paused by the back door of the van as he asked the question, his hand hovering just over the latch.
“I don’t know that we’ll need it, this is just supposed to be initial interviews,” Aiden said and looked to Lauren.
Lauren took a moment, looking at the house. Her eyes narrowed, and she frowned. “Bring it. Just in case.”
Aiden and Derrick nodded and opened the back of the van, each one bringing a case. Aiden also grabbed a camcorder from one of the other bags and made sure it had battery life. He shrugged to the other two. “I figure we should record the interviews, see if we get anything in the background while we’re talking.”
“Good thinking,” Lauren said with a nod.
Mrs. Owens must have seen them in the driveway because as they turned to the house, she was in the now open front doorway. Snow noticed that the woman looked only a few years older than Cadence, but was more comparable physically to Lauren. She had some weight on her and was curvier than his partner. The messy bun that her dark hair was haphazardly pulled into let wisps of loose hair fly into her face with the breeze. There were also dark circles of sleeplessness beneath her dark brown eyes. Her arms were hugged to her even though it wasn’t cold, and she greeted the approaching threesome with a thin and nervous smile.
“I’m so relieved you don’t have any advertising on your van. I was so afraid of what the neighbors would say,” she said with an apologetic smile. “Come on in. I have lemonade, iced tea, coffee, soda, water, whatever you like.” She closed the door behind them hurriedly.
The three shared a look between them at Mrs. Owens’ rush to get them in and concern over what others would think. They followed her down a short hall that let out into the large kitchen and breakfast area. The ghost hunters declined the offered drinks and sat down at the large kitchen table.
Looking around, Derrick noticed how incongruous the setting was to what they did. He was used to old, dirty, abandoned places. Not a new, nicely decorated, bright family home. But there was no denying that something was wrong, given the woman’s obvious lack of sleep and the way her hands shook as she tried to sit down without spilling her coffee.
Snow turned to Sam and Cadence as the breathers got settled. “I’ll go check out the home. Please stay with Lauren in case someone or something from our side wanders in.”
“Sam’s got them here, I can go with you to help check the place out,” Cadence said.
Snow shook his head. “No. I know you’re back, Cadence, but I would much rather you stay where it is relatively safe for right now.” He held up a hand to stop her as she opened her mouth to speak. “I am not saying that I don’t trust you and I am not saying that I think you are any less capable of performing your duties than you were before the Overton incident. I am simply saying that until you are fully healed, no limping or tenderness, I would prefer you to stay out of harm’s way.”
“He’s right sis,” Sam said, backing Snow up.
Cadence frowned, her eyes narrowing a little as she considered arguing with them. She ended up relenting and nodding in agreement with them after giving it some thought, however. They were probably right, and she knew Ramon would back them up too if he were here.
Sam nodded to Snow then turned his attention to the table of living people. He moved a little closer to Lauren since that was who he had a connection to. Sam watched the room like a bodyguard as he listened to the conversation between the four at the table. Cadence watched her brother, and as much as she was perturbed at being sidelined in the “safe” area, she was proud of Sam and how seriously he was taking his new duties.
“It’s a beautiful home,” Lauren said, starting the conversation with a compliment. “How long have you lived here?”
“About 8 months or so,” Mrs. Owens answered with a nervous sigh.
“When did you first have an idea that something strange was going on?” Aiden asked. He had the camera on and facing Mrs. Owens as they talked, recording the conversation.
“About a month ago. Ava suddenly started talking and playing with someone who wasn’t there, a little girl who she said was named Emma. We just figured it was normal growing up stuff, you know? An imaginary friend,” she shrugged and took a sip of her coffee.
“What made you suspect that this Emma was more than an imaginary friend?” Aiden asked.
“We took Ava to the fair one night. The condition for going was to clean her room, so we knew it was clean because we had checked it before leaving.” Mrs. Owens paused, staring down into her coffee for a moment. “When we got back home, her room was a mess. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there. We took pictures…” she trailed off as she fished her cell phone out of her pocket. She fiddled with it for a moment then set it on the table, pushing it towards Lauren and Aiden. “There, just swipe right to see them all.”
Aiden picked up the phone and held it so he and Lauren could see. Derrick got up and moved to stand behind them so he could see t
he pictures too. Mrs, Owens hadn’t been over exaggerating. It did look like a bomb had gone off. Toys were thrown everywhere. The sheets and blankets were off the canopy bed. The pillow was in the middle of the room with its stuffing ripped out and thrown around the room. Posters had been torn from the wall leaving fragments of paper attached to the wall with push pins.
“Wow,” Derrick said in a hushed voice. “That’s…incredible.”
“And powerful,” Lauren said, looking back up to the worried woman. “When were these taken, Mrs. Owens?”
“Call me, Robin, please. These were taken a week ago. Ava said that Emma had done it. That she was upset that we had gone without her. Then Ava said the strangest thing.”
“What?” It was Derrick who asked, leaning forward a bit, enraptured by the story.
“She said that Sarah had tried to stop Emma, but that Emma was stronger,” Robin said, lifting her dark eyes from her coffee to look at the three of them. “I’m scared, and I hope you can help us.”
“What did your husband have to say after you found Ava’s room destroyed like that?” Lauren passed the phone back to Robin as she asked.
“Things had been weird in the house before that, but they were all little things. Glasses falling off of shelves, chairs moved, the television turning on or off by itself. They were things that my husband tried to explain away or make excuses for. But this,” she said as she tapped her phone screen, “this is when he finally admitted something was going on. This was when he agreed that we had to find someone to help us.”
“How have things been since that night?” Aiden shifted in his chair a bit as the air conditioning came on and he found himself in a chilly draft.
“You’re not alone,” Sam said to Lauren, who jumped a little at his sudden intrusion.
The Dead Show Page 3
