Henry came down and sat on the opposite end of the sofa. “Nice in here.”
“Aw, yeah. Nice enough, I guess.”
Anita released a scream. She couldn't be trapped here. Not with these two assholes. “I need some help here! Please!”
“Hey John, think that stupid ghost is gonna show up?”
Crunch, crunch. “I hope not. The thought of being haunted for the rest of my days.”
Anita went out to the parking lot just outside the door, hoping that she might lose her connection to them. She stared at the row of palm trees at the end of the units and focused on Olivia. Nothing. A bird flew through her, and it was a bit startling, still not accustomed to being deceased. A tiny lizard crawled under the door and went inside, most likely searching for food. Why can't I go to Olivia? I'm concentrating as hard as I can. It should be easy to go back, but I can't do that either. It should be pleasant to think of Tim, so I'll focus on him.
Anita tried her best to visualize she and Tim laughing by the brook, to shift into a different frame of mind, but attempting to force oneself to be less stressed when there was so much on the line appeared to be hopeless. Anita started to cry.
Chapter Fifty-One
OLIVIA TURNED HER SIRLOIN STEAK and watched it sizzle. The detective hadn't heard from the spirit in two days and was getting restless and worried that she might be unable to come back. Perhaps someone was stopping her from crossing over? Or maybe it took more energy than she now had and couldn't cross over. Olivia could imagine many things, but facts were elusive. The idea of it remained mind boggling. She again flipped her steak and went back to munching her barbecue chips, taking the pan off the stove, it would be medium rare soon enough, allowing the remaining heat to get at it. Olivia had always had a big appetite and a fast metabolism, but she could see herself getting overweight when she got older.
With all the things she had to think about, Olivia's period was late. Her partners always used condoms but, of course, they weren't foolproof, and there was a slight chance that someone had poked a hole in one. She couldn't imagine having a little one, but she would if it came to that, and she could always hire a nanny. The advantages of having money were significant.
The sound of a plane overhead reminded her of the vacation.
Olivia finished her chips and retrieved the steak and a knife and fork, placing the plate on the coffee table and letting herself fall on the sofa. She was chewing her first bite when Anita appeared, but it was for less than two seconds, and so received no communication. “Anita! If you're here, I can't see you. Anita!” She waited and waited, but Anita didn't return. The detective guessed she would find out how hard it was to cross over one day, but she was in no rush. “Anita!”
Anita materialized once again, and Olivia thought she looked frazzled as she only managed a single word before she vanished. “I”
“Anita? Shit.”
She waited and watched and listened, but the hotel was quiet now, almost too quiet. The detective had to admit that the sirloin was delicious. “Anita? Are you here?” After she finished the meal she was frustrated with the situation, and her mind wandered back to her menstrual cycle. Maybe she should get one of those things and pee on it? Or was it too early for that? Having a baby would change everything.
Olivia called her Aunt Stella to see if there was anything she could do. She thought that Aunt Stella's interactions with spirits must have gained her some knowledge over the years, as she was more witch than not.
Stella picked up her phone and listened. “She's trying to contact you but can't remain clear enough to get her message across? Give me a minute to consult my book.” She went to a small bookcase in the corner and removed a binder that she had, trying to decipher her scribbles from several encounters with other mediums over the years. Stella had compared notes of what they had learned about the afterlife. “Okay, Olivia, I'm back.”
“She disappears almost instantly. She appears anxious to tell me something but disappears before she can.”
“Hold on one more second.” Stella ran and got nine chicken bones and headed back to her sofa. She placed them on the coffee table and made a circle with them as best she could, making sure that all the ends touched. She poked her finger with a pin and let a drop of her blood fall in the center. “Hello? Are you still there?”
“I'm here.”
“Olivia, as soon as she reappears you need to tell me. Just shout out now!”
The detective shrugged and then nodded, but she wouldn't be able to stay on the phone for days. Four minutes passed and then Anita appeared. “Now!”
And this time, Anita remained stable long enough to explain where she was and what was going on. Olivia got her things, checked out, got in the car, and drove toward Orlando. Things were finally developing and moving forward. She would never be able to tell anyone about this case. Well, except her Aunt Stella, of course.
Chapter Fifty-Two
IT WAS A QUARTER AFTER NINE in the morning when Olivia checked into Parc Corniche, getting the last unit available. Anita noticed a squirrel eating a peanut on a tree stump, of all things. John's truck wasn't in the parking lot, and that could mean that today was the day that the event occurred, or perhaps they had simply gone out for breakfast. In any case, it was worrying the both of them. Eva and Courtney's lives were in the hands of a detective and a ghost. They could sure use some help from on high. Anita came into view as the detective was returning to her car, standing near the left bumper. Several other tourists saw the spirit as well; they weren't sure what to make of it.
“Hurry,” said Anita. “They're on the Martin Andersen Beachline Expressway going west.”
When the detective got in her car, she programmed her GPS for the Expressway and off they went. She considered it might be best to park near Anita's house and just wait, but she couldn't be sure in which direction they would approach, and no idea when either. It would be a kick in the head if this weren't the trip to Florida that involved Eva and Courtney.
Anita jumped back to John, appearing in the truck between the two as John was laughing about something; she slapped him in the face hard, leaving a red mark, and Henry heard the sound of the contact. She was happy that she could again be physical. This off and on thing was aggravating. And the concentration required was unbelievable.
“Oh no, she's back!”
“The ghost?” Henry asked.
“Do you see anyone else?”
“I don't see anything.”
The knowledge that she was in the truck made John anxious, now wishing that Henry would have been the one who killed her because he wasn't driving. John almost lost control of the vehicle as Anita grabbed on to the wheel and jerked it, but he was stronger than she and so managed to thwart her effort. John could again feel the steering trying to pull both left and right and so tightened his grip with such force that he was hurting his fingers. After several minutes of no interaction with the ghost, he hoped that she had abandoned the idea to run them off the road.
Sometime later John turned onto Town Center Boulevard and pulled into the parking lot of the Courtney Chase Apartments, where a tall skinny man with tattoos and a ring in his nose approached the vehicle.
John lowered the window. “You have a photo for me?”
“All I can do is show it to you. If you fail, we'll need to show it to someone else. I don't use phones anymore since it got me five years in the pen. This guy has security and sometimes even a sniper on the roof. Bulletproof glass.” The photo was of an Asian man in his thirties, wearing an expensive Italian Kiton K-50 suit that had cost him sixty thousand dollars. “These days he doesn't go out much. He just moved to this new house on the beach, and his new address is on the back of the photo. Memorize it and make sure you get it right. And he always has lots of cameras. My father says you have ten days but, even so, it won't be easy. On the eleventh day, he'll give the job to someone else. The last guy we sent disappeared. And sometimes he uses doubles, but look for the scar on hi
s right cheek.”
Sniper on the roof? Fuck, this doesn't sound easy. If he spots us before we see him, he's probably gonna get one of us. Maybe I should paint a bullseye on Henry's forehead. John looked at the photo, turned it around and memorized the address, and then handed it to Henry who examined it, looked at the address, and then gave it back to John. He wrote down the address to make sure.
“The money will be wired when it's done, but confirmation could take a few days.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
OLIVIA RACED WITH ANITA IN PURSUIT of John and Henry, and three police vehicles were doing their best to keep up with the killers. And from Zellwood they turned onto Apopka and then on to South Apopka, eventually rushing through Paradise Heights, where they almost ran over a boy on his bike. Henry fired at the police with his M4A1 Assault rifle, and he was having a great time. If it was his time to go out there wasn't a better way. The bullets raked across the police cruiser, causing it to crash.
Henry could hear a helicopter in the distance. These cops weren't fooling around. A police sniper was hanging partially out of the chopper, though they were still too far for a shot. Several bullets from one of the cruisers hit the back of the truck, and one destroyed John's side view mirror.
Olivia was hitting speeds of more than a hundred miles per hour when she got an idea. “Guide me to your house, and I'll hit them head-on if that's what it takes to stop them.”
“I don't want to be responsible for your death!”
“Chances are they'll turn away before they hit me.”
“Because of the emotions involved, the spirit's voice was now crystal clear, no longer barely audible as it had been at times. “Take the next right!”
Olivia screeched around the turn and blasted through the red light.
“Take the next left at the lights!”
But this time there was just too much traffic, and they had no choice but to wait for the green. After the light had changed she punched it again, zig-zagging in and out of traffic as best she could. With all that had transpired because of Anita, she thought it possible that the events had altered, and maybe they would end up nowhere near her sisters but in a different area. There was no way to know until it was over.
“Turn here! There's my house, right there!”
The girls were playing catch with a Frisbee on the front lawn as Olivia pulled into the divider that allowed left and right turn onto the opposite road.
Olivia screamed at the girls. “Get inside and take cover! Stay away from the windows!” It was going to play out here. Anita knew that this was it; she was disappointed that with all she had managed on this side, it was still coming down to being in such proximity to her sisters. Life or death for her sisters.
But there was nothing haphazard about these circumstances; evil forces arranged it. Too much of a coincidence that Anita's killers would also kill her sisters in Florida. If Courtney lived, she was going to discover the cure for all cancers and save countless lives.
Eva and Courtney rushed into the house as shots continued to sound and were getting closer. Anita remembered what Cuthbert had said, that it wasn't easy to change things. If it all went terribly wrong, she didn't want to be here to see it and started to fade. There was still a chance the bullets would go through the walls of the house and kill them. But she managed to bring herself back as she needed to see it through to the end.
Anita could see the truck screeching around the corner and several police vehicles in pursuit. They were going to pass directly in front of her house, not a good sign. How was it possible that she hadn't changed a damn thing?
Olivia got on the road going the wrong way, and stepped on it. She was less than a quarter-mile now and closing.
Cuthbert and a beautiful young woman in a flowing white dress were watching the police chase, hoping for the best, though fearing the worst. Anita had changed some things, so the outcome was unknown. They observed anxiously as the vehicles got closer and closer to a head-on collision. The world would change due to the results of this event. But dark forces were also watching with evil smirks, and they had worked hard to get it to this point.
Henry had his AR-15 rifle aimed out the window, ready to fire but, abruptly, John veered off the road to avoid the head-on, and the car slammed into an enormous boulder with a silver plaque. The impact was fatal for both John and Henry; they died instantly. Their velocity too great for the air bags to save them.
Olivia's car also went off the road and flipped several times.
Epilogue
ANITA KISSED TIM PASSIONATELY. She had saved Eva and Courtney, with a lot of help from Detective Brown, and she was content. Now if she could only get to heaven, she would be happy.
Anita returned to the picnic table where Sun-Jade was sitting washing her face. Tim went back to work, carving details on the staff he was putting the finishing touches on–scenes of several natives sitting near a campfire with a wolf in the background. Other spirits were approaching to see his beautiful work.
“Hello, Anita.”
The voice was a familiar one. She turned and saw Cuthbert's top hat, and it made her smile. “Well, Cuthbert, do I get into heaven now?”
“You can go right in. We were so worried, but as they say, God does work in mysterious ways. Can we call on you again if we need your help? You and Olivia Brown make a great team.”
Anita thought about that and then shrugged. “I guess you can ask, but once I get in there I doubt I'll ever want to leave, but you never know.”
Cuthbert raised his eyebrows, smiled, and then vanished.
Anita was again at the white light, the portal to heaven. Michael was again on the bench, talking to a German Shepherd that had brought him a ball to toss. She approached the entrance of brilliant glow. So. Will it let me in this time? I think I'll miss Tim if I enter, though I may be too happy to care. But he could come in with me if he wanted, at least, I believe so. Maybe he will follow me, and if not now, soon. At least, I hope so.
Anita pushed her hand into the light; it was going to let her in this time. Someone stroked her hand on the other side, and she quickly pulled it back. Anita considered that it might be her grandmother. After a relatively short pause, she stepped inside. “Grandma! Oh, how I've missed you!”
Detective Brown returned to work in New York and was working on taking down the law firm that had been involved in Anita's murder. It turned out that they were paying witnesses large sums of money to testify falsely to keep their clients out of prison, and clients often included murderers and drug lords.
If you liked the book, a review would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again. And tell your friends.
About the Author
The author is the writer of more than a dozen screenplays, having two optioned.
The writing spark was initiated by reading the works of Harlan Ellison. A. J. G. is now inspired by such authors as Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, Dean Koontz and others.
Other books by the Author
Of Knights and Wizards
Knights of the Dragon
Knights of the Wizard
Knight of the Sword
Knights of the Full Moon
Knights of Ash
Dracula Hearts
Dracula: Hearts of Stone
Dracula: Hearts of Fire
Dracula: Hearts of Glory
Dracula: Hearts of Ice
Breaden the Barbarian
Forbidden City
King of the Castle
The Saucer Club
Comes a Child
A Christmas Carol (A New Version)
The Martian Matter
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleve
n
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
Other books by the Author
I Was Murdered Last Night (Olivia Brown Mysteries Book 1) Page 15
