A Brady Paranormal Investigations Box Set

by Harper Crowley

  “You guys don’t give up, do you?” he asks ruefully.

  The corners of my lips twitch. “You should have known that when you signed on.”

  “That I did.”

  Beau whistles, and Rocket lopes to his side. We leave the stables and return to our cabin.

  Russ whips the door open just as I’m about to reach for the handle. “Great! You’re here! You’ve got to check this out.” He beckons us inside.

  Jess bounces on the couch, holding the laptop. She hops to her feet, her eyes wide. “You guys are, like, psychic or something. Look at this.” She hands me the laptop, and Beau and I cluster around the table to check out what’s so important.

  The title on the top of the page reads “EVIDENCE FOUND?”

  “That’s not obvious or anything,” I say, but I can’t keep the excited tremor from shooting through me.

  Russ leans over my shoulder. “Click on it.”

  The post that appears is by one of our most dedicated subscribers, Ghostboi82. It’s not very long. In fact, all it says is, “Hey guys, check out the timestamp 81:16 on the GoPro video from the Lily tour. I think I found something.” He includes a link at the bottom of his post with the video clip.

  I click on the clip, and the basement of the Lily Theater pops into view. In the background, I can hear my voice and Ted’s. This must be Russ’s camera, because a few seconds later, he pans the room, glossing over Ted and me. My heart twists when I see our guide. Was that his last tour? Were we the last people to see him alive?

  For a few seconds, we listen to Ted give his spiel about the sordid history of the Lily Theater. Then Russ pans the room again, and something different appears—there’s a shadow where there wasn’t one before, followed by a slight movement. Yes! Right there, in one of the exhibits. This has to be the evidence Ghostboi82 was talking about, the proof that there really is something after death. This is why we’re here. This is why we do what we do. We don’t do it for the audience online, the emails, the calls, the chance to travel around the country. It’s for the split seconds of footage we get at the most random of times, proving there just might be something out there.

  “Did you see that?” I point at the screen, but it’s gone.

  Beau frowns. “No. What happened?”

  I rewind the video until right before the movement, then play it forward in slow motion until the shape materializes again. There.

  Behind one of the female mannequins leaning against the wall, a man steps out. He’s wearing a pressed white shirt and a black vest, complete with a black bolo tie. Brown hair curls around the nape of his neck, and lines crinkle around his eyes. A thick brown mustache and a dusting of facial hair complete his look. He must be one of the actors. Has he been watching us all along?

  “Who’s that?” Beau points at the screen.

  “I have no idea.” I glance at Russ. “Did you see him during the tour?”

  Russ plops down next to us so he can peer at the man. “No, but there were a lot of mannequins, so if he was standing really still, I wouldn’t have seen him.”

  Jess tips back the screen on the laptop. “Isn’t that the coolest? This might be our best evidence yet. The people on the forums are all over this.” She tosses her headset on the table. “Though if it ends up not being a ghost, that’s pretty creepy. I had no idea there was anyone else down there.”

  “It’s got to have been one of the actors,” I say. “We might have even walked past him during the day and didn’t realize it.”

  Bear whines and tunnels under my arm to get into my lap.

  “He kind of looks familiar,” Jess says, concentration creasing her brow. “Where did I see him?” She snaps her fingers. “Do you think he was in the saloon? There were a lot of people there.”

  Jess’s vague recollection is better than nothing. “Was he with Bill and the other guys?”

  She looks up and squints, obviously trying to remember. “I don’t think so, but I bet if we look at the brochures or online, we’ll be able to find more pictures of him. It worked for Hank.”

  “I wonder if there are any pictures of the old cast online,” Russ says. “He could be a disgruntled actor, one who was fired or run out of town, looking for revenge.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.” One of the actors from the old company would know how to get around town without being noticed much, and he would be intimately familiar with the historic locations, such as the theater. “Then I guess that leaves Beau and me to see if we can follow Annette.” My stomach flip-flops at the thought, but I don’t know if it’s the fact that I’ll spend more time with Beau or whether I’m tossing myself into a precarious position once again. But hey, I’ll have my very own cowboy to protect me, so that’s something, right?

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Russ says. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  I pat his knee reassuringly. “No. You’re much better at that internet stuff and finding information. I’ll just break the thing.”

  He chuckles. “You’ve got that right.”

  Beau and I get to Tombstone a little before nine. We park on the outskirts of town next to a couple of other vehicles with out-of-state plates. It’s close enough that we can get to Beau’s truck without attracting too much attention, but hopefully far enough away that no one will recognize it. I hope.

  As it was the last night we were here, the streets are nearly empty. The Last Chance and the Crystal Palace are open, but the rest of the touristy attractions are closed. Most of the residential houses that surround the town have their lights on, but it’s almost as if they’re outside of the town or in a different dimension.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Beau asks, offering me his arm. I slip my arm in his, feeling warmth inside that I haven’t felt for a long time. Sure, traveling with Jess and Russ is great, and sometimes we can finish each other’s sentences, but I still crave this feeling sometimes, that I’m more than a sister, a boss, or a reporter. I’m more than a ghost hunter who sticks her foot in her mouth as often as not and more than just someone on the internet who does fun stuff to make a living.

  “What are you thinking about?” Beau asks.

  His question stops me in my tracks. It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone actually ask me that and actually want to know the answer. But as always, I choose the safe route and force a smile to my lips. “Just that I’m glad I’m here and not in Detroit.”

  “Is that where you live?” He tugs me along beside him. Good idea. If we stay in one spot for too long, we’ll draw attention to ourselves.

  “No, um, my aunt lives there. I don’t really live anywhere long enough to have an address.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I retreat back into myself. I don’t know why, but I feel ashamed to tell him that I’m essentially homeless. I should be more normal and have an apartment, a house, or something more than a P.O. box, but that’s not my life. I take a deep breath. While I’m at it, I might as well tell him everything. Odds are, he looked it up anyway when he became a subscriber, but those are just words. They’re not a story. If I tell him, he’ll have enough time to decide whether or not he wants to get involved or retreat. At that second, I’m not sure which I would rather have him do.

  “My parents died three years ago, but you probably already knew that.”

  He nods.

  “It sucked. My aunt took my sister to Detroit, but I was a senior, so I stayed in Portland to finish school. But then the house sold, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I stayed with my best friend”—my former best friend, that is—“until I caught her screwing around with my boyfriend.” I take a deep breath to help steady myself. Yeah, those memories are better off buried. “On the last day of school, I got my diploma and left. I have a P.O. box in Detroit and a storage unit with a few of my parents’ things, but that’s it.”

  “So you’re like a hippie, wild and free, roaming the countryside looking for ghosts.”

  A startled laugh bubbles up from my li
ps before I can stop it. “Yeah, something like that.” Being a hippie sounds a lot better than being homeless.

  We pause at a corner right before the main street. Another couple walks by, chattering excitedly about their day. After they pass, Beau clears his throat.

  “My mom died when I was three. Drunk driver. So yeah, I get it. Kind of.” My heart aches for him, and the loss he suffered when he was so young. I have a lot of great memories of my parents, and I cling to those when I’m hurting and stuck in the grief so thick it’s like quicksand.

  I squeeze his arm, but I don’t say anything. There isn’t anything to say. Sorry doesn’t cut it, and to hell with all that in-a-better-place crap. I would give anything to have my parents back, but that’s not going to happen. At least Beau knows his mom’s gone. He wasn’t stuck in that torturous half-life like Graham was—that poor guy was stuck between reality and hell, not knowing if his mom was alive or dead. I think Graham knew in his heart that his mom was gone, but there was still that part in him that desperately wished for her to walk through that door.

  Beau clears his throat. “So anyway, yeah. I don’t remember my mom, but it’s still left a hole, you know? Like I’m missing something.”

  Oh yeah, I know how that feels.

  “I mean, my dad’s great. He really is, it’s just... it’s not the same.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  We stroll casually toward the saloon, as if we were just another couple enjoying an early-fall evening in one of the most well-known historical towns in the West.

  “At least it’s not freezing cold here,” I say in a lame attempt to lighten some of the heaviness in the air. “I bet it’s already snowed in Detroit.”

  “In September?” he asks.

  “It’s happened before.” I fight back a grin of my own. “The trees are beautiful, though. That’s like the only good thing about Michigan in the fall. Once the leaves are gone, it’s like six months of horrible weather until the sun comes out again.”

  “I can see why you don’t want to stay there.”

  I give a mock shudder. “Oh yeah. I refuse to take cases in cold states in the winter. It’s not worth being miserable. No one wants to watch an investigation when we’re freezing our butts off and shivering the whole time.”

  We reach the saloon, and the doors swing open as another couple leaves, followed by a blast of country music and laughter. Suddenly I feel cold, but not because of the temperature. There’s no one else out here, but in there, there’s life and joy, and we’re looking for the opposite. Bill might be involved in Hank’s death, and even if he’s not, he’s still an abusive jerk. Annette doesn’t want to go with him, not that I blame her one bit, but there’s something fishy about that, too.

  “Where do you want to wait for them?” Beau asks.

  I rack my brain for a second. “How about down the alley behind the dumpster?”

  “Do you think they’ll catch us?”

  Good point, but it’s better than waiting out here in the open. “We’ll be quiet, and if they do, we can act like, um, like we were looking for some privacy.” My face burns, and if I’m not mistaken, Beau’s darkens in the moonlight, too.

  “Sounds good to me,” he says. His voice is lower now, deeper, and his eyes look as dark as the space in between the stars. I shiver. Yeah, maybe our cover isn’t as far-fetched as I imagined.

  We sneak down the alley, sticking to the shadows. My heart races, and I’m not sure if it’s because I feel like we’re hot on the trail to our next clue, or if it’s because of what we might have to do as a cover-up if we get caught. Once we’re behind the dumpster, I turn on the recorder on my phone, just in case something happens.

  The door opens, offering a sliver of light barely visible from our vantage point. A long shadow slips out of the kitchen. Another set of boots clip-clop down the alleyway from where we just came. That was close.

  Behind the dumpster, Beau presses me against the wall, my softness molding to his strength.

  He’s just keeping up with the ruse. That’s all that he’s doing.

  “Shhh,” he whispers in my ear, sending shivers down my spine. He nuzzles the soft skin in the crook of my neck. He’s smart though. If we get caught, it’ll look just like what we decided, a couple of young people making out.

  “Are you ready?” Bill growls, his voice low and angry.

  “Do I have to?” Annette whines. “You don’t really need me. You know where to look.”

  “This isn’t up for discussion. Come on.”

  She gasps, and I peek out from behind the dumpster in time to see Bill grab Annette’s arm and pull her down the alley and out of sight. Beau pulls away, and we hurry after them, suddenly cold.

  Annette and Bill get into a dark car and peel out of the parking lot. Darting out from behind the nearest building, we hurry into the truck and slowly pull out of the parking lot to follow him down the lone highway between Tombstone and the nearest bigger city, Sierra Vista.

  Bill guns the engine, dodging between cars and weaving in and out of traffic. He’s either a maniac or drunk. Maybe both.

  “Um, Mer. I think they know we’re here,” Beau says as the car in front of us slams on its brakes and pulls a U-turn, driving right over the rocky median to join the other cars going the opposite direction.

  “Crap. I think you’re right,” I say, watching the red lights on our best chance disappear out of sight.

  Chapter 19

  My phone buzzes from the nightstand. Are you awake? I groan. When I realize it’s Beau, I sit up quickly and throw my feet off of the side of the bed.

  Yeah, what’s up? I reply.

  The lights. They’re back again. I’m outside.

  I hurry to the window, and sure enough, on the horizon, I see the light zipping over the edge of the valley. It looks farther away than it had before, but even that can’t stop my heart from racing.

  Beau’s waiting outside my door. Excitement curves his lips and lights his eyes. “Do you want to check it out? It’s a little farther than the last time we saw it, maybe even right on the ridge, but it’s doable.”

  I hop up and down to wake my sluggish limbs. “Um, yeah. Of course I want to go check it out.”

  He pulls me into a quick, fierce hug. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll go grab the gear.”

  “And I’ll get Jess and Russ.”

  Five minutes later, we’re hopping on the ATVs and racing over the ridge. I feel a pang of guilt for leaving Bear behind again, but it truly is safer, in case we run into trouble. This case feels more dangerous even than when we faced off with the Mullet Boys and Bigfoot.

  At the edge of the valley, where we first saw the lights, we stop. Beau’s right. They’re still quite a bit away, and my stomach sinks.

  “Is that still your property?” I gesture toward the light.

  Beau nods. “Yup. And even where ours ends, it’s state land, so we’d be fine to go anyway. We just have to be careful that we don’t run into anyone else.”

  His words remind of me of Beau’s story of the migrants they found, killed by the cartels. “Definitely. As long as you feel it’s safe.”

  He squeezes the hand I have wrapped around his waist. “I’d never put you in danger,” his says, his voice a low rumble that makes me shiver pleasantly inside. Yeah, I’m in trouble.

  Russ stands and tries to get a good picture of the flying object. “I’m sick of coming up empty-handed. Do you want to go catch us an alien?” He looks over his shoulder at me.

  “You bet.”

  The terrain changes at the top of the next ridge. It’s rockier, and the other side of the shallow valley rises up into the first ridge of the Huachuca mountains.

  “Are you getting this?” My voice is hushed, reverent. I’ve never seen anything like this, and I’m not quite sure what to do about it. If we’d had more time and cell phone reception, we could have set up the live stream—people would have loved this. But we didn’t, so I try to get good footage w
ith my phone, but the red light is zipping back and forth so quickly that it’s hard to maintain focus.

  “I’m trying to,” Jess says. “Maybe between the three of us, we can get something good.”

  Beau gets off of the ATV and stares at the object. “What in the hell is it?”

  “I don’t know. Can we go any closer?”

  “We can try. I’m not too familiar with the land out here. The cows don’t come out this way much.” Beau scuffs the ground with his boot. “Want me to shoot it?”

  I elbow him in the side as Russ laughs. “No, I don’t want you to shoot it. Stop being such a cowboy.”

  The light dips into the valley and out of sight. We peer over the edge. It’s pretty steep, but not undoable. In the bottom of the valley, there are several dark shapes. They’re not trees, they’re not rocks, and they’re too small and thin to be cows. People.

  “Who the hell is down there?” Beau grabs a flashlight from the pack and starts skidding down the side of the valley.

  “Wait up.” Jess hurries after him.

  “Jess,” I hiss, starting after her as fear shoots through me. She’s not supposed to do this. She’s not supposed to put herself in danger. She’s supposed to let me protect her. The red rocks slide easily underneath my feet. Behind me, Russ swears, and then I hear rocks sliding as he follows us.

  Jess and Beau are about thirty feet ahead of me when I hear someone shout. The figures start moving, and one of the flashlights flies through the air. My sister gets caught the fray, and I see someone push her aside as if she were a ragdoll. She falls to the ground and hits her head on something. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  “Jess!” My heart stops. I fly as fast as I can on the loose rock and slip, the flashlight flying out of my hand. I reach the bottom of the valley and race to her side. She’s crumpled on the ground, and I pull her onto my lap before I can think better of it and smooth her hair from her face. “Jess, can you hear me? Are you okay?”