October Ghosts (A Southern Romance Monthly)

by Hockenberry, CJ

  OCTOBER GHOSTS

  A Southern Romance Monthly

  CJ Hockenberry

  Copyright © 2013 by CJ Hockenberry

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Caldwell Press

  www.caldwellpress.com

  Cover Design Copyright © 2013 Design by Trap Door

  Cover Image Copyright © Arekmalang | Bigstock

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely fictional. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Ghost hunting? Are you serious?" Chloe Stohl's shoulders drooped as she stood behind the register of her shop, Mesa Cove. "Please, please, please tell me you told them no."

  Her assistant, Kevin Drake, shook his head. "Why would I tell them no? Chloe—it's October. Halloween's in two days. This guy's willing to pay five grand for you to be there to either verify or disagree with the hunters."

  She pointed at him. "Not just hunters, Kev. Ghost hunters. You know me and those people do not get along. We don't even communicate on the same level. I work with the spirits, they work against them."

  "Have you ever even watched an episode of Ghost Hunt?"

  She waved her hand dismissively. "No and I'm not going to. You'll just have to call back and cancel." Chloe opened the register to start the end-of-day accounting. It was her job to total the money in the register, credit receipts and checks, make sure the amount matched the receipts, and then subtract the daily running amount. The difference was deposited every evening.

  The shop was located on the main street through Roswell, Georgia, a small town north of Atlanta. Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, Roswell was an eclectic place, full of history, Civil War monuments and ghosts.

  The town square was a block away behind Mesa Cove and on her way home. She made a note to stop by McNally's Photography and pick up the film she'd had developed. Where most people used their phones to take pictures nowadays, Chloe never had much luck with electronic devices.

  They always failed to work. Which made wearing a watch almost impossible. But she always managed to know the time.

  Like right now.

  It was time to lock up, go home, and enjoy a nice salad, wine, and a good book.

  "Come on, Chloe. Five grand? That would put the store in the black."

  She continued counting money and answered when she was done. "We are in the black."

  Kevin rolled his eyes at her. "Barely. I don't see what the big deal is."

  "Ghost hunters are frauds. That's been proven."

  "People think you're a fraud."

  "I'm not."

  "What if they're not? Don't you want to just give it a try and see? What is it going to hurt?"

  After she had the totals written down, she did her subtraction, put the surplus in the bank bag and zipped it shut. She locked the register and looked around the shop.

  Purple and black walls, hard wood floors, glass and silver shelves, and hanging plants presented a pleasant backdrop to the merchandise part of her business. She sold self help books, tarot cards, crystals, stones, candles, incense, statuary, garden gnomes, artwork (many of which were her own paintings)—just about anything she found the residents of Roswell had come in and asked her about.

  Behind the counter were two doors. One led to the back to storage, her office, a kitchen, employee bathroom and a back ramp. The other door led to small room where she did readings for clients and gave them advice from their loved ones.

  Chloe Stohl was a psychic.

  And after five years in business, she really was turning a profit. A small one, but in the black.

  She'd known Kevin for eleven years. He noticed her pentagram necklace in art class back in college and the two had been together ever since. He'd seen her worst choices in relationships, and she'd seen his.

  What she found interesting was that straight, gay, everyone made good choices, and stinky ones.

  Kevin was still looking at her.

  With a sigh, Chloe said, "What was the question?"

  "Have you been listening to me?" He put his hands on his hips. The gesture looked a little lost, swallowed up by his black jeans, black long-sleeve tee-shirt and black shoes.

  "Yes I have, and my answer is no. I don't want to do it, okay? I want to enjoy the rest of my October in peace, maybe check out Netherworld and not be worried about stupid, narcissistic scientist types that think they know what ghosts are."

  The bell sounded over the front door. Kevin glanced at the incoming customer and widened his eyes at Chloe. "Oops."

  She glared at him. "That door's supposed to be locked."

  He shrugged and said again, "Oops."

  Chloe put the bag of money under the counter and approached the door. "Namaste! I'm sorry but we're closed. We'll be open tomorrow if you want to—"

  The customer turned and faced Chloe.

  She stopped.

  He stopped.

  And the two of them stood in the entrance near the fountain displays and didn't move.

  "Matt!" Kevin came from behind her and disrupted the connection between the two of them.

  The young man hesitated for a few seconds before he redirected his gaze at Kevin. They shook hands. "Hey…sorry I'm late stopping by. We had to finish the permits for Friday night. You'd be surprised how complicated it can get just to get an investigation through the loopholes."

  Chloe heard them talking but she couldn't pull her eyes away from the tall, gorgeous man shaking Kevin's hand. She thought he was tall, but standing at five foot four herself, most men were tall. He had a thin, chiseled face, high cheek bones, light brown hair long enough to tuck behind his ears and brush the back of his collar. A two day shadow accented his strong jawline. Small silver studs and a hoop hung from his left ear.

  Dressed in a dark hoodie, suit jacket and jeans with holes in the knees, he looked edgy and…incredibly sexy.

  Visibly he was everything her mother warned her about, but everything she'd always been attracted to. Though, in her experience, guys like this were usually assholes.

  "So Kevin," he clasped his hands together. "Where's this psychic grifter? I need to make sure I hook her fast since the client wants a local granola to add a bit more of the—" he lifted his fingers and wiggled them in the air, "—Witchy Vibe. You know? All that Halloween and witch crap."

  Psychic grifter? Witchy Vibe?

  Chloe heard the sound of a needle scratch across a vinyl record and her nice thoughts about the good looking man standing in the doorway turned to visions of striking him down with a bolt of lightning.

  Kevin looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an on-coming truck.

  Big truck.

  "Well ah… " he began and gestured to Chloe. "Matt Hunt, this is Chloe Stohl, the owner of Mesa Cove."

  Chloe expected the jerk to get Kevin's hint and emphasis on her being the shop owner. But apparently, it went over his head.

  Matt stepped forward and offered her his hand. "Nice to meet you Miss Stohl. Does this medium I keep hearing about work for you?"

  "Call me Chloe." She took his hand in hers.

  Chloe's gift of sight worked mostly from images and feelings she received when she touched things, entered places where people have spent a lot of time, and when she did a card reading.

  She never knew how it would work, and she never picked the moment. So when she slipped her hand in his, the first thought was his hands were warm and calloused, and the
second thought was—

  Danger.

  It came in all three of her other worldly senses. Astrally, mentally, and physically. Her skin prickled as a cold wind brushed her back.

  What danger? Was it a warning that Matt was in danger, or he represented the danger?

  Or was he was the danger?

  Whatever it was, the warning was unmistakeable.

  "Uh…Chloe?" Kevin snapped his fingers in front of her face. "You see something?"

  She let go of Matt's hand and the feeling and visions vanished. Chloe took a step back and tried to clear her thoughts.

  "Oh…damn." Matt put his hand over his mouth. "You're the medium?" He pointed at her with the same hand and he did look a little embarrassed. "Oh I am so sorry I called you a grifter. It's just that, in my line of work, most of the mediums I meet are pretty much—"

  When he hung up on the word, she smiled and said, "Fakes."

  Now he really did look embarrassed. It was her turn. "Well, most of the ghost hunters I've met over the past few years—well no actually all of them have been fakes."

  "Touché," Matt said and slipped both of his hands into his back pockets. "So…you see and speak to ghosts?"

  "No. I'm not a medium, Mr. Hunt. I'm a psychic."

  "There's a difference? And please…call me Matt."

  She didn't want to call him Matt. She wanted him to leave her shop. The feelings of danger weren't disappearing, even though she wasn't touching him. "A medium claims to communicate with ghosts, or spirits. They act as a channel for spirits to communicate with the living. A psychic, like myself, receives messages, or images about the future and events around us. But recently people like myself have started calling ourselves intuitive."

  He looked confused. It was actually a good look on him. It made him look more…boyish. "So, ghosts don't tell you things?"

  "I think they do sometimes. But I don't claim to be in communication with them."

  "That's a pretty fine line."

  Chloe sighed. "Does it matter, Mr. Hunt?" She clasped her hands together in front of her. "Now, we're closed for the night and I have things to do. And I'll be very honest with you—I did not agree to this. He did." She pointed at Kevin.

  Kevin smiled and waved. "Chloe's not all that happy about adding the Halloween vibe and witchy atmosphere."

  "Well…it's what the producers want." Matt really did look uncomfortable. All his swagger and bravado appeared to have evaporated. "I mean, it'll be Halloween day after tomorrow and since the show's airing on a few stations—not to mention it'll be uploaded to our YouTube Channel—they want a selling point."

  "Selling point?" She glanced at Kevin who was trying to make himself look small.

  "Well yeah. You know. The whole mystical devil possession, haunted house schtick. The witch thing. The Halloween thrill."

  "Witch thing." That was it. She'd pretty much reached her tolerance level with him, no matter how good looking he was. "Mr. Hunt, I think you have a lot of reading up to do on what a witch really is, and what possesses a house. I for one do not believe in a devil. I do not believe he or she sends demons out to possesses houses or people. What I do believe is that all worlds exist simultaneously and sometimes the veil between them are thin. And that veil is thinnest at Samhain."

  "Sow-in?" He pronounced it all wrong.

  "Look it up, Mr. Hunt. Now, if you really need someone to do your witchy thing for you, I would suggest you look in the phone book for magicians and parlor witches. I would suggest you get out of my shop." She turned away and then looked back. "Namaste."

  He looked as shocked as Kevin did. He also looked like a boy who just got schooled. He swallowed and looked helplessly at Kevin. Fortunately Kevin had known Chloe long enough to know he needed to get Matt Hunt out of the building.

  Chloe strode straight to the back, night deposit forgotten about, and shut the door to the shop's office. There she leaned her back on the door and caught her breath. The overwhelming sensation of danger had become a defining siren in her hears. It was suffocating her the longer she was near Mr. Hunt. What ever it was, whatever the warning meant, it had to do with him.

  And it scared her.

  But in truth as she took in several deep breaths to calm her nerves, she had to admit—she wasn't sure if she was scared for herself, or for him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  She was beautiful. She was poised. And she was a psychic.

  Matt shook Kevin's hand just outside the doors of Mesa Cove and watched as the young man locked up and the lights went out inside.

  Well Matt…you screwed the pooch on that one.

  How could he have been so stupid? He looked up at the moon overhead. It was nearly full. Full on Halloween. The local news had been notified about the show's taping tomorrow night with proper press releases, there was a big social media push ready to launch. Local psychic to aid Matthew Hunt of Ghost Hunt in investigating the ghosts in Barrett House, a large, spooky antebellum house that survived the Civil War. The buzz he'd received on the idea had fueled his bravado. He knew this would be a hit—and it would take him and his small production company another notch up, maybe even bring bigger shows to him and they could get out of the ghost hunting business and back to doing what he loved most.

  Making haunted houses.

  But after his less than successful visit to Mesa Cove and completely alienated the star psychic. Idiot.

  He closed his eyes and just…sighed.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. Matt pulled it out. Ah…his assistant. "Hey Margo."

  "Well? Are we on? I'm sure you charmed her into saying yes?"

  Matt hung his head.

  "Matt?"

  "Would you hate me if I said I totally messed it up?"

  Margo's silence spoke volumes. She was not only his assistant, but his partner in Ghost Hunt Productions. Getting the psychic angle on the investigation had been her idea. "What the hell did you do?"

  He started walking away from Mesa Cove toward his car. It was the only one in the parking lot. Night was fully up and the street lamp buzzed above him. The temperature had dropped as well. "Who knew she was gonna be hot?"

  "You didn't check out the website like I told you?"

  "No time. I thought she was gonna be some older lady—you know like my Aunt Ezie—wearing a house dress and slippers."

  "Matt, Chloe is our age."

  "No shit." He reached his car and dug into his pants for his keys. When he didn't find them in one pocket, he switched the phone to his other hand and dug in the second pocket. Back pockets. "Uh oh."

  "What?"

  "I think I lost my keys."

  Margo made a rude noise. "Did you leave them somewhere?"

  "I don't remember." He turned and looked at the darkened esoteric shop just as a pair of headlights shined from the back. A small car pulled in front of the shop and sat still. Maybe that was Kevin. "Hey, I think Kevin's still here. I'll go see if I left them inside."

  "Matt—you've got to get Chloe on board with this. She's what we're gonna need to sell this. We've already sent out the releases."

  He stopped before he got too far away from his car. "You what? You already sent them out?"

  "I didn't think you'd screw this up. And the response has been phenomenal. You get her on board. Double the fee."

  "Margo—" his jaw dropped which made it heard to breathe and speak. "We already offered them five grand."

  "Uh huh. And if Chloe's on board we'll make five hundred times that amount from advertisers. Now find your keys, sweet talk the crap out of her, and get her signed on." She disconnected.

  Matt pursed his lips and stared at his phone. Margo scared him just a little more than he wanted to admit. She wasn't bigger than him—in fact they were about the same height and build. But she worked out. And she'd been an amateur boxer for a number of years. She and her former partner. Not that either of them would lay a hand on him.

  The three of them had been friends since college, until a falling
out between Margo and Carmin had pushed Carmin away. Matt had never asked and Margo had never volunteered any information. But then, at the time, Matt had had bigger problems in front of him, like surviving a crazy ex-girlfriend bent on killing him.

  The sound of a car door brought him out of his phone pondering and he looked over to see Chloe approaching him. She wasn't dressed in the long, flowing dress he'd seen her wear inside the shop, which is why he almost didn't recognize her. She wore tight jeans, ankle high boots, a leather pea-coat and her long hair was up in a ponytail.

  She took his breath away as he saw her face under the lights.

  "Your car not working?" There wasn't any of the earlier crisp tone in her voice.

  He glanced back at it. "Uh, I can't find my keys."

  Chloe immediately looked around the ground. "Did you drop them?"

  "Honestly," he shrugged. "I can't remember. I was getting my ass reamed by my partner," he held out his phone. "That's when I noticed they weren't in my pocket."

  "I see." She approached him. "Did you leave them in the shop?"

  "I don't remember actually pulling them out while I was in there."

  "You were talking to Kevin first…" she looked back at the darkened building. "The alarm's not set yet. Come back in and let's take a look."

  "You can't just take my hand and tell me where they are?" He knew the moment the sentence was out of his mouth it was a very stupid thing to say. Not just because it sounded stupid to him, but because her smile…dropped.

  "Perhaps, Mr. Hunt, you should call a lock smith and have them make a new set of keys for your car. Good night." She turned and started back to her car.

  Dammit! Matt took off after her. "Wait! I'm sorry! Really…please don't leave."

  She didn't turn back to him before she reached her car. When she did, the look on her face, visible under the lights of the parking lot lamps, was cold. "Mr. Hunt, what I do for a living is not made up, it is not a hoax, and it does not swindle people out of their money. So any more references to me being a grifter will not be tolerated. Do I make myself clear?"