Chapter 1

1

Curtis Macintyre sat bolt upright in bed, his heart pounding hard and harsh. He reached for his inhaler on his nightstand and sucked down a burst of air, waiting for it to calm his constricted chest. The air in his bedroom was bitingly cold. As his breaths puffed out, the air around him swirled into a mist.

He fumbled for the light switch and flicked it on. Though at the moment the bedroom appeared empty in the dim light, Curtis knew differently.

“You’re here again, aren’t you?” he asked softly, using his inhaler once more.

His window was open and the curtain fluttered in a breeze. He fumbled out of bed and closed the window, turning back to face the room.

On his nightstand his digital clock displayed 3:30. In the last month his visitor had shown up at least ten times.

At first, Curtis had been scared shitless. He’d never experienced paranormal activity before and he had seriously questioned his sanity. Still did a bit. But it seemed his visitor did not mean him any harm. He just lingered always with a great, soul-sucking sorrow.

“Can you show yourself?” he asked the ghost he knew wavered nearby.

His answer, as usual, was silence.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what you want or who you are,” Curtis said. He retrieved his bathrobe off a chair. He wouldn’t get back to sleep. He never did when his intruder came. “I don’t even believe in ghosts.”

His bedroom door swung open, mocking him.

Curtis sighed. “Yes, I know. You are real. Or seem to be.”

He went out of his bedroom and down the short hall of his apartment to the kitchen. Might as well make coffee. The ghost or psychic phenomenon, whatever it was, thus far had not followed him from the bedroom. He wasn’t sure if that was because he couldn’t or wouldn’t. Or she. He had no way of knowing whether the ghost was male or female.

After setting up his coffeemaker to brew, Curtis switched on the laptop sitting on his dining room table. He might as well get some work done. Curtis was a horror novelist and he couldn’t help wondering if perhaps his imagination was merely getting the best of him.

Ghosts are not real.

Except in the last month since his haunting or whatever they were had begun, he’d been telling himself the same thing. It didn’t seem to be working.

Grabbing a cup of coffee that was more cream than coffee, Curtis sat in front of his laptop. He went to open his current work in progress when his hand stilled.

Or rather it was stilled for him. Icy fingers curved around his palm nearly stealing his breath all over again. The ghost had followed him.

His hand was moved to the Internet Explorer button and then Google. Shaking like a goddamn leaf, Curtis let the ghost direct his hand. He started typing, or the ghost did, Curtis wasn’t sure.

Murder at the Forest Glenn Apartments.

Curtis stared at the words he’d just typed and then hit search.

“Holy fucking hell,” he mumbled. “You were killed here, weren’t you?”

* * * *

“Madame Carmen de Garza,” Bentley Macintyre read the wooden sign hanging from the store front window. “How come all these fortune-tellers and mediums are named Carmen?”

“I don’t know,” Curtis told his younger brother. He gazed at the brass knocker on the door for a moment. It looked like it was supposed to be a gargoyle or something. Maybe something he’d write about in one of his own novels. It was covered in dust, as though little used.

Bentley looked nervously behind them. The parking lot was empty save for Curtis’s motorcycle. Not surprising given it was just before midnight. “Why is her place of business in a strip mall?”

“Cheap rent? How should I know?” He rapped on the door with the knocker.

His brother, a younger, thinner version of himself with dark wavy hair and brown eyes, inched closer to Curtis. “I’m not sure this was a good idea.”

“I told you to stay home.”

“And let you come to a séance all by yourself? No damn way.”

He’d looked up mediums after his Google search of the murder at his apartment. The murder victim’s name had been Aaron Carmichael. He’d been killed five years ago and the case had never been solved. Curtis had a very unnerving suspicion that Aaron’s apartment had been number 117Also Curtis’s.

Of course he hadn’t told Bent he was being haunted by a murder victim. His family already suspected he was off his nut. How could he make up all that horror in his novels if he was right in the head? Not that Bent had ever let on he thought like the other members of their family, but Curtis wasn’t taking any chances. He’d told Bent he was doing research for a novel and his brother eagerly announced he was coming along.