Read Coalescence (Camden Investigations Book 1) for Free Online

difficult.
She’s having some . . . issues. We can always consider a
consultant.”
    “I wouldn’t recommend that. If this object is some kind
classified technology, there could be people looking for it right now. It would
be best to keep this in the family. We should limit any conversation about our
investigation when on the phone—both land line and cell.”
    Fear removed her
from Starbuck’s and placed her back at the Morses’ home. Mitchell’s sudden bout
of paranoia warded her back to the foyer, the place where she’d cowered from
the unexplained just one day earlier. It was sobering and disturbing to think
what the dial might be capable of. And maybe if it could change time, it would
reason there might be others interested in chasing it. She realized at this
moment, it wasn’t her distaste of conspiracy theories that made her feel
discomfort, but it was the notion that this event was forcing her to consider
what type of secretive work her father really did.

Chapter Four

 
 
    I RIS REPLAYED the video. It was a remnant of
the recording Kassidy salvaged from the camcorder. She had lost count just how
many times she viewed it. Over her shoulder, Kassidy raved repeatedly how the
video was not of the Morses’ home, but from someplace she had never recorded.
More succinctly, a place she and the team had never visited. But Iris wondered
if she had, somehow.
    For all intents, the date stamp on the video was a lie.
The date was two days ago. Kassidy claimed she was sure they never visited the
spacious room shown recorded whether it was taped two days or two years ago.
So, did the video generate from mechanical equipment failure or from paranormal
intervention? Or quite possibly, another option she had yet to consider? She
decided not to tell.
    Seated at the kitchen table, Iris battled the nagging
pinpricks of déjà vu. The room in the video induced a feeling of vague
familiarity, even though Iris knew she’d never been there. Kassidy continued
pacing back and forth behind her. In minutes, Iris’s ghost hunters would meet
with Mitchell’s UFO investigators. How could she seriously represent the
findings of the team and provide helpful analysis? Bewildered by her latest
revelation, that the unidentified structure on video bore some connection to a
past experience, she feared what she might sound like if she divulged that
fact. And just a little while ago, she was ready to scream quackery at Mitchell
for believing others were chasing the dial.
    She might appear to be a scatter-brained novice, just
like she feared yesterday when she met Mitchell. She’d spoken of time loss,
unexplained temperature changes, shampoo bottles floating through walls, and
the hovering object. Yet she’d had no hard evidence to confirm any of it.
Mitchell appeared to have digested her report with professional courtesy. Was
that all it was? Did he run back to his investigators and equate her confusion
with inexperience? A paranormal investigator who couldn’t discern a haunting
from an alien anomaly?
    Iris’s initial intention was to rule out alien
involvement. She didn’t believe in gray or green people. Now, she imagined the
sky watchers might dominate the investigation. Her only tangible evidence of
the investigation was the dial, some unidentified, plastic and metallic like
device, round with the hands of a clock, but one that was never designed to
measure time as she had come to know it. It screamed “out of this world” a lot
louder than “some ghost’s toy.” There was still a possibility it was a control
mechanism from the downed satellite. If so, no matter how odd it appeared, it
could be terrestrial. But that didn’t come close to explaining its involvement
with the spirit she was certain existed. Her psychic senses had never failed
her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t justify that belief with hard evidence either.
    A whiff of Kassidy’s breath broke her train of thought. She
morphed out of her daze to cold lucidity.