Read Oleander House: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 1 for Free Online Page A

what the fuck was that?”
Bo shook his head. “No idea. I’ve never heard anything quite like that before.”
“It sounded like it was coming from outside the room. Maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Bo asked.
Sam barely heard him, the words drowned out by the memory surfacing with shocking suddenness in his mind. Half-waking from a dream of heat and sex to a cold, writhing blackness, thick with malevolence. A spike of fear, the unnatural dark dissolving into silver moonlight. Sinking back into warm, welcoming sleep.
Dreaming again. Heat, sweat, hands and skin and whispered pleas and Christ it was so good…
“Sam? Sam!”
Sam gasped, jerked, and found himself staring into Bo’s wide, worried eyes. “What? What happened?”
“You tell me. You blanked out for a minute. Wouldn’t answer me.” Bo regarded Sam cautiously. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Sam took a deep breath and let it out, feeling his racing pulse slow. “Just, um…just give me a minute.”
Bo didn’t look away from Sam’s face. “Feel like telling me what just happened?”
“I thought I remembered something. From last night.” Sam leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, more to escape Bo’s sharp gaze than anything else. “A dream, that’s all. Just a dream.”
Sam didn’t say anything else, and Bo didn’t ask.
They’d just started watching the tapes again when they heard the back door open. Footsteps and voices sounded through the hall. Sam schooled his face into a smile as the rest of the group trooped into the library.
“Man, oh man,” David said, wiping the sweat from his brow with his forearm. “It’s hotter than hell out there.”
“The barn wasn’t hot.” Andre grinned. “Nice and cool in there.”
“Bastard,” David answered mildly.
“So how’d it go?” Bo switched the tape off, rose to his feet and stretched. “Did anything happen?”
“Nope.” Amy flopped onto the sofa with a sigh. “We saw a few mice, a bird and the biggest spider in the history of the universe, but that’s it.”
“I’m sure you saw and felt nothing.” Cecile stood beside the door with crossed arms and a haughty expression. “But I know now that at least one spirit inhabits that washhouse. A slave, maybe, forced to scrub the master’s clothes day and night until her poor heart finally gave out.”
“I felt something.”
All eyes in the room locked onto David in surprise. “What did you sense, David?” Bo asked, his voice admirably even.
David sat in the big armchair and leaned forward, as if telling a story around the campfire. “At first, I thought it was nothing,” he began in a hushed tone. “Cobwebs or something like that, maybe, brushing my neck. But then I felt something like…like fingers. Pulling at my shirt. And I smelled something. Like lye soap.”
Amy’s blue eyes narrowed. “So, what you’re saying is—”
“Yes,” David interrupted. “I think… I think the spirit was trying to…to…” He gestured everyone closer. “I think she wanted to wash my clothes.”
“Oh, for…” Amy smacked him hard on the knee while everyone but Cecile howled with laughter. “David, honestly.”
David shrugged, utterly unapologetic.
Cecile did not appear to be amused. “Stupid prick,” she hissed, cheeks red and eyes flashing. “Don’t mock the spirit world. You wouldn’t like it when they got the last laugh.”
“All right, that’s enough.” Bo’s calm voice cut through the laughter and anger. “Let’s take a break for lunch. Then Sam and I will go investigate the outdoor kitchen, and y’all can fight over who gets to watch tapes. That work for everyone?”
“Suits me,” David said. “What’d y’all find on the tapes so far? Anything?”
Bo glanced at Sam. “Actually, there was a strange noise on the nursery tape just a few minutes before you got back inside. It was very unusual. Not a voice exactly, but more of a suggestion of a voice, if that makes sense. Don’t you think, Sam?”
Sam nodded