Read The Accused and the Damned: Book Three, the Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 3) for Free Online Page B

bullshit, but if it worked, it worked.
    Anson sniffed and wiped under his eyes. “Alice felt it first, about six months ago. We didn’t know what to do. I wanted to bring somebody out to the house but she didn’t want word getting around. She was very religious. I mean, we both are. It was tough for her to accept.”
    Ross said nothing.
    Anson said, “I wanted to have Giles Tyson over, but she didn’t want that getting out either. With Alice being who she was, our relationship was always the talk of the town. Last thing she needed with all our…other problems so public.”
    “You and Giles Tyson are friends, right?”
    Anson nodded. “She spoke to our pastor, Jim Grohmann. He gave her the party line, that there were no ghosts and that if she continued to have these experiences, she needed to speak to a doctor.”
    “What did she do?”
    “She started to doubt herself and wanted to see a doctor. I told her not to because I believed her and by then, I’d felt something.”
    Ross was a pro. He kept the skepticism out of his voice. “What did you feel?”
    “It was like electricity. She was better than me, but sometimes I could feel it too.”
    “Then what?”
    Anson sat forward. Ross matched him.
    Anson said, “We…argued. I wanted to bring somebody professional in, like Giles. But then that show aired, you know the one where he got discredited?”
    Ross nodded.
    “So then Alice really didn’t want him over. She worried about appearances and what other people would say and what the church would think. But we weren’t getting anywhere. And it was starting to scare Alice. She wondered if maybe we were both losing our minds…she wasn’t thinking clearly and it was affecting her work so I…”
    “Tell me.”
    Anson looked away for a moment. “I talked to Giles about it. Told him to keep it between us. He hadn’t worked in months and was dying to help…I felt bad for him. He was my friend going back to high school, the only guy who’d always been there, even when I did stupid shit.”
    “You had him over?”
    Anson met Ross’s eyes. “Yeah. I waited till Alice was out of the house. She used to do those spinning classes all the way over in Middleton. With the drive and the class, I knew she’d be gone two hours. I had Giles over then. He did his thing and was able to get the ghost to visit. He told me we had nothing to worry about, that the spirit wasn’t dangerous. But it was unlike anything he’d ever encountered, so he wanted to come back. I thought it would help Alice to know there was nothing bad about the ghost so I was going to break it to her that I’d had Giles over…but she came home early that day. She’d skipped her class to do a quick routine at the gym instead.”
    Anson lowered his eyes. Ross waited.
    “We got into it after Giles left, but I didn’t touch her.”
    “Did you ever?”
    Anson hesitated. “No. I never hit her. I…scared her a few times, I’m sure. I got a bad temper.” He looked up. “I know that doesn’t sound good, but that’s exactly why I’m telling you. I’m trying to cooperate and I’m going to tell you everything so you see I’m not guilty. I didn’t kill my wife. I loved Alice. Oh God…”
    He descended into blubbering tears again. This time, Ross didn’t wait so long. He was a patient man but still he had his limits. A good woman was dead and it was nearing four AM.
    “What happened next?”
    Anson wiped under his nose and got himself under control. “We argued. Any time the subject came up or the ghost visited us, we bickered. There was a distance between us that had never been there before. She’d leave the house for stretches and not tell me where she was going. I figured she was going to talk to the pastor because that’s where she always went for help, but I never asked. I feared if I pushed too hard she’d leave.
    “And the spirit visited more and more. It started coming at all times and…” Anson seemed to be thinking real hard