Closer: Bay City Paranormal Investigation, Book 4

Bo’s. The moment of Bo’s vision was coming.
On screen, Bo’s voice faltered. The picture jerked and dipped.
“There.” Andre halted the video. “Did you see it?”
“No.” Bo let go of Sam’s hand and leaned forward over Andre’s shoulder. “Replay it frame by frame.”
Andre went back a few seconds, then restarted the video in slow motion. Sam kept his gaze glued to the screen. Just as the picture jerked and bobbed, Sam saw it—a strange, swirling blur in the lower right corner, as if the scene were a painting where the colors had run together. The hairs on his arms stood up.
“You saw it that time, right?” David asked, shooting Sam a questioning look.
Sam nodded. “Yeah.”
Frowning, Bo shook his head. “All I saw was movement artifact.”
Dean gaped at him. “Seriously? You didn’t see that in the corner?”
“I saw that, yes.”
“And?”
“And, it’s a blur.” Bo gestured toward the screen. “I stumbled, my shoulder hit the wall, and that jogged the camera. I really don’t think there’s any more to it than that.”
Andre stopped the video and looked up at Bo. “I see your point, but this doesn’t look to me like something you’d normally see from camera movement.”
“Well, yeah, but it still could be the camera moving,” David added, rubbing his chin. “I mean, it does look unusual to me, but you gotta admit we really can’t rule out movement as the cause. Especially since it only lasts like half a second. Even frame by frame there’s only a few shots of it.”
“Thank you, David.” Bo gave Sam an I-told-you-so look. He didn’t say a word about the strange vision which had caused him to stumble in the first place, and Sam knew if he were to spill the beans Bo would make him suffer for it.
Feeling trapped and irritated, Sam stalked across the room to snatch his beach towel off the floor . “I’m going to take a shower.”
He hung the towel over the back of a chair and strode out of the room. Bo didn’t follow. Sam wasn’t sure why he’d expected him to.
Once he got upstairs Sam opted for a bath instead of a shower, and lingered far longer than he should have. He tried to tell himself he wasn’t waiting for Bo to join him, but he was, and there was no point in pretending otherwise.
When the water became uncomfortably tepid and Sam’s fingers and toes were pruned and corpse-white, he gave up. He opened the drain, climbed out and dried off, then went into the bedroom to get dressed.
He put on his favorite black cargo shorts and the threadbare red Wintzell’s Oyster House T-shirt he’d borrowed from Bo months ago and ended up keeping. Bo called it Sam’s security blanket, claiming he wore it whenever he was feeling down or needed reassurance about something. Sam supposed that was true. At least, it was true at the moment. Right now, he felt angry and afraid, and utterly helpless in the face of Bo’s stubborn refusal to acknowledge that anything out of the ordinary might be happening to him.
But what if he’s right? Maybe it really is nothing. Maybe you’re so afraid of losing him that you’re seeing monsters where there aren’t any.
Sam let out a deep sigh. His emotions were jumbled, his thoughts confused, and he just wanted the whole problem to go the fuck away.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Drawn by the promise of the violent weather which always calmed his mind, Sam wandered onto the porch. The wind had picked up, whipping the crests of the choppy waves into foaming whitecaps. Lightning flashed against the blackness gathering on the horizon.
As he watched, gunmetal gray clouds swallowed the blue sky bit by bit. The lightning streaked closer and closer. Thunder shook the house. A few lone drops spattered the porch railing, bringing with them the sharp, earthy scent of the approaching rain. Finally, the clouds blotted out the sun and the rain pelted down, swathing the world in a silver-gray curtain. Sam fell into a chair and settled in to watch the storm.
    The rain had tapered to a light drizzle and scattered sunlight had begun to break through the clouds by the time Bo joined Sam on the porch. He sat in the chair beside Sam’s, reached over and took Sam’s hand. Their fingers intertwined, and Sam felt better.
    “You’re still going to the fort tonight, aren’t you?” Sam asked eventually. He didn’t look at Bo, just stared out over the ocean. The water was rough and gray in the wake of the storm.
    Bo was silent for a moment, his thumb rubbing