Oleander House: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 1

Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. The first time I had a paranormal experience, I didn’t tell anyone for a week.”
Sam looked up again, surprised. “Really?”
“Yep. It’s just such a profound experience the first time, I guess part of me wanted to keep it to myself. You know?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Sam didn’t mention his first experience with paranormal phenomena. He’d been thirteen, getting his first kiss under the bleachers at school. Shirts and jeans had easily covered the bruises and long, shallow scratches that had appeared on the body of the boy he’d been kissing, so there was no need for explanations to anyone. Not a word had been spoken by either of them, and there’d been no more kisses.
If Bo could read the pain of that memory on Sam’s face, he didn’t let on. “How about we start the tapes now?”
Sam returned Bo’s smile. “Good idea.”
By noon, they’d gotten halfway through the tapes, Bo watching the servants’ quarters tape, Sam watching the one from the nursery. Sam felt like he’d been staring at the TV screen for days instead of hours. Not a damn thing had shown up so far. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“Dull, huh?” Bo glanced over at him, grinning.
Sam laughed. “Deadly. Please tell me it’s not always this boring.”
“Nope. Wait ’til you see a mist form right in front of your eyes, or a door opening by itself. That’ll make up for all the times you stare at the same patch of wall for hours on end.”
As if to lend credence to Bo’s words, a faint grunt of nearly subterranean depth sounded on the nursery tape. The back of Sam’s neck prickled.
“Bo,” he said softly. “Listen.”
Bo stopped his own tape and leaned over. The grunt came again, followed by a strange, undulating hiss, so faint that Sam wasn’t even sure he heard it. Bo’s eyes went wide. “Wow.”
“No kidding.”
They watched for a moment more, but nothing else happened. Sam turned off the tape and swiveled around to face Bo. “Okay, 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