Oleander House: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 1

find it.”
Bo glanced up at Sam. “What do you think she’s talking about when she mentions this door? I’ve never heard of anything quite like that.”
Sam remembered the skin-crawling sensation of something alien moving through him and wondered. “I’m not sure. I thought I’d do some more reading in here, maybe I can figure it out.”
“Good idea.”
Silence fell. They stood staring at each other. Bo’s eyes burned with a longing Sam could feel in his bones. Sam took a step forward, drawn by the lust and need on Bo’s face. He lifted a hand to touch Bo’s cheek. Bo made a soft, startled sound, but didn’t pull away. Sam moved closer, his heart racing. The mix of heat and vulnerability in Bo’s eyes made Sam want to hold and protect him, kiss away his fears and tell him everything would be all right.
The unfamiliar urge shocked him. He’d never felt this tender toward any of his past lovers, and he wasn’t entirely sure what it meant.
Bo swallowed audibly as Sam’s fingers trailed down his throat. “Sam, please…”
Sam couldn’t tell if Bo was pleading with him to stop, or to take it further. He wondered if Bo himself knew which he was asking.
He didn’t get the chance to find out. Sam was actually leaning toward Bo, lips parted, when the front door opened. He jumped back, adrenaline coursing through him. He and Bo both turned toward the archway into the foyer.
“We’re back!” Amy called.
“We’re in the library.” Bo’s voice sounded rough and shaky. He shot a look full of heat and fear at Sam, then plastered a smile on his face just as the rest of the group came into the room.
“How’d the research go?” Bo asked. “Find out anything?”
Amy narrowed her eyes at them both. “Not much, no. What about you guys?”
“I told ’em about what we found here, Sam,” Andre said. “I figured you’d keep looking here.”
Sam nodded. “You’re right, I did. Didn’t find much else as far as scientific explanations go, but I did find something pretty interesting.”
“What?” David asked, leaning both palms on the table.
“A note written by Josephine Royce.” Sam nudged Bo’s shoulder. “Show them, Bo.”
Bo stared blankly back at him for a moment. Then realization dawned in his eyes. He held up the piece of paper still clutched in his hand. “Here. Sam found it stuck in a magazine.”
He passed the paper to Amy. Everyone gathered around her to read it. Sam caught Bo’s eye over the top of Amy’s head. Bo’s lips curled into a tiny smile, and Sam’s breath caught in his chest. He looked away, shaken. Bo’s smile shouldn’t make his stomach flutter like that. Not so soon. The idea that he might be developing deeper feelings for Bo frightened him nearly as much as the thing he’d felt inside him the day before.
“Damn.” Taking the paper from Amy, David read it again. “This is fucking awesome.”
“She talks about going to find whatever killed Lily,” Cecile mused. “What do you suppose she means by that? And the stuff about the door?”
“Who knows,” Andre said. “Maybe she didn’t know herself.”
Bo’s brow furrowed. “What I’m wondering is what article she’s talking about. That would probably clear things up a little.”
“I think I know which one she meant,” Sam confessed after a moment’s hesitation. “One of the issues of The Boundary has a piece about a girl that was killed during sex with her boyfriend. Ripped apart. The boyfriend was nearly catatonic after, but the only evidence they had pointed to him as the killer. They locked him up in a hospital for the criminally insane. He killed himself three months later.”
Five pairs of eyes stared at Sam with identical shocked expressions. “That sounds kind of like the killings that happened here,” Andre said slowly.
“Exactly what I thought,” Sam agreed. “And get this. He wrote a suicide note on the wall of his hospital room in his own blood, saying that whatever killed his girlfriend came through him from somewhere else.”
David’s eyes widened. “Like coming through a door.”
“Whatever killed that girl used her boyfriend as a vehicle to manifest itself. Josephine must have experienced the same thing here at Oleander House.” Cecile rubbed her arms and glanced nervously around the room. “That feels right, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly could fit the history of this house,” Bo said. “But we need to be careful that we don’t read into this what we want to see. The Boundary