Twilight: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 3

In the shadows, not all the monsters have claws.
    Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 3 While leading an amateur ghost-hunting expedition in the mountains of North Carolina, the BCPI team gets an urgent call to investigate sightings of a weird, frightening creature in the forest near a remote Smoky Mountain lodge.
The case hints of another interdimensional gateway, and Sam Raintree wants no part of it. The last one nearly took the life of his boss and lover, Dr. Bo Broussard. Now that they’re finally together and working through their problems, Sam wants nothing to jeopardize their progress.
Yet he can’t ignore the fact that he is the only one with the unique psychokinetic ability to permanently close the gateway that could be threatening the lodge and its few remaining guests. If, indeed, that’s the source of the sightings.
There’s only one way to find out—split up the team and hit the trail. Once on the scene, a missing man, a grisly discovery, and a moment of carelessness reveal secrets much different—and far uglier—than anyone expected.
Secrets which not only put their lives in danger, but could provide Sam with an escape from the portals. If he’s willing to take the chance.
    This book has been previously published.
    Warning: Contains explicit sex between lovers in an idyllic mountain hideaway, graphic language when they’re interrupted by murderous ghosts, and violent deeds perpetrated by otherworldly creatures.
    eBooks are not transferable.
They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
    This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or
organizations is entirely coincidental.
    Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520 Macon GA 31201
    Twilight
Copyright © 2010 by Ally Blue ISBN: 978-1-59998-620-3 Edited by Sasha Knight Cover by Valerie Tibbs
    All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
    First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2007
Second electronic publication: November 2010 www.samhainpublishing.com

Twilight
Ally Blue
Dedication
    To my critique group, as always, for helping me make this a story worth reading, and for listening to me whine whenever I was having a hard time with it.
Chapter One
    Sam Raintree shifted in his chair, his video camera trained on the faint outline of the door to the large room. He glanced at the fluorescent hands of his watch. Eleven thirty p.m.
    Come on , he thought, his foot tapping an impatient rhythm on the carpet. We can only stay in here until midnight, then we have to meet the rest of the group. Please show up.
    As if in response to his thought, a glowing mist began to gather against the closed door. In a few seconds, it resolved itself into a wispy female figure with short, sleek black hair and delicate features. She wore a deep red dress which brushed the floor and left her white shoulders bare.
    “Holy shit,” whispered the young man sitting at the other side of the little round table. “It’s her. It’s the Lady in Red.”
    Sam nodded, his gaze flicking between the camera’s display screen and the apparition drifting toward the bed. “Sure enough.” He flashed a grin at his companion. “Exciting, isn’t it?”
    The young man—Toby something, Sam could never remember his last name—didn’t say anything, but the look on his face was answer enough. His awestruck expression was obvious even in the faint light cast by the camera. Sam swallowed a laugh. He understood how the boy felt. Hell, this was only the second true apparition Sam had ever seen. He was nearly as excited as Toby.
    The Lady in Red had been haunting Asheville, North Carolina’s Kimberley Inn for eighty years, ever since she was murdered in her bed back in the nineteentwenties. She’d been seen by countless guests and most of the staff. According to the Inn’s owners, she had interacted with some of the witnesses but had never harmed anyone.
    The same could be said of the other spirits rumored to inhabit the one hundred and twenty-five year old building. Which was why Bay City Paranormal Investigations had decided to make