What Hides Inside: Bay City Paranormal Investigations, Book 2

whirling thoughts into stillness, Sam focused his attention on the green-lit darkness on the screen in front of him.
    The three of them worked in silence, occasionally leaving their places to stretch or get a cup of coffee. After a while Sam’s eyelids began to droop. He glanced at the time display on his monitor. Eleven forty-five. Yawning, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms overhead.
    He had just about decided to turn the video off and go for a walk to clear his head, when the first vibration came. The time on the tape, Sam noted without surprise, read seventeen-thirty-four. Mentally cursing himself for having forgotten to tell the others before, Sam stopped the video and nudged Cecile’s arm.
    “Cecile, look at this,” he said when she hit pause and took off her headphones. “Bo, you need to see it too.”
    “What is it?” Cecile rolled closer, peering at Sam’s screen. “I don’t see anything.”
“Let me rewind a little. It’s not very noticeable, but it’s definitely there.” Sam’s hands trembled on the mouse as he went back to the place where he’d seen the vibration. He could feel Bo behind him, could smell the spice of his skin, and it did nothing at all for his concentration. “And the thing is, Andre and I saw the same thing on the tapes we watched yesterday, at the exact same time.”
“Let’s see it.” Bo’s voice was flat, without inflection, but the soft caress of his fingers on the back of Sam’s neck gave away his excitement and nervousness. “And why the hell didn’t either of you say anything before? I don’t like that y’all are hiding things from the rest of the team.”
“It wasn’t intentional,” Sam protested. “I’d forgotten, to tell you the truth.”
Cecile raised her eyebrows at him. “You forgot something that potentially significant? Bo, I think you should give him a vacation. He’s obviously been working too hard.”
“I had other things on my mind,” Sam mumbled, fighting the urge to squirm under Cecile’s piercing gaze. “Can I show y’all what we found now?”
Behind him, Bo was silent. His fingers slid away from Sam’s skin, and Sam mourned the loss. “It’s right here,” Sam said, starting the video again. “At seventeenthirty-four. Same time as on the ones Andre and I saw yesterday.”
Cecile sucked in a sharp breath, but didn’t say anything until the two vibrations had come and gone. The strange sound from the other tapes, Sam noticed, was absent on this one.
“Sam, that’s exactly the same time as Andre and I sensed…whatever it was.” Cecile’s voice shook. She twisted around to look at Bo. “I don’t like this, Bo. I think maybe the rumors those kids are talking about are true.”
Bo patted her arm. “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Cecile. The fact that this phenomenon has so far shown up on three tapes out of seven is significant, but it doesn’t have to mean that South Bay High is another gateway.”
Sam hated to say what he had to say next. “There’s something else.”
“Something else you forgot?”
Surprised by the venom in Bo’s voice, Sam stood and faced Bo. The man’s eyes snapped with anger and fear and frustration. Sam couldn’t decide if he’d rather hit him or kiss him. He gritted his teeth and forced both contradictory urges down.
“There was a sound,” Sam said, keeping his voice deliberately calm and measured. “A sort of raspy sound. It was faint, but Andre and I both definitely heard it on both videos.”
Cecile made a small, frightened sound. “It was like what we heard at Oleander House, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Sam answered, still staring at Bo’s face. “It was.”
“I didn’t hear any sound on this one.” Bo held Sam’s gaze, dark eyes full of sorrow.
Sam shoved his hands in his pockets to keep himself from reaching out and pulling Bo to him. “No, neither did I.”
“Which tapes did you and Andre watch yesterday?”
Sam answered Cecile’s question without even looking at her. “One and seven. The ends of the tunnel, where the bricked-up places are.”
“And this one is”—Cecile’s chair creaked as she leaned over to peer at Sam’s monitor—“camera five.”
“Close to the middle.” Bo’s gaze flicked down to Sam’s mouth, and he licked his lips. “Maybe it came from one of the side tunnels.”
“We heard it equally from both cameras.” Without thinking of what he was doing, Sam leaned closer to Bo. They stared at each other, their fingers