Once the car was cleaned up and happy smiles were bobbing in the backseat again, we headed home. It was hard to guess what my wife was thinking about, since she quickly found an 'Eighties' station and turned up the radio. Definitely, this was her way of dealing with sadness and loss-at least while in the car. As for me, once the initial sting eased up a little, I thought about the good old days with Mitch. Two buddies from opposite sides of the country, united by our similar musical tastes and the mutual struggle to earn a living by playing tunes in the south's 'Music Mecca'.

A gig audition from four years earlier suddenly popped into my head.... We both tried out for Jared Moseley once. Mitch ended up with the gig, but Jared's road manager almost gave it to me after I pulled off a slap-happy arpeggio run on my fretless after he and his a.s.sistant p.i.s.sed me off, stating I couldn't keep a simple groove as well as my buddy. I gave two birdies in the air with my back to em' as I walked out-a concise reply as to what they could do with their three-month tour offer.

But now Mitch was dead.

Just before we reached our neck of the woods, Fiona revealed some of what Ed told her. A neighbor found Mitch in his townhome parking spot, slumped over his steering wheel. He had been dead since early Friday morning, and apparently had just returned home when his a.s.sailant accosted him. The car door had been left ajar, and the killer had approached him from his blind side and then shot him in the back of the head. He probably was reaching for his own Fender fretless, which Mr. Ed told Fiona laid haphazard between the seats, covered with blood splatter and brain and bone bits.

Candi and d.i.c.key's killer's M.O. seemed to be a little more s.a.d.i.s.tic than this. The single bullet that pa.s.sed through Mitch's head, embedded in his BMW's dash, matched the pair that shredded Johnny's and Brenda's brains. Same killer. I really think there could be more than one a.s.shole involved here.

So far, Candi's killer had taken the lives of her hairdressers and personal manager...and moved on to her band mates. How much longer did we have until Candi's psychic/ghost hunter friends were added to the list?

We pulled up to our driveway, and while Fiona got out to check the mail I couldn't resist taking a look back up the road, to the hilltop across from the Tanner's place.

The road sat vacant, with the sun's glare reflecting off the pavement.

It should've made me feel a little better about things, but it didn't. I couldn't shake the mental picture of a shiny steel grill glistening in the sunlight. The black Buick from the other night...engine revved up, announcing the return of a stealthy menace to be reckoned with.

Chapter Twelve.

I forgot all about the investigation Sat.u.r.day night. I'm not sure if Fiona did or not, but she never mentioned it. At least not until Jackie and Angie showed up at our door just before eight o'clock.

"Marie is expecting us all to be there tonight!" Jackie advised, her tone a tad annoyed. "That means you're coming, sister, and Jimmy needs to be there, too!"

Angie studied Fiona and me, a wry grin spreading across her face as she surely could tell what we'd been up to. The steamier action had happened right after I loaded the dishwasher around 6 p.m. Like I said before, grief is a powerful aphrodisiac.

The kids were engrossed with their movie, and the second DVD was queued up, ready to go once the first one finished. Alex held a sippy cup in his lap while Ryan drank from a treasured c.o.ke bottle. They looked like life-size Hummel figurines dressed in overalls. I thought it'd just be a half-hour bedroom jaunt with my wife, and then I'd be back to check on our boys.

We must've fallen asleep. Running to get dressed, we were just in time to witness Ryan opening the door for 'Auntie J.' and her 'friend'. The kids love Jackie-always have. They're actually closer to her than Fiona's younger sister, Tonya.

"You think they'll have enough energy left for tonight?" Angie asked Jackie, snickering.

She turned her attention briefly back to Fiona and me at the top of the stairs, sizing us up-especially me-from head to toe. Our hair in tussled messes, at least we were dressed appropriately enough for tonight's activities: blue jeans, dark Ts, and matching tan Merrills. I tucked in the back of my shirt on the way downstairs to the main floor.

"They better have something left," said Jackie, casting a disdainful glance at me. As if it was my fault we were ill prepared for their visit. "We've got a few minutes for you two to grab your gear and then we need to hit the road. Tony and Tom have already confirmed our ten o'clock start time. Justin's got a date tonight, so he's not sure if he can make it or not."

"It might be better if y'all handle this one without Fiona and me," I told her, after noticing the puffiness under my wife's eyes. "We got some really bad news this afternoon-"

"Fiona already told me about Mitch," she said, her tone suddenly saddened. I doubt she even realized that she interrupted me. "I can't say enough how very, very sorry I am for your loss, Jimmy."

"Then you understand why we'll be staying home tonight."

"I think we should go through with the investigation instead," said Fiona. "Especially since we're already a little short-handed without Justin."

She forced a smile that surprised me, more by the fact it obliterated her bereft appearance. The familiar glow that we've all come to expect from her unexpectedly reappeared. Like magic.

"Well, okay...but I guess I'll need to stay here and keep an eye on the kids."

No time to enlist a baby sitter, and frankly I figured me staying home tonight must've been the original plan, if Fiona had made prior arrangements to be at Marie Petersen's place.... But now that I thought about it, I sort of remember something being mentioned about another weekend ghost hunt earlier this week.

Honestly, I'd love to tag along for this investigation, since the house is a former working plantation in Bethpage-just south of the Kentucky border. The house has a total infestation of shadow people. There are lots of photos from prior investigations by our group and another local paranormal group, many of which are featured on the web. I've been there once, and had a pretty frightening experience inside a dilapidated barn on the property.

"You and Fiona need to be there, Jimmy" said Angie. "Since Justin's out, and both of us are the newbies, we need our biggest experts, our leaders out there tonight.... Let me stay here and watch your boys. Ryan told me all about his Madagascar DVD while you were scrambling around upstairs, and I think it would be fun. I've actually looked forward to getting to know your boys better, and tonight presents a great opportunity!"

Huh?

I worked really hard to keep my smiling expression right where it was, shielding my over-protectiveness when it comes to who watches the boys. Not that Angie wouldn't do a great job. Her favorite subject other than working on her physique has been the fondness for her brothers back in Connecticut.

"Marie said it would be okay to bring them along," said Fiona. "Even though her kids are a little older, she says they're good with younger children."

Okay, so that's taken care of.

"Really, I don't mind hanging out here."

Well, maybe it isn't.

"I mean, I guess it's up to you, Fi-you look a little tired and stressed from everything you've been through," Angie persisted, drawing a curious look from Fiona. "Do you really want to run an investigation with the additional worry of what the boys are getting into while you're there?"

True. It made me wonder if Angie and my wife have grown closer to each other this past year, although Jackie remains the better friend to them both.

"Yeah...I guess it would be nice if the boys didn't have to be out so late tonight," Fiona agreed. She turned her attention to Ryan, who seemed to be following the conversation closely. Little pitchers certainly have big ears, even if he didn't understand the non-verbal nuances. "How do you feel about Angie watching some movies with you and Alex while Mommy and Daddy go out for awhile tonight?"

I half-expected him to shake his head and grab Fiona's leg, Ryan's usual response to spending time alone with a relative stranger, despite the fact he and Alex have seen Angie before. His broad smile and eager nod elicited amused chuckles from us all. The kid already has an eye for strikingly attractive blondes. Just wait until he's a teenager.

"Well, okay then!" enthused Jackie, her left eyebrow raised knowingly.

Angie reached down and ma.s.saged my son's shoulder. The wink he gave her made me laugh again...maybe louder than I should have. Luckily, the females in attendance were more caught up in how cute the youngster appeared, rather than the apparent slyness behind Ryan's gesture. Done so well, my boy. We'll have to keep an eye out for when his hormones start to go crazy in a few years.

Fiona showed Angie where she stored the popcorn and Ovaltine mix in the pantry, and I gathered the cameras, recorders, and EMF detectors. By the time I'd checked the batteries and extra a.n.a.log film rolls my wife prefers to work with, Fiona and Jackie were waiting at the front door. We took one last glance at the kids and their new sitter in the living room, and set the alarm system. Then Jackie unlocked her Isuzu SUV and the three of us climbed in.

Moving down the driveway to the main road, I looked over my shoulder. Nothing seemed amiss. No creepy ninja prowler lurking about, at least not within the protective glow of our front and back security lamps. I pictured my boys as I last saw them, on the sofa, sitting on either side of Angie in the living room. And Ryan...enraptured by her sensuality, her sultry presence.

It took d.a.m.n near an hour to reach Bethpage. Good thing we didn't attempt this journey earlier in the day, since less traffic was the only reason our trek didn't take longer. It could've taken twice as long had it been rush hour.

Marie Petersen stood under her porch light, the soft yellow glow drawing a swarm of moths and mosquitoes that circled around her head. A slender woman with dark brown hair, the dark rings beneath her gray eyes revealed a steady increase of sleepless nights. Haggard from nearly a year without peace, her lack of rest made her look ten years older, and several of those years had been packed on since our last visit. All brought on by a resurgence of paranormal activity in her home.

As I mentioned earlier, this besieged home once served as a 'working plantation'. The beautiful antebellum plantations throughout the Deep South-like the Carnton we visited last night-were largely for show rather than functionality, back in the days of slavery. More rudimentary farms were where the real work took place, the back-breaking suffering portrayed in Uncle Tom's Cabin and which ignited the Abolitionist Movement in the northern states prior to the Civil War.

Marie's home is a former farm like that, although the house itself has undergone quite a facelift to erase the rudimentary aspects. A wide stream flows through the front of the property, and as Jackie's SUV crossed the small bridge that brought us up to the single level home's side, the headlights clearly illuminated the two-story, three-thousand square foot addition Ms. Petersen and her former husband added a few years ago. When finally finished, sometime next spring, the house could be a historic showplace-at least from outside it looks like it.

"We're here!" Jackie announced, as we stepped onto the porch. Fiona and I paused to pet Marie's black Labradors, Shelby and Porkchop. The dogs seemed to remember us from our last visit. "Where are Tom and Tony?"

"Upstairs, setting up the rest of their equipment, I think," said Marie. She motioned for us to go on inside, pulling the screen door open just enough to allow us and only a minimal number of moths inside.

I followed Fiona and Jackie inside, and we immediately set out to check the EMF readings in the living room. The place was frigging creepy right from the get-go. It made me immediately think of Eddie Murphy's haunted house joke, just like the last time we were here. Every room on the main floor makes me uncomfortable, man. Fiona told me a while back that the living room and attached kitchen are nearly two hundred years old, and are part of the original slave quarters on the property. After the Civil War ended, the next family to take over the farm turned these rooms into the main rooms for the new plantation house, since the first one burned down during the war.

A small room off the kitchen and a hall leading to the main floor's bathroom are the only other areas that remain from the last plantation house. When the Petersons bought the property six years ago, they made this part of the house livable and immediately began working on the addition.

The kitchen is really frigging creepy, and I'll confess there's no way in h.e.l.l I'd ever spend an entire night inside it-especially if it meant spending more than five minutes inside the smaller attached room. It felt like something unseen in that little h.e.l.l-hole was glaring at me. The feeling didn't fade until I returned to the living room-just like last time.

Thankfully, there are enough other places on this property that I find quite interesting, where the cold spots and such are not near as antagonistic. Just as long as we don't overstay our welcome, that is.

"Hey, Jimmy...Fiona, Jackie."

Tony clambered down the staircase from the second level. I can tell he cares for this area of the house even less than I do. He nervously glanced toward the kitchen a couple of times before joining the rest of us in the living room.

"Hey, bro," I greeted him, forcing my tone to sound better than I felt. "You look like you're having a ball."

"Yeah, you, too," he shot back. "It's just like last time.... Hopefully, we'll get some stuff on film so we don't have to come back here for awhile."

He kept his tone low to not offend our host, who disappeared into the kitchen to grab some soft drinks for everyone. I'll bet she feels the same way we do-probably worse now that the shadow people have become more violent. But unlike us, Marie's stuck here with nowhere else to go. In a couple of hours we'll be on our way home, while she and her pups will still share this place with their unwanted 'guests'.

Fiona told us the latest news about this haunting on the way out here tonight. What used to be a couple of these dark spirit forms have grown to five, and the newest phantoms interact with the family on a daily basis. Matthew, Marie's oldest child, seems to be the focus for most of the activity. Similar to my wife, Matt is a 'sensitive' who might be more gifted than Fiona. At least she thinks so.

According to the kid, these 'shadow men' pursue him throughout each day. Sometimes they sit next to him, on the couch in the very living room we presently stood in. He felt an icy chill while playing a video game last weekend, and when he turned to look, a dark figure sat next to him, turning its undefined face toward him.

That's messed up as h.e.l.l, man. But there's more s.h.i.t to go with this.

Fiona also mentioned how Matt watched one of the other shadow suckers pick up some crayons belonging to his sister, Kelly, and threw them at both Matt and her. Since he clearly saw what was about to happen he ducked in time. Kelly? Three crayons pelted her in the head, one right after the other, seemingly out of thin air.

I suppose there's some humor in that, but it won't be funny if it happens to us tonight.

"So, Marie, can you show us the spot where something unseen pushed you to the floor, before it started dragging you down the stairs?"

Fiona's in her mode now...no sign of any trauma from the recent helping of bad news she received today. Good leaders are like that, and it doesn't matter what field of work we're talking about. Lawyers, politicians, doctors, and even call center managers have to be able to put aside personal distractions when it's showtime. I'd definitely include lead paranormal investigators, too.

"Yes...follow me upstairs."

Man, she didn't want to do this. Despite having to continue her stay in this place, we could all see Marie's terrible fear. It was almost like tattling on the ghosts would incur some dire consequences.

Tom appeared at the top of the stairs holding his infrared camera in one hand and a more advanced EMF detector in the other. He stepped aside to let us up, all the while Jackie and I shot numerous photographs around us. In a freaky situation like this, neither of us cared if the lights are on or not. Anomalies might still show up...or so we hope.

"Right here...it happened right after I turned the hall light off and stepped toward my bedroom," said Marie, her voice shaking.

"Then it grabbed you, and pulled you down the stairs?" asked Jackie, her tone incredulous.

"Yes, it did...can we move away from this spot, if you don't mind?"

She didn't wait for us to follow her down the hall, moving to Kelly's bedroom. Inside, Matt and Kelly sat on the floor playing a card game.

"I've got two voice recorders and video cams set up in both kids' rooms, and another recorder and camera set up in Marie's bedroom," Tom advised, clearing his throat when Marie shot him a wary glance.

Don't worry, sister...Tom may look like a nerdy perv, but I seriously doubt the dude rummaged through your panty drawer.

"What have you picked up so far?" asked Marie, posing this question to Fiona. "Anything important yet?"

"Yes," said Fiona. She paused and looked above her, listening to some disembodied voice unavailable to the rest of us. "One of the spirits here is talking to me...her name is 'Rachel'."

She moved over to the spot where Marie claimed she'd been attacked.

"It's not her...she's not the one who tried to hurt you," my wife continued, looking back at all of us, standing just outside Kelly's bedroom door. The kids continued their game inside the room. "It's a male, but not one normally from here. Rachel talks about the others, and they don't want the male spirit to hurt you. But he's more powerful than they are.... She says Josiah, a slave spirit who resides here, is afraid of this other spirit. He calls it a demon...but Rachel says it's not. It's just a bad man."

For some reason I thought of the dude with red hair. Weird a.s.sociation among predatory males, I guess. Or, could it be some crazy connection in my warped mind that tied a psychopathic killer to a psychopathic ghost?

Fiona looked over at me, a queer expression on her face while her bottom lip quivered. I quickly thought about something else to distract her: Shelby and Porkchop. Probably sitting on the porch wondering when we'd be leaving. Soon, my dear boys...hopefully very soon.

"I'd like to speak with Matt for a moment," she said, stepping past us into Kelly's room. Matt stood up while Kelly looked on. "Do you see them around you?"

He nodded, looking down at the floor.

"There's one in the room right now," he advised, his tone soft, like he carried fears similar to his mom. "It's standing next to me." He pointed to his left side.

Fiona snapped two quick photos without warning. It surprised both mother and child.

"Sorry, Matt," she said, kneeling down to give him a hug. "You poor baby...we'll find a way to make it go away. We'll make them all go away."

Tom kept everything on track, reminding us that we still had a planned exploration of the grounds to complete before our scheduled departure at midnight. As much as I enjoyed the inside investigation, I really couldn't wait to look around outside.

Yeah, all cynicism aside it was a necessary evil. In the literal sense.

I could live with a quick tour of the immediate grounds around the house. But, no way in h.e.l.l was I going back into the barn. My last visit there almost earned me a trip to the hospital. A frigging pitchfork nearly hit me in the head-and I'm not saying something or someone threw it at me. It could've just fallen off its hook by some natural means. Just the same, I had no intention of finding out the truth on that one. I didn't want anyone else in our NVP group to explore that spot either.

It may seem like some real bulls.h.i.t here that I could bravely face the crazy a.s.shole who followed me home a couple of nights ago, and then be such a p.u.s.s.y when it comes to dark shadows that look like human forms. Well, the dude from the other night turned around and left, so it's hard to say what I'd have done had the black Buick tried to run me down. Not to mention I'd readily fight to the death to protect Fiona and the boys from any menace, alive or dead. Period. End of story.

But, something sinister that I can neither see nor grab around the neck, and on somebody else's turf? That's a different scenario entirely. An icy touch from a shadow person can penetrate the heaviest clothing and painfully cut through flesh and bone.

Luckily, other than Porkchop's skittishness the outside investigation was pretty much uneventful. No creepy feelings that indicated a hostile ent.i.ty followed us around. None at all. I guess all of the ornery suckers decided to stay inside the house this time.... We'll have to wait and see if we caught anything with our cameras and audio recorders, since Tom's infrared came up empty as well.

When we finally called it quits, Marie seemed very reluctant to let us go home. It's quite understandable after being stalked and brutally hara.s.sed by an invisible menace for weeks on end. Fiona gave her a warm hug while glancing at me. From under the porch light's bug-flickering glow, I saw something in my wife's eyes...something that would stay with me for much of the next week.

Our own hidden menace was getting closer, ready to strike again. Perhaps someone dearer to us than those we've already lost will be next. The terror in Fiona's expression confirms this as a real premonition.... I hope I'm not being an idiot by keeping my 'night stalker' knowledge to myself. Especially in light of what she told me earlier that afternoon, after she informed me that the cops don't have any strong leads yet. "It's all a big game to this guy," she had said, worriedly. "The longer it takes to catch him, the less fear he has of being discovered. I believe he'll raise the stakes...soon."

I pray she's dead wrong about that. I'm in no hurry to personally understand Marie's point of view. Only instead of 'stalked and hara.s.sed', it could be 'hunted and killed'.

Chapter Thirteen.