Trudy Hicks Ghost Hunter
Case Two-The Kept
Lori Zaremba
Genre: Paranormal Mystery
Publisher: Limitless Publishing
Date of Publication: 5/28/2019
If anyone tells you hunting ghosts is less dangerous than chasing down real-life criminals, they’re wrong. Very, very wrong.
Case two takes us to a New Jersey Shore Inn. A beautiful, yet dead opera singer seems to be begging for help, but her pleas do nothing but terrorize the locals.
While trying to decipher the clues to her 1919 disappearance, uncovering hair-raising horrors, it becomes clear that Jason and I no longer see eye-to-eye.
Jason wants me to stop meddling with the supernatural. He wants me to stop risking my life by interacting with demons and spirits.
What he doesn’t understand is this is my life. These tortured souls need my help in order to move on. How do I walk away from that—from them?
But the better question is—how do I walk away from him?
The dog, who had
been sleeping at her feet, let out a low snarl and stood at attention. His
focus was on the window that faced the lawn by the pool and the beach beyond.
Trudy pushed back her chair and stood stiffly and tip-toed quietly to the
window, and peered out.
Her heart rose
in her throat when she saw him and recognized him immediately from her dream.
The stern face and cold eyes of the un-named uncle stared back at her. He stood
just ten feet away on the lawn, illuminated in the moonlight and looking just
like he did on the beach that day in her dream.
She turned and
dashed out of the room, pulling her phone from the pocket of her shorts and
heading toward the doors by the pool to chase the phantom down. Rocky, yapping
and whining, was by her side.
Trudy padded
lightly through the pool area and out the wrought-iron gate that led to the
lawn and the beach beyond. She gave a command to the big dog for silence and
directed him around the pool shed opposite her. The light from her cell phone
illuminated the corner of the structure, Trudy knew if anyone or thing were
hiding there, Rocky would flush them out toward her.
The night was
still and humid. She felt a bead of perspiration trickle down her temple to her
cheek and whisked it away. The crash of the waves on the other side of the dune
was the only sound interrupting the silence.
The two-way
radio on her belt sounded. “Where the hell are you?” came Jason’s voice.
She listened
into the night for a moment then whispered, “By the pool shed,” before turning
down the volume when she heard Rocky snarl.
Her heart
pounded furiously in her chest, and she fought off the spell of dizziness that
suddenly overcame her. Rocky’s bark was louder and more urgent. She pressed
against the structure and made her way toward the sound.
The hair on the
back of her neck rose, and a chill slid down her body while her knees went
weak. She knew someone was just beyond her line of vision. She sensed it, her
nerves screamed it, and the loud noise that was coming from the big dog a few
feet away confirmed it.
Now at the end
of the structure, leaning against the warm metal siding not only for cover but
balance, Trudy gazed outover the lawn then ever so slowly peeked around the
corner.
“What the hell
are you doing?” Jason whispered harshly behind her, causing her to screech.
Trudy stumbled awkwardly back when something white flew through the air
directly at her head. She ducked, and the thing hissed as it catapulted over
Jason’s shoulder and landed a few feet away.
“A cat?” The
feline looked at them grumpily before darting up the nearest tree when Rocky
gave chase.
“This is why you
came out here? A damn cat?” Jason checked his shoulder where the feline’s claws
tore his shirt. Satisfied that the skin underneath was not wounded, he looked
up at her, waiting for her reply.
Trudy ignored his
question and stepped forward to fuss over his shoulder, not trusting that it
was unscathed, and ran her hand over the smooth skin. She avoided eye contact.
Jason grabbed the hand on his shoulder and pulled her closer.
“So, Hicks, are
you going to tell me what the hell brought you out here when I specifically
told you to stay put?” He studied her face before dropping his eyes to her
lips.
Trudy pushed
back the heavy weight of her hair from her sweaty brow and brushed a kiss the
scruffy hair on his chin.
“Umm, I think
you should learn quick, Young, that I don’t do well with orders.”
Lori Zaremba is a full-time Internet Sales Manager and writes Web Content as well as providing Copy Editing for businesses in the Greater Pittsburgh Area. Lori has published short ghost stories on Your Ghost Stories, as the Haunted_Cleaner and on her website lorizaremba.com
On her website, lorizaremba.com, Zaremba refers to herself as the ghost magnet and briefly describes her encounters with departing spirits.
Lori began writing her fiction story as a creative offering of why a ghost would haunt. Before long the story became a novel Case One: The Deceit in the Trudy Hicks Ghost Hunter series.
Lori currently lives in the suburbs of Pittsburgh with her husband Wayne and two fur babies Jaxson and Stewie.
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