Ghostly Apparitions (A Ghost Hunter P.I. Mystery Book 1) Read online

  Ghostly Apparitions

  A Ghost Hunter P.I. Mystery Book One

  Aubrey Harper

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Aubrey Harper

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  1. One

  2. Two

  3. Three

  4. Four

  5. Five

  6. Six

  7. Seven

  8. Eight

  9. Nine

  10. Ten

  11. Eleven

  12. Twelve

  13. Thirteen

  14. Fourteen

  15. Fifteen

  16. Sixteen

  17. Seventeen

  18. Eighteen

  19. Nineteen

  20. Twenty

  21. Twenty-One

  22. Twenty-Two

  23. Twenty-Three

  24. Twenty-Four

  25. Twenty-Five

  Next Up…

  Author’s Note

  Also by Aubrey Harper

  One

  “He’s hiding behind the counter,” Rebecca said. She was as calm as ever. I wish I could say the same. Even though I’d done this dozens of times, I still felt like this time something might go terribly wrong.

  What if I sent the poor soul somewhere where it didn’t want to be?

  I turned the corner and moved past Rebecca. The ghost was a scared-looking man, perhaps in his forties. His outfit told me that he died at least sixty years ago, if not before that.

  “You have to leave this place,” I told him. “Don’t you want to go into the light?”

  “Lies! Lies!” The man kept repeating as he held his hands over his ears. Of course, that wouldn’t block out any sounds coming from me. It’s not like he had physical ears anymore.

  “Look at your hands,” I said again. “Don’t you notice something different about them?”

  The man stopped quivering and held out his hands in front of his face.

  “They’re my hands,” he finally said. “There’s nothing strange about them.”

  “Look closer.”

  I waited for him to get it. To really look past the self-created delusion.

  “I still don’t see it,” he said.

  I sighed. This was going to take longer than I thought. I always hated it when they’d been dead for a while. That usually meant that they were set in their ways and it was that much harder to shock them back into reality.

  “Don’t you find it weird that pretty much everyone doesn’t even notice your existence?” I asked him.

  The man shook his head. “I’ve never been that popular. But you’re talking to me. And so is she,” he pointed to Rebecca.

  “We’re different,” I said. “And so are you.”

  “But I can’t be dead. If I was dead, then I wouldn’t even be here in the first place. I’d be in the afterlife or maybe even nowhere at all. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You’re right. People usually move on. Unless they have some unresolved issues or their death was especially unexpected.”

  “You know she’s right,” Rebecca said. She remained stationary. Most ghosts didn’t like sudden movements. “What’s your name, by the way?”

  “Stanley. Stanley Cooper,” he said reluctantly.

  I took out my cell and searched his name and the town we were in.

  “What’s…what’s that?” He pointed at my phone in shock.

  I lifted it up. “It’s a phone,” I said. “Welcome to the future, Mr. Cooper.”

  I looked through my search results. I refined my search by looking for old news stories and the such. After five minutes of looking around, I finally found what I was looking for.

  “It says here you died on January 2nd, 1954,” I read from the story. “The cause of death was…oh.”

  “What is it?” Stanley wanted to know.

  “It looks like you…took some barbiturates and alcohol.”

  Stanley looked crestfallen. Some ghosts, as soon as they came to grips with the fact that they were dead, started to remember little things here and there.

  “It was just after New Year’s,” he said slowly. “It was an awful night. My wife had just left me for another man and that same week I was about to lose my job. It seemed like the easy way out…”

  I looked around the inn he was haunting. “So this was your house back in the day?”

  “It actually belonged to my wife’s family. She had told me to pack my things and move out. I guess I wanted to hurt her by doing it here. I wonder if I did.”

  That way lay madness. I was definitely not googling what Mrs. Cooper had done after her husband’s death. If she remarried and had a happy family life, Stanley Cooper might not just become an annoyance, he might become one of those vengeful spirits that weren’t so easy to deal with.

  “I’m sure she felt bad about it,” I said instead. “But don’t you think it’s time to finally move on? You’ve been here long enough. Don’t you want to know what lies on the other side of that light?”

  Stanley didn’t look too enthused about that idea. “What if it’s hell? My mother always went on and on about sin this, sin that. She was a very staunch Catholic.”

  “It’s different for everyone and you don’t look like a man that deserved to go to hell. Not at all.”

  “Well, I don’t. I’ve always tried to be a good man, it’s just the rest of the world that seemed against me.”

  “And now it’s time to get your reward for all that suffering. All the ghosts that I’ve helped pass over look happy once they’re in the light.”

  “I guess it’s better than hanging around here.”

  “Exactly,” I said, smiling and urging him on toward the light. The light had actually appeared right behind him, coming in through a door that wasn’t there before. “It looks like it’s time,” I said, pointing out the new addition to the wall.

  Stanley turned around and looked at the light shining through. “It does feel very…inviting,” he said.

  “Are you ready to go somewhere better?”

  Stanley nodded. “Thank you. Thank you for caring.”

  “It’s no trouble,” I said.

  Stanley turned to go. As soon as he did the door flew open. It was a blinding white light, so I looked away. Even Rebecca stepped back, for fear that she might be sucked in, though we both knew it didn’t really work that way.

  Stanley turned around one last time and waved at us. I waved back. He seemed content with his decision. And then he was gone and so was the light, and so was the door.

  The inn immediately felt emptier. Calmer. This inn was no longer going to be known as that “creepy haunted place” as the owner so eloquently put it.

  “Do you really think he went to a better place?” Rebecca asked me.

  “You know better than anyone that I don’t know the answer to that. But I certainly hope so. He didn’t seem like a bad guy.”

  I counted the money from the inn job and sighed in frustration.

  “Not enough to cover next month’s rent?” Rebecca asked.

  “Nope. Not by a long shot. If I don’t get another job or two in the next couple of days, we’re screwed. Out on the street as the landlord said.”

  “You know, you could always go back to…”

  “If you say Silver Bells, you’ll be begging for a door with the light to come your way.”


  Rebecca stepped back as if the threat was real. She was so scared sometimes but so fearless most of the time, that it was always strange to see her behave that way.

  “I was just joking. Like I’d ever do that to my best friend.”

  Rebecca relaxed a little. “You always get like this when the rent’s due. I’m sure we’ll figure something out. We always do.”

  “Not this time I’m afraid.” I looked around the small office and admired it for one last time. My bedroom was upstairs and so was the rest of my living space. It wasn’t much, but it was mine.

  “You know what I think the problem is?” I said.

  Rebecca braced herself for another rant and she was right.

  “I think people just don’t believe anymore. Not unless they’ve seen it with their own eyes or experienced it up close. If I was born even a hundred years ago, I’d probably be living in a mansion now. But now when people see ‘Ghost Hunter PI’ they think it’s some kind of joke. I mean, you’ve seen the walk-ins I get, haven’t you?”

  Rebecca nodded but was smart enough to keep her mouth shut.

  “Just once I wish I could get paid what I was worth. It’s not like they can see ghosts and get rid of them. That’s me. I’m the special one. I wonder if I should up the prices again?”

  “You already tried that, remember?”

  “Oh yes, and my business dried up and I had to lower them to a barely living wage again. Sometimes I wish that I never had this gift to begin with. My work life would be so much better and so would my love life, probably.”

  Rebecca didn’t say anything but I could see that she was hurt by what I’d said.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized, sincerely this time. “It’s just that it gets to me sometimes, you know?”

  “That’s why I was about to suggest Silver Bells Cove. Your grandmother said that she’ll lease you out that space for practically nothing and you could live with her. It doesn’t get better than that. Plus, I really like your grandmother.”

  “Ugh. I love my grandmother but I really don’t want to go back to that place. It’ll feel like such a step backward, you know?”

  “It was just a suggestion,” Rebecca said in her defense.

  “I’ll think about it, okay?”

  That made Rebecca happy. She practically glided across the floor.

  “Stop that, it’s distracting,” I said and went back to crunching the numbers.

  Rebecca settled down. She went to the window and watched the world go by. I had a feeling that pretty soon our lives were going to get a lot simpler and probably a lot less interesting.

  Two

  “It really isn’t that bad,” Rebecca said. She was in the passenger seat, all of my possessions in the back seat of my barely running car.

  “I’m driving back to Silver Bells Cove, of course it’s that bad. You do know I pretty much flipped the bird to the whole town the last time I left?”

  Rebecca laughed. “I remember that. It was quite the sight. But this is only until we get back on our feet, right? It doesn’t have to be permanent.”

  I sighed. “From your lips to God’s or whoever is listening ears.”

  I knew that Rebecca was just trying to make me feel better and it kind of worked. I had no intention of setting roots in Silver Bells Cove, Ohio ever again. I left that place for good after they made a mockery of my gift. And now I was going back there to put myself on display again.

  Thankfully, most of my work involved a lot of traveling so that was a sort of silver lining of going back to Silver Bells.

  I laughed at the thought. Once I shared it with Rebecca, she laughed too.

  “Aren’t you happy to see your grandmother again?” She asked.

  I nodded. I spoke to my grandmother almost daily. The woman practically raised me so I at least owed her that.

  After several more hours of driving, I was ready to drive the car off the bridge so I decided to stop by a diner on the way there.

  I got myself some pancakes and some coffee to wake me up.

  Rebecca remained quiet as she usually did in public places. I definitely did not want to cause a scene.

  Once we hit the road, I was ready to drive straight back to my hometown. And that’s exactly what I did.

  Silver Bells Cove was a small town hidden in the state of Ohio. The weather was schizophrenic, the fields were green, and the people…well, the people didn’t take kindly to those who professed an ability to see and speak to ghosts.

  I parked in front of my grandmother’s bakery. She had a small unused space right next to it. Presumably, my new office, if what she had said was true.

  I saw her talking to a couple of customers so I decided to stay back until they were done. Even though I’d already eaten, my mouth was watering just from the smell of the place. The pastries and cakes looked especially inviting.

  My grandmother’s face lit up as soon as she saw me. She immediately moved from the back of the counter and came around and gave me a big hug.

  “My dear Millie,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes at that nickname. “Gran, you know I hate it when you call me that. Call me Melissa. Or Mel. But not Millie!”

  Melissa was my middle name and my grandma preferred it to my first name, Meredith.

  Gran laughed at that. “Not a chance.” She took my face in her hands and then she ordered me to turn around. “Let me take a look at you. You’re as skinny as a street cat. We’ll have to change that.”

  “Stop it, Gran. I’m a normal size for my height.”

  Gran went behind the counter. “What would you like?”

  I looked at the options. I pointed to what looked like an almond pastry. “That looks good.”

  “It’s almond with raspberries,” she said as she handed me one with a napkin.

  “My favorite.” I practically ate the whole thing standing up.

  There were several tables and Gran instructed me to sit down. She went and fetched some tea and put the “Closed” sign up on the door.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said, feeling bad that she might be losing any business on my count.

  “Don’t be silly. It’s not every day that my wayward granddaughter comes to town.”

  Gran and I caught up on everything that had been going on. She even asked how Rebecca was doing.

  “Same as always,” I said. Rebecca smiled at that.

  “Rebecca is asking how you’ve been,” I relayed the message.

  Gran looked around the small bakery. “Is she here now?”

  “She’s right there, looking out that window,” I pointed at a spot by the door.

  Gran couldn’t see her but she smiled all the same. “I’m glad you still have each other.”

  Rebecca had been with me since I was a child. At first, it was a bit strange to have an older “imaginary friend” as my parents called her, but as I got older and we pretty much became the same age, it didn’t seem so strange anymore. It was kind of comforting that I could have a lifelong friend there. She was also quite useful when it came to my ghost hunting business. What better way to catch a ghost than with a ghost’s help?

  “So you still haven’t…” Gran said carefully.

  “No. But we’re still looking.”

  Rebecca didn’t remember how she died or even what her real name was. She chose Rebecca when she noticed the Daphne du Maurier novel by my nightstand the first time she saw me. What can I say? I was a strange child.

  Since my teenage years, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make Rebecca move on, but it was all for naught. Her death and even her identity remained a mystery. I often joked that she was probably my guardian angel or something, but Rebecca would always shake her head. “I’m no angel,” she would say and leave it at that.

  Her clothes provided little clue as to what era she was born in. It was just a simple shirt and some bell bottom jeans. Her hair was long, straight, and brown. Gran had told me that from the description, Rebecca was probably from the six
ties or seventies, though to me she looked like she could even be from the eighties or nineties.

  “That’s a shame,” Gran said. “Do you want to check out your new office?” My grandmother was a master at changing the subject.

  “That would be great. It’s been a long drive, though.”

  “Don’t worry, I left your room just the way it was when you left the first time.”

  I was definitely not looking forward to seeing that. All those posters of boy bands long gone.

  Gran took a key from the back and told me to follow. Rebecca was not far behind. While Gran worked on unlocking the door, Rebecca just walked through the glass and was already checking out the place.

  It was small. Once I was inside it I realized it was probably half the size of my old office. The one I couldn’t afford on a ghost hunter’s salary.

  “How did you go about purchasing this space anyway?” I asked Gran.

  “I was thinking of expanding the bakery. This used to be a travel agency but they moved to a bigger space a few shops over. Apparently, my homemade goods weren’t good for business,” she said with a smile.

  “I don’t want to stop you from expanding. If your business is doing that well…”

  “Don’t be silly, Millie,” she said and chuckled.

  I had to laugh too. I missed my grandma so much.

  “It looks nice. I can definitely work with it. I just hope it doesn’t drive any of your business away.”

  Gran dismissed that idea with the wave of a hand. “Nothing can drive people away from my goods and you know it, missy.”

  “I think I like ‘missy’ even less than ‘Millie’,” I said.

  “Then Millie you shall remain. Ready to go back home?”