GHOST OF A CHANCE, a paranormal short story (3 page)

A chill snaked around her ankles, but in a mansion as old as this one, that wasn’t unexpected.  Then a low, almost masculine moan erupted from Nancy as her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Oh man, the EMF meter is going wild,” one of Tommy’s technicians murmured and clapped his hands gleefully.

Nancy’s head lolled against the back of the dining chair and the two men on either side of her released her hands to come to her assistance, but she shook her head.  “No, hold on,” Nancy warned.  “Someone is here.  They are trying to reach us.”

The chill, which at first had seemed like nothing more than a draft, grew bolder, traveling upward and wrapping around Tracy’s legs.  Insistent.  Her heartbeat raced in her chest and pressure built inside her skull.  She shook her head, trying to drive away the sensation overtaking her.

“Tracy. Tracy, are you okay?” she heard from beside her.  But it came as if from a distance and echoed within her brain.

The cold had now embraced her entire body.  She tried to speak, but nothing came out of her mouth.  A hand brushed the side of her face.  Lovingly.  Somehow grounding her as she struggled to free herself of the consciousness taking control of her body.

#

Peter ran his hand along Tracy’s cheek and met her gaze, but the vibrant and intelligent gleam in her eyes had changed somehow.  Her eyes were blank, dark, lifeless orbs staring back at him.  The edges of her lips moved.  Barely.  And as he examined her face more carefully, it was almost as if the blurry image of someone else had been superimposed on her features.

A beautiful woman, he thought and inside of him, awareness flared brightly.  Warmth blazed more intensely, especially where he held Tracy’s hand.

“They’re here,” Nancy said in an eerie singsong, mimicking the famous movie line.

He looked around the table and realized all eyes were on him and Tracy.

“No,” he said, but wasn’t sure whether anyone had heard him, not even Tracy, since at that moment she broke contact with Tommy, raised her hand and laid it on Peter’s cheek.

Her touch was electric, racing through him so powerfully that he jumped.

“Francis,” she said, the name filled with such longing that it hurt his heart.

“Anna,” he replied and jerked back again.

Anna?  Not Anna.  Tracy, he thought, battling the weird almost out-of-body sensation gripping him.  It was as if someone else had dominion over his being and he was just a visitor, watching what was happening from the sidelines.

“I miss you, Francis,” Tracy said and ran her thumb across his lips.  “Come home to me.”

Peter was pulled toward her, but something held him back.  Kept him immobile.  Fear, he realized.  Gut wrenching, heart-pounding fear.

Death.  Death was near, he thought, his gut clenching.  A cold sweat erupted on his body.

“Can’t,” he replied, shaking his head.  He ripped away from her touch and something popped free inside of him. 

Like a soap bubble bursting, whatever had taken hold of Tracy disappeared.  Awareness rippled across her face of where she was and what was happening.  She shook her body like a dog tossing water from wet fur, forcing away the last of whatever had gripped her.

Tommy burst from his chair.  “That was amazing.  Did you get that?” he shouted at his technicians.

“Don’t know,” the crew member replied.

“Tracy?  Are you okay?” Peter asked, his hand shaking as he brought it to her face and gently stroked the smoothness of her cheek.

“I think so.”  She glanced away from him to the others gathered around the table.

“That was something,” said Hank Jenkins and wrapped his arm around Nancy’s shoulders as she sagged into her chair.

“But what was it?” questioned Daly, the detective.  He rose and jammed his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket, something he did often judging from the way they bulged even when empty.

He walked over to where Tommy stood with his technicians, who were busily playing with the equipment.  Judging from the puzzled looks on their faces, something was not working as it should have been.

“Well, Tommy?” the detective pressed.

“We’re working on it,” Tommy replied with irritation.

“Technical difficulties.  Not unexpected, given what we’re dealing with,” said Marcovic, his tone almost condescending.

“What we’re dealing with?” Peter challenged and scooted his chair closer to Tracy, who still seemed a little shaken.  When she leaned her head against his shoulder, he wrapped his arm around her, offering his support.

“Ghosts,” said Marcovic.

“Ghosts?” Tracy replied weakly and rubbed her hands along her arms.

“They were here.  I could feel them. Feel their pain,” Nancy replied and glanced at Hank.  “You saw them, right?”

“Them?” Peter asked, quickly replaying in his brain what he had seen, but recalling only the change in Tracy.

“You don’t realize, do you?” Hank said, his gaze focusing on Peter and Tracy.

“Realize what?” Peter asked.

“You were him,” said Detective Daly as he waved dismissively at Tommy and his people, who still appeared to be having problems with their equipment.

“Him?  Who?”

“You were Francis,” said Tracy, glancing up at him as if seeing him with new eyes.

Not possible, Peter thought and shook his head.  “How do you know?”

“Because I was Anna,” Tracy replied.

Chapter 5

Tracy couldn’t shake the chill that had gripped her earlier nor the lingering presence within her.  It was if she was no longer alone.  As if someone else was with her.  Tucked into her heart.

Peter, she thought, only
not
.  The connection she had experienced in the parlor room hadn’t been with Peter.  It had been with someone else.

Francis Ryan.

Except that was impossible, Tracy thought as she paced back and forth in front of the French doors leading to the garden, before stopping to appreciate the beauty outside.  The night was bright, the moonlight bathing everything with cold hoary light.  Beyond the gardens, the ocean’s wash shimmered along the shore as bright whitecaps broke the dark of the water’s surface.

In her mind’s eye the image changed.  Darkened.

It had been a moonless night.  Perfect for running rum if that had been their wish.  Perfect for running away.

She knew that now.  Anna had been escaping with her baby that night.

But Tracy also knew something else--Anna hadn’t been fleeing her husband.  She had loved him.  Deeply.  Leaving him had cost her.

A knock came at her door and although the last thing she wanted was company, she sensed he was there.

Peter.

She walked to the door and opened it.  He waited, looking a bit sheepish.  His hands jammed into the pockets of those well-worn jeans.  She knew from the look on his face that he still didn’t believe, but then again, she wasn’t quite sure she did either.

“May I come in?”

She stepped aside and motioned him in.

He stood in the middle of the space, clearly uneasy.  As if searching for something to do, he walked to the desk where she had laid out her research notes.

“May I?” he asked, and at her nod, leaned one hand on the edge of the desk as he flipped through the papers.

“Fascinating,” he said when he finished, turned, and leaned his butt on the edge of the desk.

“Not as interesting as what happened before,” she said, crossing her arms and coming to stand in front of him.

“What did happen before?” he asked, mimicking her pose, both of them obviously in defensive mode.

“I was hoping you could tell me.  Did Tommy and his people get anything?

“Nothing visible on the videotape.  But he did get some drastic changes in temperature and wild EMF readings.”

“All of which means…”

Peter shrugged and the action pulled the fabric of his shirt across the broad muscles of his shoulders.  “I wish I knew, Tracy.”

But she did know something, even if she couldn’t explain the why of it.  “Anna loved her husband.  Immensely.  She was afraid that night, but not of him.”

Peter nodded, but it was reluctant.  “If I believe that I tapped into something from the beyond…I felt fear.  Deadly fear.”

“I think I may know why,” she said and brushed past him to the surface of her desk.  Shuffling the papers around as he had earlier, she dug up some notes and photocopies.

“Did you know nearly forty percent of all the illegal alcohol that came into the United States during Prohibition came through Newark, Skippy’s hometown?”

He turned, grazing her back with his chest as he examined the papers from over her shoulder.  “Is that him?” he said, pointing to a grainy photo from one of the newspapers.

“That’s Skippy.  Before Prohibition, Newark had a number of local breweries and saloons.”

“So there was a significant economic impact when those businesses had to shut down,” Peter surmised.

“Definitely and Skippy’s area took a direct hit.”  She motioned to the photo and circled a face near Francis Ryan.  “This man is Izzy Merlman, one of Newark’s bootleg kingpins.  His runners would bring big ships with whiskey and rum to just outside the twelve-mile limit we had back then.  Smaller skiffs would meet them and bring the liquor ashore.”

“So you’re saying good ol’ Skippy was involved with the bootlegging?”

“Or maybe competing with Izzy,” Tracy said and placed her notes back on the desktop.

“They used to bring alcohol into Newark Bay and Long Branch mostly, but they also brought it through the Shark River Inlet.  When we used to spend summers down the shore my grandmother would tell us stories about it,” Peter added.

“But your grandmother would have been young during Prohibition.”

“Six or seven.  Her father told her the stories.  She used to say that her mother would ask him to stop,” he said as if suddenly remembering it.  He moved, sitting back on the edge of the desk as she faced him.  His thigh skimmed her legs, awakening the connection she had experienced before in the parlor.

Needing a little space, she moved away from him. “If your great-grandmother was Anna Dolan, and if the bootlegging had caused her to lose her husband, that could explain why she wouldn’t want to glamorize the rum-running.”

“Sounds plausible, but how do we prove it?” he asked.

Tracy smiled.  “Not
we
.  Me.  Remember the contest?”

With his proximity to Tracy, he had forgotten about a lot, including the contest.  He supposed that was exactly what his father had wanted, and something inside of him rebelled for a moment, but only for a moment.  It would have been foolish to ignore what he was feeling on account of his father’s manipulation.  But if anything, the contest had made the situation a little more difficult.  “I suppose that I should go so that the other contestants don’t feel slighted somehow.”

“I suppose,” she said, but it was half-hearted.

“The rest of them are in the parlor, arguing about Tommy’s data and what it means.”  Which was what he supposed they should be doing and so he said, “We could join them.”

Tracy considered returning to the parlor and experienced a chill again at the thought of the spirits that still might be in the room.  “Or we could go for walk around the grounds since our time in the mansion is limited.”

His smile broadened and spread up to his eyes, which glittered a bright blue.  “Seems like a much better use of our time.”

He pushed off the edge of the desk and offered her his arm.

“Shall we?”

Chapter 6

Tracy slipped her arm through his.  Awareness of him awoke again.  How could it not?  He was a handsome and seemingly caring man.  What she was experiencing was due to that and not to any lingering effects from what had happened in the parlor.

If
anything
had actually occurred there, she thought.  The logical and practical side of her refused to believe that Nancy the psychic had somehow managed to channel a spirit or two.  Especially one who managed to take over Tracy’s body for only the space of a few heartbeats and yet had left behind emotions she was finding it hard to forget.

Instead of heading out her bedroom door, Peter walked her to the French doors and tossed them open.  They strolled through the gardens and down to the water’s edge.  The wind had kicked up the surf, washing ashore small jellyfish that glittered like diamonds from the moonbeams.

“It was dark the night it happened.  Anna was afraid,” Tracy said, and wrapped her arms around herself, slightly cold from the strong ocean breeze.

Peter, who had been walking beside her with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the nip of the wind, slipped one arm around her and pulled her close.  The warmth of him abated the cold instantly.  “Francis was afraid also.  I remember that feeling from the parlor room.  He was very very fearful.”

“A local fisherman had been beaten to death about a week before.  He used to deliver fish to the mansion.  Maybe he brought more than that to the back door,” she said, providing Peter with the information she had discovered during her earlier research.

“If Izzy killed the Ryans—”

“I think the dead fisherman was a warning to Skippy to stop, but Izzy might not have been happy to stop there,” Tracy said as they neared a jetty that marked the end of the mansion’s property.  She stopped and looked back toward the house, noticed the boathouse about ten feet away from where the jetty ended and a wall of rocks rose from the water and onto the shore.  Sand turned to grass as the property sloped upward toward the boathouse.

Peering at Peter, she pointed to the boathouse. “Can we look inside?”

“We have the run of the entire property for the weekend, so hopefully they’ve left that open for us as well.”

Together, they ambled together to the door of the building.  A shiny new padlock hung from a rusty latch hasp, but it was unlocked.  They removed it and swung open the heavy doors to reveal the equipment within.  An assortment of old chains, ropes, oars, and life preservers adorned the walls.  In the center of the space, a wooden rowboat lay upside down across two sawhorses.  Beside it on a small boat lift was a sixteen foot skiff painted a dark grey and sporting an outboard engine.