Ghost Writer (Raven Maxim Book 1) (36 page)

“Titus is possessed! The spirit is using his body to speak!” one of the investigators yelled. Titus grabbed the knife Emerald had used to cut her sandwich in half and placed it to his own throat.

“Shit!” Sloan jumped up out of his seat along with the other two investigators, their chairs falling behind them. Curses littered the tension-filled air. A tinge of blood stained Titus’ neck, so Sloan tried to pull the man’s hand back with all of his might, gnashing his teeth, the vein in the center of his forehead growing tight and throbbing.

“Goddamn it!” Sloan finally wrangled the thing away from the man and stood to his full height as the two investigators helped Titus back onto his feet. He blinked several times, as if suddenly coming into his own, now aware once again of his surroundings.

Emerald raced to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of water, removed the top and handed it to the medium. He chugged the cool liquid down, his face covered in sweat and a look of worry etched all over it, to boot.

“So… I take it ol’ Peter tried to hurt me?” He chuckled, as if it were no biggie.

“Does that happen often?” Emerald demanded, in a semi-state of panic after what she’d just witnessed.

“Mmmm.” He shrugged. “Not often, but it ain’t the first time. Sometimes they get so beside themselves they want to inflict pain. Give me a second.” He put his hand up in a gesture of reassurance. “I’ll try to ask him anything you might have, but I need you to fill me in on what he just said… I have no recollection. And I need some more food and drink please.” Titus gulped down another bottle of water and ate some wafer crackers. “All right, I’m ready.”

The two investigators proceeded to play back what they’d recorded, and all Titus did was give an acknowledging nod, as he was now up to speed.

Sloan cleared his throat. “He said he wanted me to write his story, so I need to know: if I do this, will he leave? Will my house finally not have any of this going on anymore?”

Titus frowned. “He said he can’t leave this house until the story is out. He said he won’t tell me the story, but he’ll tell you… and her.” He pointed at Emerald once again. “He needs you to find a couple of books he left here, said they’d help you.”

“I don’t know what books he’s talking about. I guess I’ll have to dig around in the office and hope to find it.”

“No, remember, Sloan? The book you saw me with… Maybe that’s one of them that he’s talking about. I’ve still got it,” Emerald confessed, forcing all eyes to focus hard and heavy upon her. “I felt a sense of urgency in reading it, too. Maybe that’s why.”

Titus clasped his hands over his gut. “Peter stays in a state of exhaustion, due in part to how he died. I can see him, but most people can’t.” Emerald nodded in understanding. “He’s been trying to help Sloan find them. He is acknowledging that you
do
have one of the books. Mr. Steele needs to read it right away.”

Sloan visibly swallowed. “You said there were two other spirits in this house,” he piped in. “One I take it is Peter’s nurse and love interest, Sadie. Who is the third one?”

“Peter has gotten tightlipped, but he did let me see them. Oddly enough, I get the sense he isn’t allowed to interact with them, and vice versa. They can never be in the same space, but each know the other is there. Sadie is protective of Peter, and is kind of trapped here. I’m not sure why. I can tell you more things regarding him as a person, though. Keep in mind, as his fame increased, so did his need to put on a different persona. The fame began to get to him. He enjoyed the attention, but not the invasion of his privacy. He let this woman get close to him, far closer than anyone else in his life. That is not uncommon with stars who may befriend their groundskeepers, or other staff around them.

“Here’s what I gather and if I’m wrong, I’m certain he’ll let me know. The issue is that his guilt is twofold. He was attracted to Sadie when he saw her, and his intentions were to get her home, all to himself, and have sex with her, just like all the other women in his life. Peter was a womanizer, sexually greedy… He’d participated in orgies, wild parties, all sorts of things. I also believe he had a strained relationship with his mother. My guess is she was domineering; therefore, as an adult, he refused to be bossed around and told what to do, especially by women.

“He was quite macho, which only appealed to the ladies more. But, deep down, Peter wanted a woman to take care of him and take control. By Sadie’s mere occupation, she had that down pat. Ms. St. Claire?”

“Yes?” Emerald had been so caught up in Titus’ words, she’d almost forgotten how to speak.

“May I ask what you do for an occupation?”

“I, uh, restore furniture and—”

“No, not that… the nine-to-five gig.”

“I’m a dental nurse.”

Titus’ lips curved in a delighted, slightly wicked grin. “Well, well, well… hot damn. Peter hit the jackpot, didn’t he? No wonder after all of this time he’s ready to talk. Mr. Steele,”—Titus’ smile soon faded.—“your house is filled with such angry energy and sadness. I know you felt it soon after you moved in. He
wanted
you to feel it. Even in death, Peter believes he hasn’t suffered enough, that it
must
continue until the world knows what he did. What that is, I do not know, but he is ready to talk about it.”

“I see.” Sloan sighed.

“I believe that if you search the office, you will stumble into more and more clues relating to what was going on with him, his psyche, his mindset. Use your girlfriend’s heightened senses to help you find what he needs you to find. You two can work as a team. You’ll be able to write this story; he wants only
you
to do it. He trusts you completely. He’s given you the roadmap; now all you have to do is follow it. In other words, Peter Jones has hired you for a very important job, Mr. Steele. You are officially his ghostwriter…”

When a Man Loves a Woman…

I
spent my
life praying he would change, and now that he has, I regret having asked for it in the first place…

Joel left yet another message for his father, growing more and more concerned, especially based upon their last conversation several days prior. Dad had admitted that a paranormal group had come to the house and dug up some pretty incriminating shit. Things had gotten out of control.

They spoke of it for a bit, then moved on to conversing about other things, less weighty topics, more pleasant in nature. Joel soon discovered that his father was not only dating but had a steady girlfriend… and they were in love.

He wasn’t certain how he felt about the revelation. On one hand, he was excited that his father was finally moving on in a seemingly positive direction. On the other hand, there were unresolved issues they’d only touched the surface of during his last few visits, but still hadn’t been completely laid out to dry. They were both so close to a breakthrough, it was only a matter of time before their relationship evolved into something he could hold onto and respect. Perhaps Dad meeting someone was the catalyst to the transformation. It broke his heart a bit that the man hadn’t been able to experience that sort of happiness with Mom.

He knew his father had loved his mother at one point in time; he had witnessed it as a child, could tell from the old videos, photos, and how he’d dedicated his first published book to her—even though, at the time of the release, their marriage was falling apart at the seams.

They’d certainly made strides in their communication; so much so, it encouraged him to push the envelope and try to come to an understanding. He sat in his apartment for another hour or so after having drifted to sleep, then grabbed the phone and dialed again. This time, Dad answered.

“Hey, old man.” He lounged back in his chair with a smile, looking lazily at the television. “Where you been?”

“Here, there, and everywhere. How are you?” Dad groaned as if he were exhausted. Perhaps he was.

“I’m good… I’m good. What are you doing?”

“I’m tinkering with this damn hard drive from my old computer. I don’t want to shell out the money to get a file I need off here, but I may have to.”

“I can take a look at it for you.”

“Thanks. I can manage though.”

“Dad, I want to talk to you about some things.”

“I figured as much.” He chuckled. “You want more confessions from me, right?”

“Just the truth is all…”

“You want truth… I can do that. What’s bothering you?”

“Can we talk about you and Mom, please?”

His father sighed loudly on the other end of the line. “What in the hell do we need to say about this, Joel? What do you want from me? Okay, fine, here ya go. I haven’t always said the sweetest things about that woman since our divorce. Sue me.”

“Do you want her to be happy, Dad?”

“I
wanted
to make her happy. I loved being in a relationship, being married in those first few years with your mom. But then, things changed, you know? She no longer looked at me like she loved me. She looked at me like I wasn’t doing anything for her, as if I was pointless in her life…some inconvenience fighting for utility.”

“That’s not how she tells it.”

“Well then, why in the hell did you ask me?! Why don’t you just call and ask her instead, Joel? My answers are never good enough for you, and I’m not even certain what you want me to say or do. You said you wanted the truth, and all I can do is give you
my
truth, Joel! Your mother and I were two people in a relationship, a marriage, all right? Nobody knows completely what happened except for her and I, and some of that is our business, not yours.”

“All right, fair enough.” He took a long swig of beer from the bottle. “From your perspective then, Dad, just talk to me… tell me what happened, as much as you think I’m allowed to know.”

Dad kept quiet for so long, Joel started to think he’d walked away from the phone. “Joel,” the man finally said. “I wanted to have conversations; your mother didn’t want to talk much unless it was gossip. I’m not really into that.” He huffed. “I was using your mother to try and be the person I really
wanted
to be—a talker, a lover—but she wouldn’t let me. That’s just not what she wanted. Nothing was ever enough, though.
I
was never enough…”

In that moment, Joel’s breathing slowed to a crawl and the whole world appeared to come to a screeching halt around him as those final words slipped out of his father’s mouth. He felt a bit faint when pulsating hot flashes of buried shame unearthed between them. He wasn’t simply alone with his thoughts anymore; they were exposed in front of an audience… a one man audience, a biased audience, an audience he’d give his life for… an audience he loved so very much. That’s how he felt with his father, as if he was never enough for the man, but he kept quiet and let him continue.

“And then, just like that, in her final encore, the final scene of the act, she killed my trust. It happened when she turned around and told me she didn’t love me anymore over a glass of white wine, a Pinot Grigio, I believe, that I had picked out weeks prior. I even remember what we ate that night. Wild rice stuffed in the glory holes of a couple of baked Cornish hens. The plates were black and square, you know the ones, a catalog purchase. Anyway, she did it with a smirk on her face. I’ll never forget how at peace she was with destroying me, or at least, with
trying
to destroy me.”

“Is that the same night she admitted to having the affair?”

“Yup. She confessed to fucking my colleague, Travis Benning. He and I had worked at the paper together for over twenty years. Travis was a liar, a brown-nosing son of a bitch. No one liked him. I was underpaid, frustrated, but stickin’ it out, supporting her ass while that woman opened her legs and fucked my co-worker!” Dad’s voice boomed with surmounting rage.

He heard the familiar sounds of the man reaching for a cigarette, lighting it, and drawing hard on the thing. Many moments passed. How many? He wasn’t certain.

“Dad, I know you get tired of hearing this, but it doesn’t match Mom’s account of things. I’m not saying you’re lying, but she tells a different side of the story.”

“Put me on Face Time.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I want you to talk to me, man to man, look me in my damn eye.” On a swallow, Joel told him to hold on as he initiated a Face Time conversation. As soon as the screen popped up, he could see his father’s face… and in his eyes he noticed something he couldn’t quite describe, something that caused fear deep within his gut, and sympathy, too…