The Traveler: Book 5, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (21 page)

Schubert’s office was small but well-furnished. There was a short hallway from the front desk to the back, where there was an open floor area, one conference room, two offices, and a break room. Two women and one man sat at desks in the open floor area, working away in front of computers. They didn’t give Dan a second thought but openly watched him.

Eddie had his K2 meter out. Ghost hunting was an esoteric, niche pursuit, so he didn’t expect any of them to know what he was doing.

Eddie kept his distance from the employees so as not to invite questions or comments. He walked the perimeter of the space and swept the K2 back and forth slowly. He didn’t get any hits.

There was an old wooden table, a small fridge, a microwave, and an empty bookshelf in the break room. No hits.

The conference room was cold, which could mean something. But the K2 didn’t light up.

“Is there anyone here?” he said.

In the doorway, Dan rolled his eyes.

Eddie said, “Come on. You’ll be able to use this experience as an anecdote at the bar.”

Dan looked away.

Eddie ignored him and hovered in the conference room longer than he had on the floor, hoping to get a hit. But there was nothing.

Eddie made a left out of the conference room. On this path he would pass near the two offices. The first office door was open and a fortyish woman in an expensive suit sat behind an expensive, spotless desk.

He knew her name from the plate hanging on the door: Gabriella.

She looked up at him. “What are you doing?”

He knew to keep it vague. “Just taking some readings.”

“Of what?” Gabriella took her hand off her mouse and gave him her full attention.

“The air,” he said. “I’m from the gas company.”

He hoped that would be enough.

“Is there a problem?” she said, worry in her voice.

He smiled. “None at all, I’m happy to report.”

“Then why are you here?”

He gave her the story about someone reporting a smell earlier. This seemed to ease her mind a bit. All the while he had his K2 out.

Still no hits.

“Sorry to bother you,” he said.

She didn’t respond and turned back to her computer.

The last office was Mark’s. The door was closed. Ideally, Eddie should have gone inside to get the cleanest reading.

He pointed the K2 at Mark’s door and waited.

Nothing.

He could hear a man talking inside the office, though he couldn’t make out what was being said.

He kept the K2 aimed at Mark’s door. Waited.

“What gas are you measuring?”

Eddie looked over his shoulder and saw Gabriella poking her head out of the office.

Eddie kept his eyes on the K2, not wanting to miss anything in case he got a hit.

“Different ones,” Eddie said.

He heard Dan shift nervously behind him. He willed the man to be still and not give anything away.

Eddie didn’t turn to face her, hoping she’d take the hint and leave him alone. But he could feel her eyes digging into his back.

“What kind of gas did you think leaked?”

He had no answer for that. He held the K2 out.

“From the complaint, we couldn’t tell,” he said. “That’s why I came out.”

She was ten seconds from calling bullshit on him. He knew it. So he decided to count to three.

One.

Two.

The K2 jumped. All lights blinked for a moment, then turned off.

Three.

“What was that?” she said. “Did you find something?”

Inside the office, Mark stopped talking. Time to go.

Eddie turned to Gabriella and shook his head. “Just a soft spike, nothing to worry about. Everything is fine.”

She eyed him suspiciously. He just kept smiling and walked past her. “It was nothing. Sorry to have bothered you.”

As he reached the hallway, he heard Mark’s door open. He didn’t look back.

***

“What does it mean?” Christie said.

“One spike on a K2 doesn’t mean anything normally. It could have been interference from all the electricity and magnetic fields in the place.”

“As always, you give me a straight answer.”

She had meant it jokingly, but still the words bothered Eddie. “Look, Christie, I mean it when I say I constantly work in a grey area.”

“So how do we get out of the grey areas?”

Eddie took a deep breath. “When I go dark at a house, I spend all night there to get a series of readings. That’s what we need to do with Mark and the rest of the Schuberts.”

“Okay, take it easy. Stan will be here soon and Daria will help us.”

“I’m fine.”

“I know you are.”

“Then why’d you say take it easy?”

She looked over at him. “It’s just an expression, I didn’t mean anything.”

But Eddie wondered if she had. She’d seen him at his worst and had pulled him out of one of his night terrors and then he had opened up to her. She knew he was struggling.

“Christie, I’m okay.”

“Eddie, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Okay.”

They went back to watching the building. Christie said, “It would be easier if we weren’t worried about them knowing what we were doing.”

Eddie agreed. “Right, but if they know, the ghost can dissipate and then we’ll have nothing.”

“Dissipate?”

Eddie had told her everything he could think of about ghosts and was surprised to discover he hadn’t explained dissipation, one of the most basic concepts of ghost hunting. It was true what they said. Just because you knew something well didn’t mean you could explain it to others.

“Disappear basically. Not show up on a thermal reading, or a K2, or an EMF meter.”

“They can do that?”

Eddie nodded. “You didn’t think this would be easy, did you?”

“Didn’t you say it was, earlier today?”

***

Stan slotted his Mercedes SUV five spaces away in the rear of the lot.

Eddie jumped out of Christie’s cruiser and met his friend halfway. They shook hands.

“Good to see you, bro,” Eddie said.

“Likewise,” Stan said.

They slapped each other on the back and then Eddie did introductions. Daria Snow had arrived twenty minutes earlier and since then she’d been sharing all her findings from Fellov’s house. She’d counted no less than thirty-two entities in and around the Fellov residence, which she thought probably broke some kind of paranormal record. Eddie smiled and nodded and kept his opinions of her findings to himself.

“Detective, this is my best friend and one of the best ghost hunters in the world,” Eddie said. “He’s tough as nails, but just don’t make any short jokes around him.”

“I’m out of the car for less than a minute and you already go there?” Stan laughed. “That’s weak, dude.”

Stan was five-four. On a good day.

Christie flashed that pretty, but professional smile and shook his hand. “As an Asian, I would never make a short joke.”

Everybody laughed, except Daria. Eddie couldn’t tell if she didn’t get the joke or hadn’t been paying attention.

“And this is Daria Snow.” Eddie gave Stan the look. “She’s the one I told you about and heads up the Mid-Atlantic Ghost Hunters Society.”

“Daria, so good to see you again.” Stan smiled and went in for the hug.

“Hold on. How do you two know each other?” Eddie asked.

Daria said, “Oh-my-God, we met at a conference last year, and Stan was good enough to donate some older equipment to the MAGHS.”

“It wasn’t a ghost box, by any chance?” Eddie asked.

Daria didn’t answer. She was too distracted by something else. “Stan, you never mentioned you were friends with Eddie McCloskey.”

“There’s a good reason for that.”

Everybody laughed. Even Daria this time.

“No Moira?” Eddie asked.

Stan laughed. “We couldn’t get a sitter.”

“Translation: she hates me.”

Stan shrugged. “
Hate
is a strong word.”

Eddie smiled. That was okay. He had burned her ten years ago and had been a poor friend to her husband ever since. She had every reason to. He just needed to make it up to them.

“What’s the game plan?” Stan said.

“Come on,” Eddie said.

Christie had called in an unmarked police van that could serve as a mobile conference area. She waved at the driver and they jumped into the back.

Eddie was the last to get in and closed the door.

Eddie and Christie brought Daria and Stan up to speed on their investigation and their current theory of the case. Daria listened intently, eyes wider than saucers, while Stan took it all in, nodding occasionally. Though the ghost was dangerous, he was glad he’d called Stan. Stan was sharp, not afraid to work hard, and not afraid to challenge Eddie. With this complex a case, Eddie wanted dissenting opinions to help keep things on track. He liked Daria and she was more than willing to help, but he also knew she’d agree with everything he said. As nice as that was, he knew he had blind spots and Stan was good at pointing them out.

When Eddie and Christie were finished, Daria and Stan shared a look. Daria appeared completely bewildered, despite the fact she’d been partly looped in to the investigation already.

Stan said, “Let me make sure I understand. You believe there is a ghost killing people through psychic attacks that cause overwhelming fear and anxiety, to the point where massive amounts of adrenaline result in cardiac arrest. You also believe this ghost is a traveler, in other words requires a live human being to move from scene-to-scene so it has the opportunity to kill. Last, you believe the ghost is Tonya Schubert who is connected to two of the victims, Stahl and O’Donnell, but so far you don’t see any connection between her and the third victim, Fellov, or any connection with the other three people she might have haunted.”

“Correct,” Eddie said.

Stan nodded. “Have you tried turning this thing on its head?”

Christie and Eddie both said, “How?”

“You have the ghost and the man, working together. You’ve been assuming the ghost is the one picking the victims. But what if it’s the man?”

Eddie looked at Christie. He felt like they’d talked about that as a possibility, but they’d been moving so fast the last few days and there were so many angles, he couldn’t be sure.

Stan continued. “Or perhaps some of the victims are connected to the ghost and some to the man.”

Christie nodded. “You’re saying they’re helping each other do their dirty work?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

Eddie thought about it. It was a good alternative theory and had the potential to tie the victims together. He liked it because it removed the randomness of events that had plagued them so far.

Christie got her phone out and dialed. “Harney, we need to take a look at the Schubert family, not just Tonya. See if they have any connections to the victims and also Felicity, Alicia, and Engel.”

She spent a few minutes explaining why. Eddie couldn’t hear Harney’s responses but assumed he was challenging her, point-by-point. After she hung up, Eddie rolled out the game plan.

“We need to get readings around the three Schubert brothers. But we need to do it discreetly,” Eddie said.

Daria asked, “Why?”

He couldn’t believe he didn’t think of this before. He’d been lucky inside Mark Schubert’s office because Mark hadn’t seen him. Though the man’s co-workers were probably describing what Eddie had been doing.

Eddie said, “The person helping the ghost has probably developed an interest in the paranormal. There’s a chance they know how ghost hunters operate. They might even recognize our equipment. So we need to keep our distance but get in close enough for reliable readings.”

“We could sticker them,” Stan said. “It’s the same as bugging.”

Eddie knew what bugging was, but not what it had to do with ghost hunting. “What do you mean?”

“It’s new tech,” Stan said.

“Of course you have new tech,” Eddie said.

Stan shrugged. “They’ve developed K2 meters that are like bugs.”

“Why would they make something like that?” Eddie was incredulous.

“For when you’re walking into a paranormal hot spot that might be dangerous. The bugs feed their readings directly back to a computer through a secure connection. That way, it’s all digital and you always have it. You don’t have to go back to watch video to spot spikes.” Stan went on to explain some case in South America where the investigators had done just that. They had feared they might pass out or become non-communicative.

Eddie looked at Christie. “Do you need a warrant for something like that?”