Ghost Hunter

by Paige Tyler

  As he carried her from the room, Cassidy caught sight of Martin’s charms lying on the floor and suddenly remembered what he’d said about one of them allowing him to control a whole host of reanimated corpses. When she’d ripped it off his neck, it must have severed the hold he had over them.

  Out in the hallway, she and Trace ran into more zombies. Cassidy automatically tensed, afraid the creatures would attack them, but they simply stared straight ahead as they stumbled toward the room where Martin was being savaged by their fellow walking dead. There were so many of the things that Trace had to stop and back up against the wall to give them room to pass. While they waited, he held her tightly against his chest, as if she was the most precious thing in the world to him. Cassidy squeezed him just as fiercely. She’d only met him a week again and yet he had become the most precious thing in the world to her, too.

  Down the hall, Martin’s screams for mercy finally stopped. As one, the zombies heading in that direction immediately halted. A moment later, they collapsed to the floor, unmoving.

  “Are they…?” She was going to say dead, but then realized they already were and looked like they had been for a long time.

  “Yeah,” Trace said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  She nodded in agreement, thinking he meant outside, but instead he stopped in the next room. Leaning back against the wall, Trace slowly slid down to the floor, cradling her to his chest. She looked around to see where they were and realized they were back in the cremation room. It smelled of burnt flesh, but thankfully, there was no sign of Del Vecchio or his ghost.

  Trace cupped her face in his hand. “Are you okay? Martin didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

  Cassidy shook her head. “No. You got there just in time.” She gently touched her fingers to the bruise on his jaw. “I was so worried Del Vecchio was going to kill you.”

  “I know, sweetheart.” Trace rested his forehead against hers. “But nothing could keep me away from you.”

  Cassidy wanted to ask Trace how he’d managed to fight both Del Vecchio and the serial killer’s ghost at the same time, but decided that could wait. Right then, the only thing that mattered was telling Trace how she felt about him. She opened her mouth to do just that, but he silenced her with a kiss that left her breathless. When he finally lifted his head, all she could do was cling to him.

  He tenderly brushed her hair back from her face. “When I saw you were missing, I almost lost my mind. I know we’ve barely known each other a week and that I probably shouldn’t be saying this yet, but I love you, Cassidy.”

  She blinked, stunned by the admission, her heart singing at the words. She wanted to tell him that she was in love with him, too, but she couldn’t seem to make her mouth move.

  Trace must have taken her silence the wrong way because he shook his head. “It was too soon, wasn’t it? I shouldn’t have…”

  Cassidy touched her fingers to his mouth, silencing him. “It isn’t too soon. I love you, too. I just didn’t know you felt the same.”

  “Well, I do love you. More than anything.” The corner of his mouth curved. “It took almost getting killed by a psychotic serial killer and his ghost to get me to admit it to myself.”

  Despite the horrific reminder of how close they’d both come to death just a few minutes ago, she laughed and kissed him, intending to take his breath away as he had done to her a moment ago. Unfortunately, she got interrupted by Muncie and Simpson. The two men had obviously figured out the zombies were no longer a threat and were shouting for her and Trace.

  “We’re in here,” Trace yelled.

  Abruptly remembering her torn T-shirt, Cassidy pulled her leather coat closer around her as Muncie and Simpson walked in the room. The cops looked as if they’d gone twelve rounds with a baseball bat. Besides getting scratched, bitten and gouged, they were both beat to hell. The two shotguns they carried looked even worse, and she wondered if they had used the weapons as clubs after they’d run out of shells.

  Muncie and Simpson looked warily around the cremation room as if they expected another horde of zombies to come running through the door at the far end at any second.

  “Don’t worry,” Trace said. “It’s over.”

  Simpson’s hand tightened on the shotgun. “You’re sure? They’re all…?”

  “Dead?” Trace supplied. “As dead as they ever were. The majority of them are lying on the floor on the other side of that door. The rest are in a room at far end of the hallway, along with the necromancer. He’s dead, too.”

  “You mean Martin?” Muncie asked. “You killed him?”

  The corner of Trace’s mouth edged up. “I’d like to take the credit, but in the end his own creations did him in.”

  Muncie lifted a brow. “Those zombie things killed him? Why the hell would they turn on him?”

  “I think I might know,” Cassidy said. She explained what Martin had told her about the charm giving him the power to control the zombies he raised, and about her ripping it off his neck. “It must have broken his hold over them when I yanked them off. Considering the way the zombies went after him, I guess they didn’t take kindly to what he’d done to them.”

  Muncie frowned. “That still doesn’t explain why those things are dead now.”

  “Actually, it does,” Trace said. “If the necromancer who calls up the zombies is killed, they go back to being as dead as they were before.”

  Simpson nodded, but didn’t look as if he understood. “What about the thing that showed up in the outer room? The thing that looked like Del Vecchio.”

  “That was Del Vecchio’s ghost,” Trace said. “Even though Martin was finally able to raise the serial killer’s earthly body, for some reason the ghost hung around, too. It disappeared when I shoved the body into one of the cremation ovens.”

  Both Muncie and Simpson paled a little more at that, but she noticed neither of them even tried to tell Trace he was full of it, not after what they’d seen that night.

  Trace looked at Cassidy. “Ready to go home, hon?”

  When she nodded, he stood up and gently pulled her to her feet. As he did, she saw him wince and put his free hand to his side.

  She frowned in concern. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded. “A few cracked ribs. I’ll be fine.”

  Cassidy stared at him with her mouth open. Trace had picked her up and carried her all the way in here from the other room with cracked ribs? The man was unbelievable, not to mention heroic and damn sexy as hell.

  “Wait a minute,” Muncie said. “You’re not going to leave, are you? We’ll need you here to help explain all of this.”

  Beside him, Simpson let out a snort. “Yeah, right. As if there’s any possible explanation for what we saw tonight.”

  Trace gave Muncie an apologetic look. “I have to go with Simpson on this one. You try telling the truth and they’re going to take away your badges and lock you up in a padded room for a long time. You can take my word on that.”

  Muncie opened his mouth as if he wanted to argue, but then closed it again. Finally, he nodded. “Okay, I see your point. But what are we going to do? We have to report this.”

  “You want my suggestion?” Trace asked. “Wipe down every doorknob and surface in here we might have touched, drag Martin out from under that pile of zombie carcasses in there and throw him up on the embalming table, then make those shotguns disappear. After that, go home, get cleaned up and change your clothes, then make a call to the brass. Tell them that after some good, old-fashioned detective work, you’ve tracked down an EMT who not only happens to have been a close associate of Del Vecchio, but also responded to each and every murder scene. Finish up with a tip from an anonymous source who claims Martin is a sicko and that he’s been trying to sell Del Vecchio’s body on the black market. Say you tracked him to a funeral home outside of Fairfield, then leave the rest to them. They’ll spend the next two weeks trying to make sense of all this, and when they can’t, they’ll quietly close the
file on the case and claim Martin was behind the copycat murders.”

  “But we’ll know he wasn’t,” Muncie protested. “It was Del Vecchio’s ghost.”

  “They’ll never know what we had to go through to stop him,” Simpson added.

  Trace looked at him. “No, they won’t know any of that. But we’ll know. What matters is that we stopped Del Vecchio and made the town of Stamford a safer place.”

  Simpson shook his head. “Is it always like this with the shit you deal with?”

  “Pretty much.” Trace put his arm around Cassidy and led her toward the set of double doors. He glanced at her as he pushed them open. “I could go for a pizza right now. How about you?”

  Cassidy smiled. She had a feeling she was going to be eating a lot of pizza from now on.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Even though it had been over a week since that night at the funeral home, sometimes Cassidy still found herself looking over her shoulder for Del Vecchio’s ghost. But then Trace would smile at her or give her hand a squeeze and she would know that thanks to him, neither the serial killer nor his ghost was ever going to hurt her again.

  She glanced up from her laptop to look at Trace. He was on the other end of the couch researching something on his own computer, completely unaware she was watching him. Her lips curved into a smile as his brow knit in concentration. He looked so damn sexy when he did that. Then again, he looked sexy all the time. It was one of the reasons she had said yes when he’d asked her to marry him. Of course, the other was that she was crazy in love with the man and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

  They’d been lying in bed the morning after their confrontation with Del Vecchio and the necromancer when Trace proposed. She had teasingly asked him if he wanted her to write a check for the ghost hunting work he had done or whether he’d prefer her to owe him a favor like his other clients. She figured he’d chuckle and tell her she didn’t owe him anything, but she was surprised when he said she owed him a huge favor for saving her life and he fully expected her to repay it. Then he added he intended to cash in it right then. Thinking he’d meant a sexual favor, she was more than ready to pay up. But once again, Trace had stunned her.

  “You can repay me by marrying me,” he said softly.

  “Marry you? Are you serious?”

  “More serious than I’ve ever been about anything,” he said. “I know we just met, and if you want to wait to give me your answer, that’s okay. My life can be crazy and dangerous, and because of it, I’ve always pushed people away, but I don’t want to do that to you, Cassidy. I love you and I want you to be my wife. I can’t promise you a fancy house or even a steady income, but I can promise that I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?”

  The words were so heartfelt, they’d brought tears to her eyes and she had known she not only found the man she wanted to spend forever with, but that she’d be willing to face any monster the deepest pits of hell could throw at them in order to be with him.

  Two days later, he’d bowled her over with the most beautiful engagement ring she had ever seen.

  “It’s absolutely gorgeous,” she’d said when he slipped it on her finger. “But how did you…?”

  He’d shrugged. “I did a job for a jeweler a while back. He owed me a favor.”

  She could only smile at that. Of course.

  Later that day, she’d called her parents to share the good news. She had given them a brief story—completely fabricated, of course—about how she’d been staying with a “friend” while the police had been investigating the copycat killings, adding that one thing had led to another and she and Trace had decided to get married. Her parents had been concerned it was a strange reaction to her near-death experience weeks earlier, but after talking to Trace on the phone, they realized she was serious about marrying him.

  Cassidy and Trace told Bella and Robert next. While Bella wasn’t surprised, Robert had been stunned to hear they were getting married. That didn’t shock Cassidy. The man was clueless about anything that didn’t involve numbers. The only person they hadn’t shared their news with yet was Wes, and that was only because Trace hadn’t been able to get his friend on the phone.

  Over the next few days, she and Trace had moved the rest of her things into the warehouse. The throw pillows, candles and other knickknacks had already gone a long way to making the place feel more homey. It still needed some work, though. However, she had gotten Trace to agree to a little paint, which was why there were swatches of color all over the place at the moment. She’d also been trying to get him to add a few windows in the place. He was more resistant to that idea, mainly because of security concerns, but she would wear him down eventually.

  Muncie and Simpson had also stopped by several times to keep them up on the investigation. So far it was going exactly as Trace said it would. Even though the people in charge had no way to explain what had gone on at the funeral home, there was enough evidence to link Martin to Del Vecchio, so the brass was more than ready to admit the EMT had been the serial killer’s partner in crime and anoint him as the copycat. Apparently, the fact that they couldn’t explain how he’d gotten into any of the places to commit the murders wasn’t very important to them. The killings had stopped and that was all that mattered.

  Even though she knew Trace disagreed, Cassidy thought that night at the funeral home had changed Muncie and Simpson. She got the feeling it wouldn’t be long before both men were offering to help Trace out at Paranormal Investigations Unlimited in their off-duty hours. When she’d mentioned it to Trace, he only scowled at the idea. He still didn’t think much of Simpson.

  That night had changed Cassidy, too. She’d realized there was no way she could ever go back to her old life as a guidance counselor after everything that happened and had announced she wanted to work with Trace full time. He’d tried to dissuade her, reminding her about the crappy pay and even crappier hours, but she’d stayed firm. To her surprise, Trace had relented without too much of a fight, so to convince him she was serious, she spent as much time as possible studying the books in his library and honing her weapon skills.

  Amidst all the wedding preparations, home renovations and ghost hunter training, Cassidy also called her friend Jennifer and let her know it was safe to return to the apartment. But only after she and Trace had cleaned it up a bit. While they were able to touch up the walls and repaint, the couch was a goner. Cassidy gave Jennifer a lame excuse about spilling something on it and promised her a new one. As soon as she and Trace did a job for a furniture salesman, of course. Until then, some bean bag chairs and throw cushions would have to do.

  On the other side of the couch, Trace swore under his breath, interrupting her musings. Cassidy looked up to see him getting to his feet.

  “I still can’t in touch with Wes.” He shoved his cell phone in the pocket of his jeans. “I’m going up there and check it out.”

  She frowned. “You mean we have to check it out. We’re a team, remember?”

  His jaw tightened. “It’s too dangerous, Cassidy. I don’t even know what I’m going to be up against.”

  “Which is all the more reason you need me to go with you.” She saved the file she was working on, then closed her laptop and stood. “Someone has to watch your back.”

  “Cassidy…”

  She walked over and silenced him with a kiss. “Haven’t you learned yet how determined I am when I want to do something? I’m going. End of story.”

  “More like stubborn,” he muttered, then let out a sigh. “Okay. Then you’d better go pack because we need to get up there as soon as possible.”

  “Give me thirty minutes.”

  It actually took Cassidy a little longer than that, and Trace was waiting impatiently for her in the living room when she came back out.

  “Where exactly are we going anyway?” she asked as she handed him the bag she’d packed.

  He slung it on his shoulder. “Clay Harbor, Maine. Wes went up t
here a couple weeks ago to help out another hunter and now I can’t reach him. I can’t get through to the local cops, either. Something is wrong. I can feel it.”

  “You have no idea what the other hunter was doing up there?”

  Trace shook his head. “None. Which means we need to be prepared for anything.”

  Cassidy’s mind whirled as she ran through all the different paranormal creatures she’d read about in Trace’s books. How did they fight something if they didn’t know what they were facing?

  “Did you make sure we have salt and hematite?” she asked as she followed him to the door. “How about sage bundles? Wooden stakes? Infrared strobe lights? Wolfsbane?”

  Trace’s mouth quirked. “You’re already starting to sound like a hunter. You can stop worrying, though. I keep the Hummer loaded with a variety of supplies. If we don’t have something, we’ll improvise when we get there.”

  When she nodded, he opened the door. She started to walk past him into the garage, then stopped. Spinning around, she gave him a quick kiss on the mouth.

  “Wait here. I have to grab one more thing.”

  “What are you getting now?” Trace asked as she ran into the kitchen. “I already told you we had everything.”

  Ignoring his question, Cassidy opened the fridge and pulled out a box of leftover pizza. She held it up with a grin. “Food. It’s a long drive up to Maine.”

  Trace chuckled. “Good point. Let’s go.”

  About the Author

  Paige Tyler is a full-time, multi-published, award-winning writer of erotic romance. She and her research assistant (otherwise known as her husband!) live on the beautiful Florida coast with their easygoing dog and their lazy, I-refuse-to-get-off-the-couch-for-anything-but-food cat. When not working on her latest book, Paige enjoys reading, jogging, doing Pilates, going to the beach, watching Pro football and vacationing with her husband at Disney. She loves writing about strong, sexy alpha males and the feisty, independent women who fall for them. From verbal foreplay to sexual heat, her wickedly hot stories of romance, adventure, passion and true love will bring a blush to your cheeks and leave you breathlessly panting for more!