This used to be his house, his room. These were his drawers. And knowing him, he would never appreciate how messy I was with his things. I couldn’t be sure it was him, but it sure would explain what was going on in the house.
Come to think of it, I’d seen a few things that I’d discounted as mere coincidences. Like how the candle collection was neatly arranged now. And how all the glasses were facing in the same direction. It was freaky and a little scary, but it was also comforting in a strange sort of way. It wasn’t like Uncle Derek had been very comforting in life.
“Uncle Derek? If you can hear me, I have one request. Stay out of my underwear drawer. That’s just weird.” I didn’t hear anything and didn’t expect to. We rarely communicated except in strange ways, much like when he was still alive. We were never close, but I was grateful for the vast inheritance he left me. I grabbed my phone charger and a few items out of my bathroom and then left the room behind. I closed the door behind me, waited again and heard nothing. Perhaps we had come to an understanding. I hoped so.
“Domino? This is your last chance to love on Momma.” My cat was hardly as lovable as sweet baby Emily, but he was the closest thing to a baby I had. I deposited my bags on the kitchen table and went to fill his bowl and water fountain. “I should’ve known this was where I would find you.” I took care of his needs, including cleaning out his messy litter box, hauled the garbage can to the end of the road and went back inside to spend just a few more minutes with my kitten.
Now that he had his belly full and his private restroom was tidy, he loved on me again. I kissed the top of his head, rubbed on him and played with him, but as I told him, I couldn’t stay here all day. It was almost nine o’clock. Time to get to work.
This would be my first day as the substitute office manager of Gulf Coast Paranormal. I was determined to make it a good one. I didn’t dress as spiffy as Sierra would, but I thought I looked professional in my green shirt, black slacks and black boots. Midas had told me more than once that this green shirt suited me, and after last night’s weirdness, I decided that I should probably try to make it up to him. Why was I being so judgmental about his female friend coming to town? Midas would never be unfaithful. That’s just not how he rolled.
I grabbed my bag and purse and headed to the back door. I smiled down at my cat, who stared up at me with his big blue eyes.
“You’re in charge, Domino. Keep the place safe. See you tomorrow.” Then I said, “Bye, Uncle Derek,” and closed the door behind me.
Chapter Seven—Cassidy
To my surprise, I was not the first person to arrive at the Gulf Coast Paranormal office. Midas was already there, along with his friend, and he was brewing a pot of coffee. “Am I late?” I smiled as I waved at Midas’ friend.
“Nope. We’re early. Can you believe Jocelyn’s plane came in ahead of schedule?”
I plunked my purse on the conference table. “That is hard to believe.”
Midas hugged me sweetly. “Cassidy, this is Jocelyn. She is the photographer I was telling you about.”
Jocelyn was about an inch taller than me and much tanner. She had a bohemian appearance. I liked her style; she had dark blond dreadlocks that totally suited her, bright blue eyes and a friendly smile. She stretched her hand out to me, and I shook it.
“I’m so happy to meet you, Cassidy. I’ve heard a lot about you, and I think this guy is pretty crazy about you.”
“That’s good to hear. Did he tell you that I’m horrible at singing and I can’t cook toast?”
She nudged him and said, “Remind me to tell you about the time he decided to try parasailing.”
“What?” I laughed and looked at Midas, who was avoiding eye contact.
“Not a funny story, Jocelyn. Who wants coffee?”
Jocelyn accepted a cup and immediately began spinning sugar into it. “Okay, guys, give me the tour. Boy, this place is much larger than the old Gulf Coast space. Can you believe we were in the basement?”
“Yeah, I’m flat-out proud of this place, but it seems we’ve already outgrown it.”
I shrugged and said, “I don’t know. I think it’s pretty comfortable, and we don’t spend a whole lot of time here unless we’re reviewing audio and video. I hope you aren’t talking about moving the place, Midas.”
“Not anytime soon. Shoot, there goes my phone again. Would you mind giving Jocelyn the tour of the place? I have to call Nina back. Not sure what’s going on with her.”
“Sure. But it’s not that big of a place. Come with me, Jocelyn. This is actually Sierra’s office. Since she’s off for maternity leave, I’m filling in for her,” I whispered, feeling a little uncertain about my management skills.
I opened the door to Sierra’s office, and Jocelyn said, “I’m sure you’ll do great. Ooh, I like this setup. It’s always convenient to have two monitors. I don’t care what you’re doing.” We walked back out into the hallway, and I led her to Midas’ office, which was considerably larger than Sierra’s. Mostly because he had rows of filing cabinets and boxes of evidence that needed to be filed away. “I guess I know what I’ll be doing for the next few days,” she said with a playful snarl. “He’s worse at organizing than Sara. Whoops. Sorry.”
I shrugged, surprised at her nervousness at mentioning his ex’s name. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not one of these girlfriends who needs to completely obliterate the old girlfriend’s memory. Did Midas say that I was?”
She sputtered her lips. “No. But I know what it’s like to be the new girlfriend—and the old one. Did he tell you that I used to date Pete?”
“To be honest with you, and I don’t mean this to sound rude, but I didn’t even know about you until last night. You know how he is. Midas is not one to share details about his past unless you ask him something specific.”
Jocelyn smiled and showed white teeth. “Oh, I’m not offended, and I agree with you. Midas Demopolis is a keep-it-close-to-the-vest kind of guy. Hey, would you mind if I took some pictures of the place while we walked around? I’d like to get a feel for it.” I didn’t see any harm in it and agreed. She raced back to the conference room, grabbed her camera and joined me in the hallway. There were only two other rooms back here, and through the conference room was the storage room where we kept all the equipment for our investigations. We walked through the conference room, and I pointed out different things as she took pictures.
“That is that, not much to see. I can hear Midas outside…he must still be on the phone.”
Jocelyn tilted her head and examined me thoughtfully. “Would you mind if I took your picture?”
Why did that question always make me feel uncomfortable? For some reason, whenever I was asked if I would let someone take a picture of me, it made me instantly feel strange. Should I pose? Should I smile? Naturally, I agreed. I mean, I thought I looked okay. Without waiting for me to ask what I needed to do, Jocelyn immediately began snapping photos of me. I could hear her camera going off at least a dozen times.
“That’s a lot of pictures. I probably have my eyes closed in half of them.”
Jocelyn put the camera down. “Is that something you do frequently? Close your eyes during pictures?” She paused and watched me carefully.
“Well, yeah. Actually, I’m kind of notorious for taking bad pictures. I’ve always got my eyes half-closed or something unflattering like that.”
“You know, they say that sensitive people do that. Close their eyes, I mean.”
I grabbed my purse off the conference table as she reached for her camera. I walked toward Sierra’s office, and Jocelyn followed me. “You mean light-sensitive?”
“No, that’s not what I mean, Cassidy. I mean sensitive-sensitive. People who sense spirits. They close their eyes when their picture is taken.”
I shook my head, not because I didn’t believe her but because I had never heard that before. “Why does that happen, I wonder?”
She shrugged and said, “Because you are bonded with the spirit world, and
that’s the spirit world’s response to cameras and all the rest of our equipment. They really don’t want to be messed with. They mostly just want to do what they do. And I know for a fact that ghosts don’t like you taking their pictures.”
“How would you know that?” I asked with a smile, wondering where this conversation was going.
She shook her head and sighed. “He really hasn’t told you anything about me, has he?” She eyeballed Midas, who was still outside the front door pacing up and down the sidewalk, his cell phone at his ear and concern all over his handsome face.
“No. What am I missing?”
“I think it’s better if I just show you.”
Jocelyn stood beside me and tapped the button on her camera that pulled up her library of photos, then looked for a particular folder. She tapped again, and immediately a collection of strange photos began to slide across the screen.
“What in the world? Are those…”
“Yes. Those are ghosts. I’m like you, Cassidy, only I don’t paint ghosts. I take pictures of them.”
“Every time?”
“No. About one in every five hundred photos, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. And for the record, I close my eyes when people take my picture too.” She continued to flip through, and I was amazed at picture after picture. She tapped the screen again and came to a folder that had my picture on the front of it. This was the grouping of pictures she had just taken, and I winced. I hated seeing my photos. As we flipped through, I didn’t expect to see anything. I don’t think she did either.
But five pictures in, what I saw took my breath away.
Chapter Eight—Midas
If I’d had any questions about whether Pete still held out hope to reconnect with Jocelyn, I didn’t anymore. It was clear that he still had feelings for her, but she hardly even noticed he was there. And it wasn’t a put-on. Jocelyn wasn’t the kind of girl who played games. She really had moved on. I felt a little bad for Pete; sure, he’d hooked up with my girlfriend after Jocelyn left him, but I didn’t have any hard feelings. Not anymore. If Sara and I had stayed together, I would not have met Cassidy. Or at the very least we would not be romantically involved. But we were, and I was grateful for that. In some weird sort of way, I could say that Pete kind of brought Cassidy and me together. Unfortunately for him, Jocelyn wasn’t feeling it. I never understood why she left Mobile like she did or why they broke up, but I didn’t need to know.
“Since Jocelyn and Cassidy have already met, let me introduce Aaron. He’s the newest member of our team, but he has a lot of experience; as a matter of fact, he used to work with Phil.”
“Cool. Phil is a great guy to work with and to learn from.” With a big bright smile, Jocelyn shook Aaron’s hand.
“And Cassidy found you a GCP shirt if you’d like one, Jocelyn. We have to load the van up, guys, and head out before it gets dark. We’ve got trail cams to set up and woods to explore. And our client, Nina, was nice enough to stock the refrigerator for us. If there is nothing else, let’s go.”
We packed the van and locked up, leaving Mobile behind for the woods of George County. It was only an hour’s drive, and to be honest there wasn’t much to see between here and there. Jocelyn regaled us with stories of her experience at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and how she nearly fell to her death when a Shadow Person blew through her. Pete attempted to engage her in personal conversation, but she wasn’t going there.
She asked, “About the client, this is your grandmother, Aaron?”
“That’s right.”
“Is the lodge open to the public?”
“No. Only club members can come to the lodge, and even they have to visit on a schedule. There hasn’t been anyone up there in months except for Dale, Les and Bobby. And I guess you heard Dale is missing.”
Jocelyn patted his shoulder sympathetically. “I did. I’m sorry to hear that. Hopefully, we can find some answers for you all.”
Cassidy sat in the front seat next to me and briefed the group on some of the history of the cabin. She mentioned the disappearance of the original owner, Tobias Arthur, and talked about the recent evidence that there might be a creature lurking around the woods off Crenshaw.
Pete commented under his breath that we were ghost hunters, not monster hunters, but nobody responded. Thankfully, he didn’t repeat himself.
Cassidy came back with, “Josh is going to hate that he missed out on this Bigfoot hunt. That’s what we’re all thinking, right? That this might be Bigfoot?”
“Anything is possible. We all know how much Josh hates wild animals. And spiders and any kind of bug.” Everyone chuckled at my comment. It wasn’t a dig at Josh, just the truth. He was my right-hand guy and an awesome investigator, but he had a strong abhorrence to the creepy crawlies of the world. I guessed Bigfoot would be considered one of them. The drive went by faster because we were all chatting, and pretty soon we were turning up Highway 98 and then off of Route 63 and then onto Crenshaw Road. It was about noontime, and it was quite a warm day. Thankfully, the road was paved although the driveway definitely was not. It was a few miles away from Crenshaw, but that was the closest road to the lodge.
“Dang! Could you try to miss at least one of those potholes?” Jocelyn joked as she hit the side of the van.
“Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” Pete said flirtatiously.
“I’d rather be dumped in one of those potholes.” I don’t know what he expected, but he certainly didn’t expect her to say that. The van got quiet, which was probably a good thing, and Cassidy’s eyes were wide.
“Here we are, y’all, Crenshaw Lodge. Let’s unload, get our stuff inside and then start putting out trail cams. We’ve got a lot to do and only five hours to do it.”
The team didn’t waste any time getting everything together. It only took three trips to gather all the equipment and bring it into the house. We just piled everything in the middle of the living room floor and waited to hear what Aaron had to tell us. His grandmother had promised that he would show us where everything was, where all the activity happened. That information would come in handy for setting up.
“As you can see, there’s only one floor here. There is a crawl space above, where we store some decorations; other than that, there isn’t much else. As my grandmother told you the other night, Midas, this is not the location of the original home place. That is about a half an acre to the west. But for some reason, the activity is centered in this big front room. There are four bedrooms here. Two baths, one on each side of the house. You can see the kitchen. Not much happens in there, though.”
Cassidy had her notebook flipped open and asked, “What kind of activity is happening in the living room, Aaron?”
“The usual stuff. Moving furniture, strange shadows. But honestly, the most disturbing activities are outside the house.”
Pete asked quietly, “Like what? Whoops and tree knocks?”
“More like screams. Some of the lodgers hear a woman screaming but when they go outside to check there’s no one there. There are loud bangs and smacks against the side of the house, usually late at night or early in the morning. There have been tree knocks and scratch marks found on the exterior of the house and the barn and even a vehicle. And I guess the strangest of all is the disappearance of Dale Albright. Besides him, the only other person who’s disappeared in this area that we know about has been my ancestor, Tobias Arthur. He was Nina’s great-grandfather, and he was Irish. His wife, Eliza, was Choctaw. Our elders say that there have been creatures in these woods for hundreds of years before even they were here.”
“Creatures?” Jocelyn asked curiously as she snapped photos of us all and the rustic room we were in. “What kind of creatures? You mean Bigfoot, right?”
“Not necessarily. That’s one of the creatures that’s been seen, but there are others too. There is another being, another monster that is much deadlier than Bigfoot and not something you want to encounter. They call it the Dogman.”
Cassidy scribbled in her notebook and then paused. “I’ve heard of the Dogman, and you’re right, it’s nothing to play around with. So, has anyone actually seen the Dogman here?”
Aaron looked unsure. “The elders say yes, and their stories are enough to make a believer out of me, but my people don’t talk about this stuff out loud.”
“What do we do about the Dogman?” Pete asked the group. “How do we get rid of it?”
Aaron said, “I don’t know that we can, but I’d like to try. Dale is out there somewhere. I want us to find him.”
The air felt heavy but not with any paranormal presence. The weight of our responsibility here weighed on me. It weighed on us all. I stood up and said, “Why don’t we get that stuff sorted? Take your bags to your rooms. Everyone pick a room; I will crash on the couch. Not that I think we’ll get much sleep tonight. There is a lot of investigation time ahead of us. After you put your stuff away, Pete, let’s load those trail cams with fresh batteries and head out. Aaron, Jocelyn and Cassidy, why don’t you guys do a sweep of the area? Take your EMF detectors and your digital recorders and see if you can find a spot to get a good EVP session up at the original home place. If Tobias is still there, maybe we can connect with him. But be careful. Be observant. And everyone stays in touch. No going rogue, Cassidy.”
She smiled and kissed my cheek but didn’t make any promises. Jocelyn’s blond eyebrows lifted. Yeah, she wasn’t used to public displays of affection from me. But that was a rule Cassidy and I broke a long time ago.
I was glad we did.
Chapter Nine—Cassidy
Jocelyn brushed a branch away from her face. “I can’t believe how dense it is out here. Look at all these pines.”
I swatted at invisible bugs. “I should’ve worn mosquito spray because I know they’re going to eat me up one side and down the other,” I joked as we stepped over a pile of felled trees.
Jocelyn stopped suddenly and squatted down to take a picture of the trees. “Does this look unusual to you guys? I’m not familiar with the area, but I’d say this might be some kind of structure.”
Spooked on the Gulf Coast (Gulf Coast Paranormal Trilogy Book 3) Page 24