by Medley, Lisa
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Epilogue
About the Author
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Haunt My Heart © 2015 Lisa Medley.
eISBN: 978-0-9908856-0-3
Cover and formatting by Sweet ‘N Spicy Designs
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America
Lisa Medley
http://www.lisa-medley.com
HAUNT MY HEART
Lisa Medley
Dedication
To Alexandra Chauran, professional psychic and fortune teller, for tirelessly answering my every question regarding hexes, curses and magic. Visit her at http://earthshod.com/
Chapter One
“Hurry up, Sarah. We’re going to miss the ghost!”
Sarah Knight rolled her eyes in the cold December darkness, but trotted after Ellie’s bouncing flashlight beam. Sarah’s heels crunched through the frozen topsoil as she crossed the lawn, and she worried about the damage being done to her only pair of sensible work shoes. Ellie had failed to mention this would be an outdoor excursion.
Ellie had been dragging her out on girls’ nights against her better judgment since they graduated from college. Last month, they’d gone to a mixed martial arts fight, complete with blood, screaming and more than one missing tooth. And that had been the spectators.
It was only in the car on the way over that Sarah had learned tonight’s adventure would be a ghost hunt. Ellie had a strange idea of fun.
Sarah and Ellie caught up to the tour group as the leader, a tall dark-haired man in his mid-forties, wrapped up his ghost-hunting protocol explanation. She’d missed the rules. Ellie wouldn’t care about missing that part. She hated following the rules, but Sarah was a little miffed. If she was going ghost hunting, she wanted to know exactly what the boundaries were.
“Great,” Sarah whispered. “We missed the rules.”
“At least we didn’t miss the ghost,” Ellie pointed out. “And they haven’t doled out the equipment yet.” Ellie’s mouth split into a mischievous smile, and she angled up closer to the group leader.
“Again, my name is Allen, if you have any questions during the tour. Since we have such a large group tonight, we’ll split into two teams. Carla will take this half.” Allen sliced an imaginary line through the group of twenty or so ghost-hunters. “And the rest of you will go with me.”
Relieved she and Ellie were on the same side of the line, Sarah snuggled up closer to her friend and surveyed the rest of their team. A middle-aged couple, a grandmotherly woman, and a group of ten sorority girls—exactly the type of girls she’d avoided in college—made up Team Allen. The girls sported matching Greek-lettered sweatshirts, scarves and mittens and tittered incessantly. Sarah was fairly sure their chance of seeing a ghost with this group was nil. Fine with her. Ellie was the one who went for the paranormal stuff.
“We’ll walk the path where the Lady in White has typically been spotted. Carla’s team will cover the grounds around the house,” Allen said. He nodded to Carla, and she gave him a little salute, then led her team around to the side of the building. Allen’s group stayed put in the doorway.
“First, I’ll need a couple of volunteers,” Allen announced.
Ellie’s hand shot up before Sarah could register what was happening. “We’ll do it.”
Classic Ellie, leaping before she looked. She didn’t even know what she was volunteering for. It could be anything. If Allen wanted virgins to sacrifice, however, he was out of luck.
Allen pulled two little handheld meter devices out of his messenger bag. His brows lowered a bit as he studied Ellie, cast his eyes around the group, then settled back to her. Ellie’s enthusiasm won out and Allen handed one device to her and the other to Sarah.
“This is the Anomaly Detector,” Allen said with all the reverence of presenting the sword Excalibur. “It measures EMP and temperature. If these lights change, it’s your job to let us know. I’ll be taking photos and interacting with the ghost, trying to draw her out. I can’t keep my eyes on all of the devices at once. Can you manage this?”
“Absolutely,” Ellie squealed.
Sarah resisted rolling her eyes again. She accepted the detector and did her best to reduce her scowl.
“It’s okay to be skeptical,” Allen said. “It makes it all the more exciting when we convert you to a believer.” His smile warmed and Sarah realized he was actually handsome. Old, but handsome. What an otherwise normal and attractive man—who was way old enough to know better—was doing leading a bunch of ghost hunters, she had no idea. People were strange. She supposed she’d have to include herself in that judgment, considering she now held a ghost detector.
“Let’s get started.” Allen took off down the trail along the terrace with an enthusiastic tail of college girls behind him. The middle-aged couple and the grandmotherly woman fell into step behind the girls. Ellie and Sarah followed.
A few feet down the trail, Allen stopped and addressed the darkness. “The spirit we seek tonight is known in the lore as a Lady in White, a common sort of spirit ghost found in many cultures. This particular lady, however, we know a bit about. Typically, our Lady has only been viewed once every seven years, on the anniversary of her death, which occurred on June 21, 1790. But a friend who works on the grounds called me and said she’d smelled lily of the valley twice this week while making her nightly rounds and saw a white cloud of smoke appear in absolute darkness as she walked to her car.”
“Nice,” Ellie said.
“For whatever reason, the ghost has been active. We were lucky to get permission to check things out. Park administrators usually only allow a hunt once a year on the anniversary. It’s become a real tourist draw for them.”
“How did she die?” Sorority Girl Number One asked.
Allen came to a stop and turned to address the group. “We don’t know for sure, but natural causes from all known accounts. It wasn’t her death that made her spirit restless. A lost love is the cause of that. On her de
athbed, she swore she’d search for her true love here on the Chatham Manor grounds until she found him again. She was an English woman who fell in love with an English man well beneath her social status. Her father sent her across the ocean to Chatham in the hopes of finding a more suitable match. But her lover followed her here, and they made plans to elope. They were foiled by George Washington, of all people. Our Lady returned to England and her lover was arrested. The two were never to meet again. She still searches for him.”
“What a great love story,” Sorority Girl Number Two said.
“Not really. It sort of sucks,” countered Sorority Girl Number Three. “She spent her life without her true love, and now her death too? What’s great about that?”
“It’s great for ghost hunting.” Allen smiled. “Ladies, let me power up those detectors, and let’s get to work.”
Allen fidgeted with the gadget and the lights flamed to life on Sarah’s device. The Anomaly Detector cycled through its setup. One green light remained steady after the flashing settled.
Allen pointed to the device. “It’s normal for one or even two green lights to fluctuate a bit, but if the yellow, and certainly if the red lights up, we may have something.”
“Have you tracked her before?” Sarah asked.
“Many times,” Allen answered.
“Any luck?” Sarah pressed.
“Nothing we could document empirically, but I’ve sensed a presence,” Allen said.
Sarah cut her eyes to Ellie, silently transmitting her growing sarcasm.
He sensed a presence?
What a bunch of hooey. It was going to be a long hour.
Allen led them down the darkening path, away from the ground’s lighting, and the rest of the team fell into a silent parade behind him. Even the sorority girls quieted down with only the pinprick beams from their flashlights to alleviate their fears. Everything seemed peachy in the light, but a chill ran down Sarah’s back, one that had nothing to do with the early December cold. She shivered, trying to fling off the odd feeling like a dog shakes off water. Her imagination was acting up. Nothing else.
Ellie walked a few feet ahead of Sarah with her head down. She looked determined, but seemingly oblivious to anything other than her ghost gadget.
“Departed spirit, we mean you no harm this evening. Will you show yourself to us? Will you visit us for a while?” Receiving no response, Allen tried again. “We know your story. We know how you search for your lover. Friends have smelled your flowers this week. What is it you are trying to communicate?”
Allen snapped photos left and right, then stopped when one of the girls laughed.
He gave her a sharp look. Sarah felt bad for him. At least she’d managed to keep her own sarcasm contained thus far. The other girls were clearly less reserved.
“Sorry,” the girl said.
Sarah looked down at her detector. “Um, what does this mean?” The lights held steady all the way to the red zone for several seconds. Long enough for Allen to get a good look at the readings.
“We know you are present,” Allen said. “Please show yourself. We mean you no harm.”
Ellie scooted in close to Sarah and frowned, shaking her own detector. “I wonder why mine didn’t go off.”
“Please don’t agitate the meter. It’s very sensitive,” Allen said.
“So you say. Why didn’t mine go off?” Ellie gave the detector another shake.
Allen continued to snap photos, turning in a circle. Snap. Snap. Snap.
Sarah didn’t see anything, but the college girls were getting restless, and when her meter lit red again, one of them screamed.
“What? Did you see her?” Allen asked, spinning a tight circle.
An icy breeze blew past them, creating a tiny dust devil of leaves. Sarah’s temperature light blinked in warning and registered a ten degree drop.
“Um.”
“I see it,” Allen said, watching her detector.
“Seriously. What is wrong with this thing?” Ellie slapped her meter against her leg hard enough to leave a bruise, checked its reading, and then repeated the meter abuse.
“I think I see something,” Sorority Girl One said, her face going even paler in the glow of her flashlight as she pointed at something behind Sarah.
“Where? I don’t see anything.” Ellie followed the girl’s beam, and Sarah tried to clear her own night vision after several more flashlights temporarily blinded her.
The Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” split the night and Sarah jumped. She searched her coat for her phone to silence it.
Allen glared at her. “Your phone is on?”
“Yes. Sorry.” Sarah hit decline and silenced it, stuffing it back into her pocket.
Allen’s shoulders dropped and he closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Is anyone else’s phone still on?”
“You told us to turn them off,” Sorority Girl Number Three offered in all her helpful glory.
“Yes. I did.” Allen reached for Sarah’s meter. “Every time your phone updates, gets a notification, searches for a signal, it sends out electronic pulses. This”—Allen held the meter inches from her face—“measures electromagnetic signals. Do you understand what that means?”
Sarah’s face grew hot, and she was thankful for the cold air. Now if only a hole would appear under her feet, all would be well.
“She didn’t know. You should have warned us,” Ellie said, coming to her rescue.
“I did. It was the first thing I told you all.” Allen shook his head. He held out his hand for Ellie’s meter, but she snatched it back in defiance.
“I don’t even have a phone, Ghostbuster dude. No rules violation here. I am still the Keymaster,” Ellie said, gripping the meter.
The middle-aged couple laughed and this time, Allen’s face grew red. Sarah had no idea what Ellie was talking about. She’d already managed to make herself as invisible as possible and tried to fade to the back of the line.
Allen relented, hanging his head, eyes closing briefly as he steeled his patience, most likely deciding any further disturbance of his ghost hunt wasn’t worth it. He handed Sarah’s detector to the grandma. “Before we continue, does anyone else have any devices still powered on? Of any kind? Phone? iPod? He gave Grandma a second look. “Pacemakers?”
Grandma shook her head no, and no one else fessed up to any rule violations. Embarrassed, Sarah wanted to leave. But by the way Ellie coveted her Anomaly Detector like it was the One Ring, she knew there would be no bailing. She’d have to ride this night out to its bitter end.
Allen gave Sarah one more disappointed look and turned around, shaking his head and heading back down the trail. Sarah waited as the other team members, still huddled around her, dispersed and followed Grandma and Allen.
“Don’t worry about him,” Ellie said, not taking her eyes off her meter. “He should have told you about the phone thing.”
Sarah opened her mouth to argue several points—that if they hadn’t been late in the first place, hadn’t missed the rules talk at the beginning, if Ellie hadn’t volunteered them, it wouldn’t have mattered. No use arguing the obvious with Ellie when she was in the zone, however. Instead, she resigned herself and tagged after Ellie like the sidekick she was.
Had always been.
Only fifty more minutes of humiliation, and another girls’ night would be history. She couldn’t wait.
Chapter Two
Ellie opened the driver’s side door, and Sarah waited for her to crawl across the seat of the old Mustang and pop the passenger-side lock. The broken power locks were one of many deficiencies in the classic car. Sarah retrieved her betraying phone from her pocket and powered it up as Ellie shuffled about inside the car.
As she checked her phone display, a glint of light on the ground to her right caught her eye. Aiming her screen at the ground like a flashlight, she bent low and searched for the source of the flash. Just as she began investigating, though, she heard the lock pop, and Ellie pu
shed the door open. The door hit Sarah in the head, knocking her to the cold, hard ground.
“Sorry,” Ellie said, scrambling to catch the door before it slammed closed again.
Sarah mumbled a few choice obscenities and rubbed her head. She reached down and ran her finger over something half-buried in the ground.
“What is that?” Ellie was hanging out the car, her body stretched across the seats.
“I don’t know.” Sarah turned the flashlight of her phone up to full beam and picked at the object in the frozen turf. “Do you have a pen or something?”
Ellie scuffled around inside the dark, rolling landfill that was her car—the interior lights long burned out—and produced a screwdriver instead. “Will this work?”
Sarah took the offered screwdriver and dug at the buried treasure. After breaking it free from its cold grave, she examined it by the light of her cell phone. “It’s a ring.”
“Let me see.”
Ellie scrambled back into the driver’s seat. Sarah joined her in the car, then shut the door against the cold.
“Hold the light,” Sarah said, digging a Kleenex from her coat pocket to clear as much of the mud from the ring as possible.
The ring remained caked with mud, which filled the engraved edges, but the stone cleaned off easily enough. The set, a square cut black onyx, glinted. The cold metal of the band warmed in her hand.
“You know what that is, right?” Ellie asked.
“A ring?” Sarah couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice, not after the night she’d had.