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CHAPTER ONE
Dave Bower shifted position and tipped his head side to side to stretch his neck muscles. He was getting really tired of driving. At six foot three, he didn’t fit very well into any car for long, no matter how far back he moved the seat. And the road they’d been following through Pennsylvania had looked the same for the last hundred miles: two-lane patched blacktop flanked on both sides by woods.
His companion Oliver Berridge had been quiet the majority of the trip. With his head bent over his phone, sandy red hair in slight disarray from where he’d run his hands through it, and his round wire frame glasses halfway down his nose, he’d assumed his usual position. Dave had become used to the silence from the other side of the car in the last couple of years.
Oliver was, above all else, a determined and extremely curious man. Since they’d met the night of the werewolf invasion in Parson’s Hollow, Dave’s childhood home and the small Pennsylvania town where Dave’s older brother, Cody, still lived with his husband, Demetrius, Dave had known Oliver was different from anyone else he’d dated. Hell, anyone else he’d met. Dave had dated women and men, but meeting Oliver that night had sent a zing of attraction through him he’d never experienced.
Oliver had once been a reporter for The Herald, Parson’s Hollow’s biweekly newspaper, a role Dave had come to realize Oliver was more or less born to assume, with a naturally inquisitive nature and tenacity to get to the truth of a situation. Oliver had already left The Herald the night they’d met, and was trying to create an online presence that stood out from everyone else in the paranormal blog world with a site called Spooky or Simply Strange? After the werewolves, he’d found a bit of success.
But one terrifying night only lasted so long in the internet attention span, when the next horrifying scene was simply a click away. The bump in popularity had, however, allowed Oliver to find four generous sponsors to fund his site and give him a bit of an income. But once site visits dropped, so did banner clicks. These days his site was supported by one final and faithful sponsor: Beauchamp Sanandreu, owner of Beauchamp’s Bar-be-que Sauces. And while Beauchamp was faithful, he was also a businessman, and he’d recently made it clear to Oliver he needed to see increased visits and clicks to be able to keep supporting him.
That had led to a few late nights with Oliver hunched over his laptop, expression tight as he searched for a story he could research. The glow from the screen had bleached the color and character from his face, giving him a cadaverous look Dave hadn’t liked. He did understand, however, that Oliver was trying to build a presence, trying to find a place online and in certain circles to make his mark. Dave had left him be, though he couldn’t resist taking him cups of his favorite tea and setting plates with sandwiches and chips beside him, which Oliver quietly and gratefully devoured.
One day Dave had come home from his job as a data analyst for a mid-sized steel supplier and found Oliver waiting for him in the living room. The laptop had been set aside, and there’d been a feverish sheen in his eyes and a half-smile of nervous excitement curling his lips. He’d discovered an urban legend about a motel right there in Pennsylvania with a haunted history, and he wanted, needed, to go and check it out. Dave had been so happy to see Oliver alert and aware of the world around him once again he’d immediately agreed to go along and provide whatever support he could. He’d honestly looked forward to it; he’d never been on an actual ghost hunt before.
Now, however, after almost four hours in the car, he was beginning to regret his decision. Not the company, never that, but definitely the distance from home. He shifted positions again and sighed. At this point, he didn’t care how many ghosts might be lurking around their destination. He just wished they’d get there already.
“Just five more miles up the road,” Oliver said, looking up with a smile. “I know you’re tired, but I appreciate you driving the whole way here. It gave me time to do more research on this place.”
“Yeah, about that. The conversation’s been lacking, so I hope you’ve at least uncovered some juicy details.”
Oliver reached over and squeezed Dave’s thigh, but his eyes were on his phone. Still, a little tingle zipped through him at Oliver’s touch. He really had it bad for this guy.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Oliver said, still not looking up. “I got wrapped up in my research. But I did learn a few important details for my story.”
“I’m surprised you chose a ghost story to investigate,” Dave said. “It’s a bit different for your blog, isn’t it? You usually write about the urban legend monsters or creatures, like that Ozark Howler you convinced my brother and Demetrius to check out with us.”
“Yeah, too bad that was a bust. Only good thing was how much it annoyed Cody.”
“It is fun to get him riled up.”
“The best,” Oliver said with a chuckle. “And, yeah, a haunting is different, but I’m hoping the change will attract more visitors. I’ve got a whole new list of SEO tags I’m going to use.”
“It’s all about the clicks.”
“You know I love a big click.” Oliver grinned at him, and Dave couldn’t resist grinning back. Yep, he was pretty much head over heels.
Then Oliver started reading from his phone, shifting Dave’s thoughts back to the moment.
“The motel closed about fifteen years ago because guests were disappearing every so often, and it started to freak people out. It all began back in the late sixties when people, all men, by the way, and all happily married or engaged or partnered with someone, went missing and were never found, despite multiple search parties. Word eventually got around about the disappearances, and business died off, so to speak. But then the paranormal fans and investigators heard about it and started coming. But even that business wasn’t steady enough to keep the place open, so it closed.”
“Owner couldn’t sell it?” Dave asked.
“Not with a background like that. I doubt there was even one interested party.”
“Big money loss.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“How’d they figure it was a ghost?” Dave asked.
“Back in the sixties, a woman named Ruby Gallagher was discovered murdered in one of the rooms. The main suspect was her boyfriend, but it took them a while to find him because he’d fled the state. He was eventually tracked down and questioned, and his story was she had been cheating on him and he confronted her and ended up stabbing her.”
“Damn,” Dave said.
“Yeah. During the trial, it came out Ruby had been seeing multiple men, meeting all of them at the same motel. When men started disappearing from there after her death, someone claimed it was Ruby’s ghost taking them for herself, like she’d done when she’d been alive.”
“Not the best legacy to leave behind,” Dave said, then frowned. “What is she? A spirit? A ghost? Is there a difference?”
