Sand Trap (Haunted Series) Read online

  Sand Trap

  A Haunted novel by Alexie Aaron

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ~

  Copyright 2012 – Diane L. Fitch writing as Alexie Aaron

  Revised 2013

  ALSO BY ALEXIE AARON

  HAUNTED SERIES

  The Hauntings of Cold Creek Hollow

  Ghostly Attachments

  Sand Trap

  Darker than Dark

  The Garden

  PEEPS LITE

  Eternal Maze 3.1

  Homecoming 3.2

  CIN FIN-LATHEN MYSTERIES

  Decomposing

  Death by Saxophone

  Discord

  This book is dedicated to my father Arthur P. Zaske who believed in Girl Power.

  ~

  Thank you to my dear family and friends who inspire me daily.

  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

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  PEEPs Lite Novellas

  Darker than Dark

  Alexie Aaron

  Chapter One

  Burt hit the wall hard. He narrowly missed smashing the mini camcorder he held by twisting his body at the last moment. His hip took the impact. He turned to right himself when a mass of flesh and bone smashed into him. The mass had a name, Mike.

  “Damn it, Burt, what the ef is going on?” Mike said as he slumped to the gritty floor in front of him.

  Burt grabbed the collar of Mike’s shirt and pulled his comrade in ghost hunting away from blocking the camera’s view of the room in turmoil. He propped the stunned investigator against the rotted plaster wall beside him. Bruises and broken bones would be assessed later. The first priority was getting this outburst of paranormal activity on film.

  “Sit back and take a breather. I think we walked in on a bar fight. Can you smell the beer?” Burt asked, focusing the mini on the swirling mass of wind, leaves, dust, and debris that held court in the center of the old abandoned saloon.

  “Smell?” Mike complained as he felt his nose, wiping the blood away with the bottom of his PEEPs tee. “I’ll be lucky if I’ll be able to breathe through this thing.” He looked over at Burt who was fiddling with the controls on the mini. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “Sure, but let’s be professional about this. Less complaining means less editing later.”

  Mike shook his head wondering what happened to the affable Burt. “Do you hear yourself?”

  Burt ignored him and advanced into the room towards the disturbance. Through the enhanced viewfinder he caught small glimpses of two combatants locked in a wrestling match over a chair. If he could just get the camera to pick up the changing hues, he thought, as the chair was wrenched away and sent crashing into the wall above Mike’s head.

  “That’s it, I’m out of here!” Mike said. He started to crawl towards the open doorway when another projectile, a window frame recently wrenched from the wall, floated towards Burt and crashed over him. His friend fell to his knees, his arms imprisoned in wood, dried putty and glass.

  “Dudes,” Ted’s voice came in through Mike’s ear piece, “What the hell is happening? We lost the Wi-Fi feed from Burt’s mini.”

  Mike looked at the mini which was vibrating in a dozen pieces under one of Burt’s knees.

  “Mini’s out, Ted, over.”

  “Sending, Beth in with…”

  “No!” Mike yelled, cutting him off. “Do not send Beth in here, over!”

  “Sending…”

  “Do you fucking understand me? Over!” Mike screamed as he watched Burt taking punches from an unseen assailant. His arms were pinned by the window frame, and he was taking a beating.

  “Crude language, dude,” Ted complained and added, “over.”

  “Too dangerous. This is way, way, out of control here. I’m going to try to get Burt out. I suggest you two start packing up, over.”

  “Naaa, plim, philm,”Burt spat, through bloody lips.

  Mike tried to decode what the hell the man was saying as he pulled his friend out of harm’s way. “Film? Are you one nut shy of a jock strap, man? They’re killing us here.”

  Mike managed to extract Burt from the window frame and headed for the door when the massive oak and brass bar flew over their heads and exploded against the exit, filling it with plank and metal.

  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph,” Mike whimpered.

  “Dude, language,” Ted’s voice hissed in his ear. “Beth says the Bible Belt has a problem with your swearing.”

  “Ted, you fucking asshole, I’m not swearing, I’m asking for help,” Mike said as the linoleum flooring beneath his feet began to curl. His mind fought to keep hysteria at bay. How the hell was he going to get them out of this room? “Window!” he shouted. “Ted, get your scrawny butt to the south window. I’ll be dropping Burt out of it in thirty seconds.”

  Mike dragged the flagging two-hundred and fifty pound Burt to the gaping hole once supported by the wooden frame. It was only a few feet to the ground, but the sill was high and Mike had to use all of his strength, gained from the long hours at the gym, to lift the now unconscious man over and out of the building. He heard Burt land with a sickening thud. He took one last look at the room and the approaching chaos before climbing up and jumping out, landing just to the side of the now comatose Burt.

  Ted ran up, bending his lanky frame over Burt, examining him for broken bones.

  “No time for that, we got to get the hell out of here.” Mike picked up Burt’s legs and urged Ted to get his other half. Ted grabbed the big man under the shoulders, and they moved as quickly as possible to the equipment van.

  Beth dropped the cord she was rolling up as she saw the men approach. “Here, put him down here,” she instructed them, wadding up a few PEEPs give-away hoodies and placing them under Burt’s head as they lowered him to the floor of the command post.

  He moaned and opened his swollen lids. He stared up at a female face and asked weakly, “Mia?”

  “No, it’s Beth. Hang on, we’re going to get you to the hospital…”

  “Did we get the shot?”

  Beth looked at Mike and mouthed, “What shot?”

  Mike leaned in and lied, “It’s all in the can, buddy.”

  Crashes of broken glass and splintering wood continued to emanate from the b
uilding. Mike grabbed Ted’s arm and asked, “Did we get our equipment out?”

  “Most of it. Some wasn’t worth retrieving, smashed up, like Burt.” He looked down at his fearless leader and added, “Sorry dude, didn’t mean you weren’t worth…”

  Burt waved his hand and tried to smile.

  Beth finished doing a cursory check on Burt and pronounced, “You’ll live.”

  “You don’t sound too thrilled,” he complained.

  Beth looked at Ted and Mike gathering courage before she spoke, “What the hell are we doing here? We are way over our heads, understaffed and outgunned. You both could have been killed in there. If you can’t see your assailants, you have no business interacting with an active, violent haunting without a medic,” she listed. “Come on, we have to call in the big kahuna here.”

  “If you mean Mia, no,” Burt said evenly.

  “Men!” Beth said as she got up, hopped out of the van and stomped off.

  “Hey, don’t go putting us in with lame brain here!” Mike called after her. “We didn’t dump Mia. Hell, some of us still talk to her.”

  Burt looked sharply at Mike, and Mike timidly pointed to Ted. Ted just waved his hand and said, “Mia’s cool, dude. Just cuz you’re not hitting that, doesn’t me we can’t work with her. Sure, she’s bossy, but, man, she can see and do things we can’t.”

  “She doesn’t like to travel, she won’t take direction, she has to do it her way,” Burt counted out on his bruised and bent fingers.

  Ted sighed and countered, “She just needs a driver, she knows better ways to deal with these ghosties, she’s a woman…”

  “I heard that,” Beth called over from the pile of electronics she was trying to pack away.

  There was a brief whirl of a siren announcing the Illinois State Police vehicle that had just pulled into the parking lot of the former biker bar Lucky’s. It navigated over the craters in the blacktop before parking beside the command post van. Two state policeman got out and walked over towards the PEEPs team.

  Mike put on his professional face and greeted them, guiding them away from the downed Burt. Beth ran to where she left her briefcase. She frantically searched for their permit to film and the papers, signed by the owners of the dilapidated property, giving them permission to be there.

  The uniforms reminded Ted of some gossip he had neglected to share with Burt. “Hey, Burt, guess who’s back in Cold Creek? Whitney.”

  Burt winced and wondered how Mia was dealing with the deputy’s return.

  Chapter Two

  Mia studied the checkerboard and watched as Murphy mimed her next jump. She smiled and proceeded to clear the board of Whit’s checkers. “Black wins again!” she crowed.

  “You mean Murphy wins again,” Whit pointed out and rubbed the back of his neck. His blue eyes twinkled as his face formed a smile that lit up his handsome face.

  Mia looked at him warily and asked, “Whatcha thinking?”

  “Oh just the pure ridiculousness of the situation here,” he said as he brushed his hand through his short dishwater blonde hair. “Our first date…”

  “Second,” Mia corrected.

  “First doesn’t count.”

  “The opera doesn’t count?” Mia asked, moving her petite body to ease the discomfort of sitting too long on the picnic bench.

  “I was filling in, and besides, you asked me.”

  Mia’s moss green eyes flashed, and she turned her head so the painful memory of who was supposed to take her to the opera didn’t show. Her ice blonde hair shimmered as the dappled sunlight caught the movement. She looked over at Whitney Martin and smiled. “Okay, fair enough. First date.”

  Whit opened his mouth in shock. “I’m right? I’m finally right? The great Mia Cooper has acknowledged that I am right! Damn, and there are no witnesses. No one is going to believe me.”

  “Murph’s here,” Mia pointed out, looking over at the farmer who had just picked up his axe.

  Whit wrinkled his face and leaned in and said in a conspiratorial manner, “This is what I am talking about. Our first date and we are being chaperoned by a ghost with a penchant for…”

  CRACK! Murphy planted his axe in an old stump next to the table. Whit flinched and Mia laughed.

  “Whacking an axe,” Whit finished. He maneuvered off of the picnic bench and stretched his tall well-built body. He flexed his muscles, grinning at Mia.

  Mia gazed at him and then at Murphy who walked over, pushed his hat back on his head, and dropped his axe. He raised his skinny arm, slid back his sleeve and made his bicep pop. She started laughing. She knew better than to encourage Murphy’s antics, but on a day like this, in the company of her former childhood crush, she gave into the bliss and enjoyed the mirth.

  “Is he making fun of me?” Whit whirled around, not expecting and not seeing anyone behind him.

  “Could be,” Mia said and stifled her giggles with her hand over her mouth.

  “How can we have a date with Murphy around chaperoning?”

  “I believe it was you that suggested a picnic,” Mia pointed out.

  “Yes, but in a park, not fifty feet from his grave, and fifty feet from April’s house.”

  “I thought since I had to check on her place anyway, why not make use of this view and the picnic table,” she explained. “Plus it’s only lunch, and you have to get back on the road, Mister Law Enforcement Professional.”

  Whit looked around him. The picnic table sat in a manicured yard trimmed in flowerbeds of budding mums and geraniums. To his right was a young, small forested lowland with the beginnings of fall color tinting the lower shrubs. On the left, a hillside could be seen through the lace of the elder hardwood canopy. The hill was left fallow and covered in late blooming wildflowers and amber grasses.

  Whit smiled and nodded. “True. I’ll have to give you this one. But it doesn’t make us even. I was right today, I win.”

  “Sure, you win. But not at checkers,” Mia pointed out.

  “Rub it in, Cooper, rub it in,” Whit said and reached over the table and grabbed her chin, lifted it, and leaned in to kiss her.

  Mia drew away, leaving the deputy hanging. A wave of bitterness moved across the lake of her emotions. Memories of his rejection of her, after she had saved his dead wife’s soul, made her wary of Whit.

  “Too soon?” he asked looking into her eyes.

  “Too soon.”

  “Is it that PEEPs guy? He break your heart?”

  Mia looked at Murphy for help, and he shrugged his shoulders. “It’s not Burt. I’m not sure where we are presently, but hearts have not been broken.” She stalled and put the checkers in the cardboard box, folded the board and placed it on top. She held the lid a moment before securing it over the game. “It’s you.”

  “Me? What the hell did I do?” Whit said baffled.

  Mia got up and placed the game inside of the empty picnic basket before turning and facing him. “What happened? We were friends. I put myself at risk helping Sherry. I could have fucking died facing the Hag. And where were you?”

  “I had to take her to the MOMA, you know that,” he said firmly.

  “No, before that,” Mia said through clenched teeth. “You treated me like a leper without cause at the Hollow. One day you and I are best friends singing bad songs driving back from Chicago. The next day you can’t stand the sight of me. You disappear without a thank you or ‘Mia how are you doing.’ You never called, wrote a letter to tell me why the sudden chill after all of these years?”

  “Mia, you don’t understand.”

  Mia grabbed the basket and walked over to her truck and tossed it in, oblivious to the checkers taking flight and decorating the truck’s bed in black and red circles. She would regret the action later as she hunted for the checkers, but right now it helped. “What’s to understand? You hurt me! Embarrassed me in front of your friends and mine. I didn’t deserve that.”

  Whit blew air out of his mouth and gave her time to settle down before he tried
to explain what drove him into behaving the way he did. “Will you stand still and give me time to explain?”

  Mia looked around for Murphy and he was gone. She would yell at him later for leaving her vulnerable. She sighed. “I’m a fair person. Talk.” She crossed her arms, more to hug herself then to display might.

  Whit approached her and put a hand on the truck as if to steady himself before speaking, “Sherry and I were having trouble long before we came here and I got a job with the Sheriff’s Department. She wanted New York, the MOMA, and her art. I didn’t understand her, and she certainly didn’t try to understand me. Wrong fit. But we were married, and I was determined to make it work. When she died, in such a horrible way, I started to unhinge. Then to add to my horror, she haunted me. You haven’t experienced pain until your dead wife haunts you. On top of that was my guilt. I knew that there were feelings developing between us. I had to nip that in the bud. I was her husband. I wanted to honor her memory. It didn’t matter if I knew she had moved on long before her death. She was my wife.”

  Mia started off softly, “I understood this, Whit. I didn’t want you in my bed for cripes sakes. It was the friendship. We were friends. You were always kind to me when others turned away.”

  “I know, but the things you could see and do scared me. The very things that killed my wife you were comfortable with…”

  “Are you out of your freakin mind! Comfortable?” Mia jumped up on the running board of the truck and walked over and put her face in his. “I was horrified to the point of paralysis. I’m the little girl that screams in graveyards. But I rose to the occasion. You needed me, Sherry needed help, PEEPs was way over their heads, and I was the only one who had a feckin clue.”

  Whit looked deep into the rage that turned her eyes from green to gray. “Can I continue?”

  She took a step back and nodded, pushing back the tears that wanted to spill down her porcelain face.

  “The pressure to do what was right for my wife. Her parents, my parents, the town gossip, all drove me into a state of anger that I couldn’t control. After I delivered her to the MOMA to be with her precious painting, I was lost. I went to my parent’s house and mourned for the mess I had made of my life. I sought out a counselor Father Santos recommended…”