🌈Happy Pride Month 2021🌈: Top 20 LGBT Haunting Reads Part 3

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Here at Padme's Library I feature all genres but followers have probably noticed that 95% of the posts and 99% of my reviews fall under the LGBT genres, so for this year's Pride Month I am showcasing 20 of my favorite M/M hauntings in no particular order.  Hauntings of all sorts perfectly blended with romance, drama, humor, and heart, creating unforgettable reads.

Personal Blogger Note:

I know that Pride Month 2021 is officially over but as my mother has been in the hospital since the last week in May and I sit in a hotel room across the street, my blogging time fell behind.  My Happy Pride Month series is important to me so I will be posting Pride throughout July.

One Last Note:
Some of those on my list I have read, reread, & even listened/re-listened so I've included the review posted in my latest read/listen.  Also, those that are read/re-read as a series the latest review may be an overall series review.  If any of the purchase links included here don't work be sure and check the authors' websites/social media for the most recent links as they can change over time for a variety of reasons.

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Part 1  /  Part 2  /  Part 4  /  Part 5

Spirit by John Inman
Summary:
Jason Day, brilliant designer of video games, is not only a confirmed bachelor, but he’s as gay as a maypole. One wouldn’t think being saddled with his precocious four-year-old nephew for four weeks would be enough to throw him off-kilter.

Wrong. Timmy, Jason’s nephew, is a true handful.

But just when Timmy and Uncle Jason begin to bond, and Jason feels he’s getting a grip on this babysitting business once and for all, he’s thrown for a loop by a couple of visitors—one from Tucson, the other from beyond the grave.

I’m sorry. Say what?

Toss a murder, a hot young stud, an unexpected love affair, and a spooky-ass ghost with a weird sense of humor into Jason’s summer plans, and you’ve got the makings for one hell of a ride.

Original Audiobook Review September 2020:

I don't know why it took me so long to originally read Spirit and I'm even more clueless why it took me so long to listen to the audiobook.  John Inman is definitely tops in my book when it comes to creepy, scary, romantic, frightful gems that are perfect for Halloweentime.

The only thing I'm going to say for this listen/re-read is that putting a child into a ghost story adds so many elements to the fright factor.  From wanting to do everything possible to protect Timmy to his child-sized brand of humor making me smile, I spent the whole book wanting to wrap him up in a Mama Bear hug.  As for what his presence does for Jason, well he brings something into his uncle's life that not even Jason knew he was missing.

Wrap all that emotion into a ghost mystery and you have a story that will suck you in and keep you hooked till that very last page(or narrated line).  Speaking of narration, I've never listened to John Anthony Davis before but he brings John Inman's characters to life that keeps you mesmerized all most as deeply as Inman's words themselves. All around perfectly haunting read.

Original ebook Review October 2018:

When Jason Day agreed to care for his four year old nephew, Timmy, while his sister and her boyfriend went on a month long vacation he had no idea what he was getting into.  Between the man in the basement Timmy meets and his uncle showing up from Tucson, Jason has his hands full.  Wait, what man in the basement?  In the middle of mystery, unexplainable noises, and Timmy's limitless energy will Jason find time for a little romance too?

How I haven't read Spirit before is beyond me, it's as unexplainable as the man in the basement first appears to be.  Who knew creepy ghost stories could be so lighthearted and humorous?   Grasping a child's limitless energy can be a difficult thing to write without them coming across as brats that need more than one timeout but somehow John Inman has made Timmy not only spirited, energetic, a handful, but he's also made him cute, adorable, and exactly what Jason needs.

Now I won't really touch on the plot of this incredibly fun, creepy, and wildly addictive mystery because so many little things give just too much away.  I will say that having read some of John Inman's work before, I knew it would be more than just an uncle caring for his nephew while the mother is on vacation and I wasn't wrong.  Spirit really does have a little bit of everything(okay there's no sci-fi), it may sound cliche to say its got so much going on but in this case it really does.  Jason is incredibly likable and Sam from Tucson has a secret or two in the beginning but he too is absolutely delicious.  As I said above Timmy is a rambunctious little boy who despite being a bit sassy at times he really is a sweet little guy you just want to protect.

Spirit has it all and more, it hooked me from the first paragraph and when I reached that final page I was not ready to close it down.  If you are like me and already a fan of John Inman than you'll love this story and if you haven't checked out his work before, than Spirit is a great place to start.  He has a way about his work that blends edgy, creepy, mysterious, humorous, and of course romantic in just about a near perfect way.  I may not get the opportunity to read all his work as it is released but he has certainly earned his place on my "Automatic 1-Click" list.

RATING:

Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton

Summary:

A Love for the Holidays charity novel

Jason Walker is a child star turned teen heartthrob turned reluctant B-movie regular who’s sick of his failing career. So he gives up Hollywood for northern Idaho, far away from the press, the drama of LA, and the best friend he’s secretly been in love with for years.

There’s only one problem with his new life: a strange young man only he can see is haunting his guesthouse. Except Benjamin Ward isn’t a ghost. He’s a man caught out of time, trapped since the Civil War in a magical prison where he can only watch the lives of those around him. He’s also sweet, funny, and cute as hell, with an affinity for cheesy ’80s TV shows. And he’s thrilled to finally have someone to talk to.

But Jason quickly discovers that spending all his time with a man nobody else can see or hear isn’t without its problems—especially when the tabloids find him again and make him front-page news. The local sheriff thinks he’s on drugs, and his best friend thinks he’s crazy. But Jason knows he hasn’t lost his mind. Too bad he can’t say the same thing about his heart.

* * * * * * *

Twenty percent of the proceeds from this title will be donated to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) National Help Center. 

Founded in 1996, the GLBT National Help Center is a non-profit organization that provides vital peer-support, community connections and resource information to people with questions regarding sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Utilizing a diverse group of GLBT volunteers, they operate two national hotlines, the GLBT National Hotline and the GLBT National Youth Talkline, as well as private, volunteer one-to-one online chat, that help both youth and adults with coming-out issues, safer-sex information, school bullying, family concerns, relationship problems and a lot more. 

To learn more about this charity or to donate directly, please visit their website.

Original Audiobook Review December 2020:

I'm not going to say that I forgot the ins and outs of this story because I didn't, how can one forget something really quite unique as I mentioned in the my original review?  Nor did I forget how much I loved it, but it has been 5 years since I read it so even though the adrenaline rush I get from a first read wasn't there, Marie Sexton's words and Nick J Russo's narration had me enthralled almost as much as my original visit to Winter Oranges. I won't say anymore because though this is an older story, I'm sure there are those who have yet to find it and I don't want to spoil it for them.  I will say that now that I have found it in audiobook form, it certainly won't be another 5 years before I follow Jason and Ben's journey.  Definitely a win-win from beginning to end and whether you enjoy holiday stories or not, if you like an intriguing and reasonably unique tale of paranormal elements then Marie Sexton's Winter Oranges is not to be missed.

Original Review October 2015:
Such a unique idea.  I've read stories where a building is haunted or a spirit is attached to an object and exists in the home it comes into but to live in the snowglobe and can only be so far from it was intriguing.  Jason and Ben quickly burrowed it's way into my heart and it'll definitely be in my re-reading pile.  Winter Oranges may be a Christmas story but it fits perfectly onto my paranormal shelf too.

RATING:

Dangerous Spirits by Jordan L Hawk
Summary:
Spirits #2

After the events of Reyhome Castle, Henry Strauss expected the Psychical Society to embrace his application of science to the study of hauntings. Instead, the society humiliates and blacklists him. His confidence shaken, he can’t bring himself to admit the truth to his lover, the handsome medium Vincent Night.

Vincent’s new life in Baltimore with Henry is disrupted when a friend from the past asks for help with a haunting. In the remote town of Devil’s Walk, old ties and new lies threaten to tear the lovers apart, if a fiery spirit bent on vengeance doesn’t put an end to them first.

Overall Series 2nd Re-Read 2019:
This is my second re-visit to books 1 & 2(Restless Spirits & Dangerous Spirits) and my first for book 3, Guardian Spirits and I loved them just as much as my original reads.  Following the journey of Henry and Victor, as well as Jo and Lizzie, is such a treat and I don't think it will ever get old.  Such amazing characters and incredible scene setting, well Spirits trilogy is really an all around package of goodness.  For newcomers, this is a trilogy best read in order so be sure to start at the beginning to see how the four meet.

As for the narrator, Greg Tremblay, well I can't imagine anyone else reading them.  Would someone else be as good and enjoyable? Of course, but after listening to Greg read Spirits, I really don't see anyone else doing the characters and their adventures to find the truth justice.  A reading and listening masterpiece that will pull you in, tie you down, and not let go till the truth is found.  Entertaining for years to come.

Original Review September 2015:
WOW! Where do I begin?  I fell in love with Henry and Victor, as well as Jo and Lizzie in Restless Spirits and didn't think I could possibly care for them more, boy was I wrong!  In Dangerous Spirits we find highs and lows in the relationships, some because of Henry's early lie and others because of the arrival of Vincent & Lizzie's friend, Sylvester.  Watching Henry twisting inside because of his lie then add in the jealousy of Sylvester and my heart was torn between tears and screaming at Henry to come clean.  Don't even get me started on the creepy spirits they have to face. Well, Jordan L Hawk as done it again putting creative paranormal psyche to print.  If you like any one of history, paranormal, or romance then this is the one for you and if you are like me and love all three, let's just say you are in for the treat of your life!  As we close in on Halloween, or All Hallow's Eve, then this is definitely a must for your reading pleasure.

RATING:

Fish and Ghosts by Rhys Ford
Summary:
Hellsingers #1

When his Uncle Mortimer died and left him Hoxne Grange, the family’s Gilded Age estate, Tristan Pryce knew he wasn’t going to have an easy time of it. He was to be the second generation of Pryces to serve as a caretaker for the estate, a way station for spirits on their final steps to the afterlife. The ghosts were the simple part. He’d been seeing boo-wigglies since he was a child. No, the difficult part was his own family. Determined to establish Tristan’s insanity, his loving relatives hire Dr. Wolf Kincaid and his paranormal researchers, Hellsinger Investigations, to prove the Grange is not haunted.

Skeptic Wolf Kincaid has made it his life’s work to debunk the supernatural. After years of cons and fakes, he can’t wait to reveal the Grange’s ghostly activity is just badly leveled floorboards and a drafty old house. The Grange has more than a few surprises for him, including its prickly, reclusive owner. Tristan Pryce is much less insane and much more attractive than Wolf wants to admit and when his Hellsinger team unwittingly release a ghostly serial killer on the Grange, Wolf is torn between his skepticism and protecting the man he’d been sent to discredit.

Audiobook Review October 2019:
My original review four years ago was short and sweet but so on the mark I don't know what else to add.  Tristan James is a perfect narrator when it comes to portarying Tristan and Wolf's journey, the voices for each character jumps off the page and makes them so real I expected to look up and find myself face to face with the boys and Winifred the ghost.

There's just something about Fish and Ghosts that appeals to my love of classic Hollywood horror, both A- and B- quality films.  For some, that would mean cheesy bordering on comical but for those of us who love that genre and era, the old black and white tales of horror are anything but comical and neither is Fish and Ghosts.  Okay, maybe there is plenty of humorous banter and flirting between Tris and Wolf but for me that only makes the ghostly elements that much more macabre and menacing.  The humor gives cause to the reader to let their guard down so when Winifred strikes it can knock you sideways, you know the moment in a horror film where the theater audience laughs out loud, suddenly grows quiet, and then lets out a collective scream.  Fish and Ghosts does that to you.

Original ebook Review October 2015:
When I was searching for paranormal reads for October I asked around and Hellsingers by Rhys Ford was recommended more than once so I decided to check it out.  The connection between Tristan and Wolf jumps off the page and you can just feel it in every fiber of your being.  The secondary characters may be secondary by definition of their page time but not by their contributions to the story.  Don't even get me started on the creepiness of Winifred the ghost, shudders just thinking about it.

RATING:

Spirit by John Inman

Chapter One
SALLY’S SUITCASE was dusty rose with little Alice-blue primroses on it. Very pretty. It was also big and bulky and weighed a fucking ton. I grunted like a caveman and broke out in a sweat simply hefting it into the trunk of the taxi. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I felt a couple of sinews in my back snap like rubber bands.

“What do you have in here? A dead body?”

“Oh, pooh,” Sally said, slapping my arm. “You gay guys gripe about everything. Just suck up the pain and try to be butch. Fake it if you have to.”

Since butch doesn’t always work for me and since I was never very good at faking anything, including maturity, I stuck my tongue out at her instead. “Blow me, Sis.” Since I knew it irked her, I cast a critical eye at her ash-blonde hair. It was bleached to within an inch of its life, and it had been that way since high school. “And stop bleaching. One of these days you’re going to wake up bald.”

She flipped her long hair back off her shoulder. “I don’t bleach, I tone.”

“Whatever.”

“Jason, you’re such a brat.” She smirked, sticking out her own tongue and waggling it around in midair, just as she had when she was nine and I was six and she was trying to freak me out. My sister could even now, at the ripe old age of thirty-one, touch the tip of her nose with her tongue. I had always admired that remarkable ability. Being a gay man, I’ve used my tongue extensively over the years in a number of scenarios, and in a number of dark moist places, but I still haven’t acquired that skill.

“Bitch. Floozy. Slut,” I mumbled under my breath, making her smile.

During this exchange, the cab driver stood way off to the side glowering, smoking a cigarette, and looking worried that someone was going to ask him to lift something. Since I had dealt with cab drivers before, I knew better than to ask.

The driver was a stodgy old guy who peered out at the world through a perpetual squint, or maybe he was just trying to keep the smoke out of his eyes. In any case, he now made it a point to stare at his wristwatch and clear his throat as he stomped out his cigarette underfoot.

“Time to roll,” he seemed to be saying. “Things to do, places to go.”

Sally and I gave each other a perfunctory peck on the cheek, and only then did we gaze around, wondering where Timmy had gone. Mother of the year, and babysitter extraordinaire, we weren’t. I quickly realized I hadn’t seen the kid in over a minute. He could be in Texas by now.

With a sigh of relief, I spotted my four-year-old nephew on his hands and knees by the foundation of the house, trying to peer through one of the tiny ground-level windows that looked into the basement. He had his little hands on the glass, with his face stuck in between them to shut out the glare, and he was talking to himself and snickering.

“Look, Sally,” I intoned. “The kid’s insane already, and you’ve only had him four and a half years.”

She slapped my arm again. “Oh, shut up.” Glancing at her wristwatch, she said, “Where the heck is Jack? He said he’d be here by now.”

“Jack comes when Jack comes.” I rolled my eyes when I said it. I didn’t much care for Jack.

Sally gave me a devilish grin. “Don’t get pornographic.”

“What? I didn’t mean it that way!”

But Sally wasn’t listening. We were already traipsing across my tiny front yard to fetch the kid. Since I got there first, I scooped Timmy into my arms. His hands and face were muddy brown where he had pressed them against the dirty window.

Sally stuck her fists on her hips and scowled at him. “You look like a miner,” she said.

“He is a minor,” I said. “He’s only four.”

“Oh, shut up,” Sally said again.

Timmy stuck his dirty finger up my nose and laughed. “You guys are funny.”

Sally stared at the two of us as if wondering what she had been thinking, bringing us together like this. “You’re going to ruin him, aren’t you, Jason? When I get back in four weeks, I won’t know my son. He’ll be lost to me forever.”

I shrugged and snapped and snarled and tried to bite Timmy’s hand off, which made him laugh even harder. “That’s the chance you take, Sis. Free babysitters don’t come cheap, you know.”

Sally just shook her head and headed back to the cab, mumbling under her breath, “That makes a lot of sense.”

A car horn in the distance snagged our attention. It was Jack, barreling down the street in his stupid MINI Cooper with the British flag on the roof. Jack was about as British as an Ethiopian famine. He gave a cheery wave out the window and pulled up to the curb with the warbling of a coloratura wailing from his tape deck. Jack liked opera.

I set Timmy on the lawn, and Sally and I watched as Jack jumped from the car, suitcase in hand. Sally was smiling. Remember when I said I didn’t like Jack? Well, Sally did.

“Isn’t he gorgeous?” she asked the tree beside her. She couldn’t have been asking me. She knew perfectly well how I felt about the twit.

Although I had to admit, Jack was immensely easy on the eyes, with his tall, hunky frame and broad shoulders and wavy black hair. I also suspected he was a homophobe, though, since he couldn’t say two words to me without making a snarky comment about my being gay.

“Hey, Sally!” he called out to my sister. “Hey, Rosemary!” he called out to me.

He thought that was funny. I merely turned and scooped a surprised Timmy off the ground and held him in my arms so I wouldn’t have to shake Jack’s hand.

Did I mention I didn’t like Jack?

Jack tossed his bag into the back of the cab beside Sally’s, overflexing a few muscles while he did it just to prove he could.

He walked up to Timmy, who was firmly perched on my arm, and tweaked his nose. Me, he ignored.

Timmy said, “Ppffthh!” and turned away from the guy. He didn’t like Jack either.

Jack didn’t even notice. He gave Sally a smooch on the mouth and said, “Ready, babe?”

The driver tucked himself in behind the wheel and started the engine, all the while making a big show of buckling his seatbelt and fiddling with the meter like he was the busiest guy on the planet. He hadn’t even closed the trunk, so while Sally and Dipshit climbed into the backseat, I set Timmy down on the edge of the lawn for the second time, laid a finger on his nose, and told him to stay put. In a brilliant flash of insight, I realized he wouldn’t do any such thing, so I immediately snatched him up in my arms again. Then I slammed the taxi’s trunk lid closed myself—one-handed, I might add, since Timmy was dangling from my other arm like a wiggling stalk of bananas.

Jack’s hand came out of the window and pointed across the roof of the cab. He clicked his car keys at the MINI Cooper at the curb, which beeped in response and locked itself up tighter than a drum. Sort of like the Batmobile.

“Don’t tip the driver,” I whispered, as Sally leaned out the other window to give me a final good-bye peck. Timmy laughed. He had his finger up my nose again.

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Sally said, stretching her neck out a little farther to give Timmy a good-bye kiss as well. Then she took one look at the kid’s filthy face and settled on a friendly pat atop his head instead. She wagged a finger in his face. “You be good. Obey your uncle while I’m gone.”

Timmy really laughed at that. “Yeah, right.” He giggled and, squirming out of my arms, he took off running back to the basement window, where he once again dropped to his knees and peered inside.

“Maybe he got my brat gene,” I said, not entirely joking.

Sally didn’t even pretend to find that statement untrue. “No maybes about it,” she said, ruffling through her purse, making sure she had her money, her plane tickets, and whatever else women scramble around for in their purses when they’re trying to be efficient.

I stepped away from the cab, molding my face to look trustworthy. “Don’t worry about the kid. I’ll lock him in the closet if I have to.”

“Just don’t scar him emotionally. I spend enough money on my own therapy.”

“Very funny.”

Then Jack chimed in with, “Don’t turn him gay either. We can’t afford all the makeup you boys use.”

I blushed. Had he noticed I’d used a cover stick on a zit that morning, or was he just talking out of his homophobic ass again?

I couldn’t help myself. I leaned back in the window and crooned, “Don’t worry, Jacqueline. I’ll try to restrain myself. And we won’t listen to opera. I promise. I read that a lot of closeted gay guys listen to opera. Oh, and we won’t use napkins when we eat either, and we’ll blow our noses directly onto the ground just by pressing our thumb to the opposing nostril and blowing the crap out that way. Either that or we’ll wipe the snot on our shirtsleeves. You know. Like you do.”

Sally giggled, Jack turned away unamused, and the driver gave the lot of us an odd look in the rearview mirror, which made me blush again. Sally didn’t give a crap what the driver thought, and Jack was too busy being a prick and trying to look important to notice. He was studiously ignoring me as he checked his airline tickets, plucking them out of his pocket, flipping them open, perusing the contents. They weren’t going to Mars after all. It was just a four-week vacation. After a week in New York to catch a few shows, enjoy a few restaurants, and gain a few pounds, they were then going to diddle up and down the Eastern Seaboard on a train. Several trains, in fact. Personally, I would rather set myself on fire than trap myself in a rumbling metal tube for three weeks with Dipshit; but hey, that’s just me.

Sally reached out, patted my head like she had Timmy’s, then poked it back out of the window with the heel of her hand.

“Stop causing trouble,” she said with a merry sparkle in her eyes. Then she turned to the driver and said, “Airport.”

I heard him mumble, “Well, there’s a surprise,” as the cab backed out onto the street.

I waved, watching the yellow cab hustle off into San Diego traffic, and when I turned to find Timmy, he was gone again.

Holy crap! The kid was a gazelle. What had I gotten myself into?

His disappearance was solved when I found him around the corner of the house in the backyard, peeking through a different basement window. Jeez, he was like Gollum, seeking out the world’s deepest, darkest places.

When I scooped him into my arms, he sang out, “Daddy!”

And I thought, Well isn’t that sweet.


I HAD toddler-proofed the house as best I could. The basement door was securely latched so the kid couldn’t tumble headfirst down the flight of stairs leading into the bowels of the house, snapping a myriad of youthful bones along the way. Electrical wires were safely coiled and taped up and tucked under furniture in case Timmy got the inexplicable urge to chew on them. Electrical outlets were covered. All breakable knick-knacks were raised out of reach and all dangerous objects securely stashed away—switchblades, rolls of barbed wire, plastic explosives, bobby pins. (Just kidding about the bobby pins. I’m not that nelly.)

My dog, Thumper, who was a mix of Chihuahua, dachshund, miniature poodle, and quite possibly a three-toed sloth, was no threat to Timmy at all. The poor thing was almost twenty years old and hardly had any teeth left. I hadn’t heard her bark in three years. She only moved off the sofa to eat and go potty, and once her business was done, she stood in front of the sofa looking up like the Queen Mother waiting for the carriage door to be opened until I scooped her off the floor and redeposited her among the cushions. Poor thing. (I mean me.) She lay there all day long watching TV: Channel 9, the Mexican channel. Don’t ask me why, but that was the only channel she would tolerate. Couldn’t live without it, in fact. The one benefit to this annoying habit of hers was that, while I didn’t understand my dog at all, I was pretty sure I was beginning to comprehend Spanish.

Timmy was at that happy stage of child rearing where he could pull down his own pants and climb onto the commode without any help from squeamish gay uncles. He had brought an entourage of toys with him that would have kept an orphanage entertained. The first thing I did after finding a trail of little black skid marks on my new oak flooring was to confiscate his tricycle, allocating the thing to outdoor use only, which Timmy accepted with stoic resignation, although I did hear him mumble something about chicken poop and peckerheads. I’m not sure if his watered-down-obscenity-strewn mumbling was related to the tricycle announcement but fear it was. While the kid might have gotten my brat gene, there was also little doubt he had inherited my sister’s sarcastic-foulmouthed-snarky gene. God help his teachers when he started school.

With his mother and his mother’s twit of a boyfriend safely out of the way, Timmy and I settled into a routine. The routine was this: he ran around like a cyclone, and I ran around behind him trying to keep him alive. It took my nephew a mere two hours to wear me out completely, and while I dozed for five minutes on the sofa to recoup my strength, using Thumper for a pillow (she did have a few uses), Timmy managed to find a screwdriver somewhere and proceeded to climb onto a chair in the kitchen and remove the back panel from the microwave. Don’t ask me why. What took him five minutes to take apart took me thirty minutes to put back together. I’m not handy with tools. Timmy, on the other hand, seemed quite proficient. If I hadn’t been afraid he might actually succeed, and consequently make me feel even dumber than I already did, I would have asked him to change the oil in my Toyota.

In the middle of the afternoon, Timmy and I found ourselves in the backyard picking oranges off my orange tree for the next day’s breakfast. (Well, I was picking the oranges. Timmy was stuffing them down his shorts. Who knows why?) He was squealing happily and running around with oranges dropping out of his trouser legs and rolling merrily across the yard. I was busy trying to be masculine like a proper hunter/gatherer, climbing up into the orange tree to get that one beautiful orange on the tippy-top limb that I couldn’t quite reach to whap with the broom handle, when I was suddenly stunned by the sound of silence. God, it was lovely. Lovely and suspicious. I peeked through the foliage toward the ground and saw Timmy sprawled out like a dead thing, sound asleep in the grass.

I could only assume it was naptime.

Being the ever-conscientious uncle, I climbed quietly down the tree, gently scooped the kid into my arms, and carried him into the house. The moment I laid Timmy on the bed in the guest room upstairs—since Thumper was hogging the couch—Timmy popped his eyes open and stuck his finger up my nose again. In two seconds flat, he was wide-awake, tearing through the house and screaming like a banshee.

Note to self. Next time the kid goes to sleep, no matter where it is, leave him there. Edge of a cliff? No problem. Middle of the street? Don’t worry about it. Just put up a couple of safety cones to redirect traffic and let him be.

Timmy was making so much noise, and his voice was so annoyingly high-pitched, that Thumper had buried her head under the sofa cushions. I longed to crawl under there with her, but being the adult in charge, God help me, I couldn’t. I rummaged through the mound of clothes Sally had supplied for Timmy’s four-week stay, hoping to find a tiny straightjacket and a soundproof muzzle in among the T-shirts and shorts and Daffy Duck underpants, but she must have forgotten to pack them, dammit.

For my headache, which was quickly blossoming into an epic doozy, I popped four aspirins and chewed them dry. How’s that for butch? And to distract Timmy from doing whatever the hell it was he was doing, I asked him if he’d like to help me fix dinner.

“What are we having?” he asked. There was a rope of snot dangling out of his nose that looked like a bungee cord. I watched, fascinated, as he sucked it back in. A moment later, it made another appearance, flapped around for a minute, then he snorted it back up again. It was a fascinating thing to watch. Fascinating and disgusting.

“Salmon and green-bean casserole,” I finally answered, trying not to barf.

He made a face. “Blechhh! I want hot dogs.”

“Hot dogs.”

“And ’roni.”

“What the heck is ’roni?”

“With cheese,” he said. “’Roni and cheese.”

“Oh. Macaroni and cheese. No way. Do you know how many calories are in that? I have to watch my figure.”

Timmy giggled. “Jack says you’re like a girl. He says you even like boys.”

“I do like boys. But not that one. Jack’s a twit.”

Timmy giggled again, but it was a crafty giggle. “If you make ’roni and cheese and hot dogs for dinner, I won’t tell him you said that.”

“Ever hear of extortion?”

“No,” he said, “but if you make hot dogs tonight, we can have ’stortion tomorrow.”

“Fine,” I said. I wasn’t a complete idiot. I’d serve him salmon tomorrow and tell him it was extortion. The kid was four years old, for Christ’s sake. He’d believe anything I told him, right?

With the uneasy feeling I was in over my head, I stuck the beautiful slab of salmon back in the fridge for another day and rummaged through the freezer until I found a package of hot dogs buried under the edamame and brussels sprouts. The hot dogs had been there since some long ago Fourth of July celebration. Wonder of wonders, I found a box of macaroni and cheese in the pantry off the garage. Gee. I didn’t even know I had it. Maybe the kid was not only annoying, but psychic as well. That was a scary thought. A prescient four-year-old.

Later, while sitting at the kitchen table consuming our 50,000-calorie dinner, Timmy didn’t shut up once.

“The man in the basement is nice,” Timmy said around a mouthful of hot dog.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” I said.

“He said to tell you he’s glad you live here.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m glad he approves.”

“He hates Mommy.”

“Well, she can be annoying sometimes. Don’t tell her I said that.”

Timmy shrugged. “Can I have another hot dog?”

“You haven’t finished the one you’ve got.”

“I only like the middles. The ends taste funny.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”

“Thank you.”

“How’s the ’roni and cheese?”

“Good, but it needs more butter. Mommy uses two sticks.”

It was my turn to shrug. “It’s making my ass grow as it is. I can feel it ballooning underneath me in my chair even as we speak. Both cheeks. Mommy’s ass will be ballooning soon too. Watch if it doesn’t. One day she’ll wake up and she’ll be all ass. No head, no arms, no bleached-blonde hair, just ass, with maybe a few toes sticking out. And if you count the man she’s with, it’ll be two asses.”

Timmy giggled. “You’re funny.”

“And you’re nuts,” I said, building him another hot dog. “Mustard?”

“Ketchup.”

“Yuk.”

“It’s good. Here, try it.” He leaned over the table and squirted ketchup on my hot dog.

“Jesus, kid, you’re killing me here.”

“Eat it,” he said.

I took a bite of my ketchupy hot dog. Damn. I liked it.

Timmy grinned at my expression. “See?” he said. He scooped up a big ladle full of macaroni and cheese and glopped that on my plate next to the teeny pile I had placed there myself.

“Eat,” he said, sounding like every overworked mother of every finicky-ass kid that ever walked the face of the planet since the beginning of time.

So I ate. Every noodle. Every fat-saturated glob of cheese and margarine. Then I had another hotdog. With ketchup. And two glasses of chocolate milk. I hadn’t drunk chocolate milk for fifteen years. Damn. I liked that too. Blasted kid.

Tomorrow I’d diet.

When we were stuffed to the gills, Timmy stood on a chair and dried the dishes while I washed. I didn’t own a dishwasher. Timmy seemed slightly astounded by that fact.

“Is this how they did dishes in the old days?”

“Yes,” I said. “Later we’ll take the laundry down to the river and beat it on a rock.”

“Oh, goody. I like rivers.”

“That was a joke. I have a washing machine just like Mommy.”

“Shit.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“There’s a scary movie on TV tonight, Uncle Jason. If you’re good, I’ll let you watch it.”

“Screw you, kid. I’ll let you watch it.”

Timmy clapped his hands and almost dropped a plate. “Yay, we’re watching a scary movie!”

I stared at my nephew for about fifteen seconds. Had I just been tricked into telling him he could watch a scary movie? He wasn’t that smart, was he? Good lord, I’d have to be on my toes for the next four weeks or this kid would be leading me around like a poodle on a leash.

Speaking of which. “Wanna help me walk Thumper?”

Timmy’s eyes got big and round. “You mean the dog?”

“No, my pet anteater. Of course the dog.”

“Can she walk? I thought she was dead.”

“She’s not dead. She’s just old.”

“But she hasn’t moved all day.”

“Like I said, she’s old. One day you’ll be old and you won’t move all day either.” And God, wouldn’t that be a blessing.

Timmy craned his neck back and looked through the kitchen doorway into the living room, where even now I could hear Thumper snoring like a sawmill.

Timmy stood there on the chair, the plate forgotten in his hand, his face agape with wonder like one of the shepherd kids in Fatima, Portugal, eyeballing the Virgin Mary popping out of a stump. “I wanna see her walk. Are you sure she’s not dead?”

“Yes,” I said, molding my face into a phony smile, a la used car salesman trying to sell a clunker to anybody who’d listen. Shooting for camaraderie, I waggled a finger in Timmy’s ribs. “And just to make it more fun, it’ll be your job to pick up the poop.”

Timmy turned and stared at me. Then he guffawed. It’s a little disconcerting when a four-year-old guffaws. “She’s your dog,” Timmy said, his face scrunched up in concentration while he dug a booger out of his nose. “You pick up the poop.”

Damn. I thought I had him that time. I handed the kid a tissue, plucked the plate from his hand, and tossed it back in the dishwater in case it had a booger on it—and decided on the spot if Timmy ever managed to stay alive long enough to grow up, he’d probably be president. Two terms. Hell, even I’d vote for him. Both times.

Timmy seemed properly astounded that Thumper truly was alive. He even insisted on holding the leash as we traipsed out into the night. Of course, we were traipsing at a snail’s pace since Thumper’s arthritic joints were not conducive to scampering.

“She’s awful slow,” Timmy whined.

“When you’re old, you’ll be slow too.”

“Then I won’t get old.”

“Fine, Peter Pan. Just walk the frigging dog.”

The night was gorgeous and balmy. It was June, and June in San Diego is perfect. With a younger dog, we might have enjoyed the evening for hours, but with Thumper, we barely got around the block. In fact, we didn’t. We were halfway around the block when Thumper gave out and insisted on being carried the rest of the way home.

“Will you carry me too?” Timmy asked.

“No.”

“Can I wear the leash?”

“Sure,” I said. I unclipped the collar from Thumper’s throat and clipped it around Timmy’s neck. He followed along behind me on the leash like a good little puppy until we passed Mrs. Lindquist, who lives down the block. She was walking her Pomeranian, and when she spotted me with the kid on a leash, she felt it her duty to intervene.

She bent over Timmy and patted his head. “Is this man hurting you?” she asked.

“Woof!” Timmy said.

Mrs. Lindquist straightened up and nailed me with a piercing stare. “Is he normal?” she asked.

I smiled and said, “Define normal.”

Mrs. Lindquist simply shook her head and walked on, dragging the poor Pom behind her. Lucky bitch. At least her dog could walk.

Back at the house, we deposited Thumper in among the sofa cushions, and she promptly fell asleep, worn out completely by all the excitement. Timmy didn’t want to take the collar off, so I merely unhooked the leash and left the collar in place around his scrawny neck. He looked like a tiny submissive, waiting for his Dom to come along and whap him with a whip.

I ran a couple of inches of warm water into the tub and laid out a towel and my favorite rubber ducky. Don’t ask.

“We have twenty minutes before the movie,” I said, handing him his pajamas. “Go take your bath.”

“Mommy only makes me take a bath once a month.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Nice try, Timmy. Get in the tub.”

He glowered and snatched the pj’s out of my hand. “Don’t watch. I know you like boys.”

At that, I laughed. “Jesus, kid, just go take your bath, and I’ll make us some popcorn for the movie.”

He brightened up. “With butter?”

“No. I thought I’d just dip it in lard.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Timmy skipped off to the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

He skipped back out of the bathroom three minutes later. His hair was a little damp, but that was probably just for show. If any other body parts had seen moisture, he couldn’t have been long about it. Unfortunately, I was too worn out to care. His pajamas had little rocket ships on them. I found myself sort of wishing I had a pair.

We settled onto the sofa on either side of Thumper and tuned in to the movie, switching the sound from Spanish to English. Thumper raised her head and growled, so I switched it back to Spanish. Timmy thought it was funny, watching the movie in Spanish. We had English subtitles of course, but he couldn’t read them. At least I didn’t think he could. Still, he didn’t seem to mind.

The movie was so bad I found myself giggling halfway through it. Then it got scary, and I found myself chewing on a cushion and squinting through the gory parts, trying not to look. Timmy and Thumper both sat there wide-eyed and breathless, taking in every spurt of blood and every dying moan from the poor helpless citizens of Burbank being devoured by zombies on the screen.

The movie wasn’t yet over when Timmy doubled over like a pocketknife and fell sound asleep. This time when I oh so carefully carried him in my arms up the stairs and deposited him in his bed, he stayed there.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

I toddled downstairs, as happy as I had ever been in my life, poured myself a healthy dollop of scotch, and settled in to finish the movie. Thumper was still watching it. I guess she liked it too. Her tail was wagging. Or maybe she was just as elated as I was that Timmy had finally crashed.

“What did I miss?” I asked.

Thumper ignored me. Too wrapped up in the movie to respond, I supposed.

After three scotches and the demise of upwards of a hundred movie extras, all torn to shreds and devoured by the scary-ass zombies, I was ready for bed myself.

I peeked into Timmy’s room to make sure he was still sound asleep, and he looked like a little angel lying there in his rocket-ship pajamas. Of course, I had spent the day with him. I knew better.

I brushed my teeth, then switched on the newly acquired baby monitor I had bought myself before Timmy’s arrival and which now sat like a tiny guardian angel on the nightstand insuring me a little peace of mind that Timmy wouldn’t dismantle the house while I slept. The baby monitor exuded a comforting fuzz of sound, filling up the shadows quite nicely. I rather enjoyed hearing it. I tucked myself naked into my bed, since it’s the only way I can sleep, then tucked Thumper under the covers beside me like a hot water bottle. I lay there all snug and secure with the crackly sound of the baby monitor and those three or four scotch and waters coaxing me into dreamland. Thumper rested her chin on my leg and was snoring in less than a minute. It took me a little longer. Just before my eyes and brain happily shut down for the night, a thought hit me in the head like a line drive, jarring me awake.

I bolted straight up in bed, suddenly remembering what Timmy had said at dinner.

“The man in the basement is nice.”

I blinked.

What man in the basement?

Winter Oranges by Marie Sexton

Chapter One

It was easy to believe the house was haunted. After acting for most of his life, Jason Walker’s first thought upon seeing the home he’d purchased virtually sight unseen was that it would have been a perfect place to film an Amityville remake.

A little far from Amity, but hey, Hollywood had never been a stickler for rules.

Or honesty.

Jason put his car in park and killed the engine. Gravel crunched as his friend Dylan’s rental car rolled to a stop next to him. They climbed out of their vehicles and stood side by side, leaning against Jason’s front bumper, staring up at his new abode.

Dylan whistled, long and low, then shook his head. “This place is creepy as hell.”

“It’s just the light.” Even a washed-up actor like Jason knew lighting could make or break a scene. The pictures he’d seen online of the house had been taken in full sunlight in October, with the majestic glory of autumn on all sides, the gold- and scarlet-leaved trees nearer the house backed by the evergreens of the surrounding forest. But now, only a week into November, the eerie orange glow of twilight fell on bare branches, and the pines seemed droopy and forlorn. None of it was doing this house any favors.

Still, Dylan had a point. The house was creepy. Something about the lone, low window over the second floor’s covered patio. Something about the house’s quiet isolation, and the thin white curtains hanging uniformly in every window. Or maybe it was the detached garage with its guesthouse on top, sitting like a forgotten toy off to the left.

“How old is it?” Dylan asked.

“It was built in the ’90s.”

“The 1890s?” Dylan was incredulous. The idea of spending money on anything so old was obviously beyond his comprehension.

“No. The 1990s.”

“It looks older.”

“It’s supposed to.” His real estate agent, Sydney Bell, had called the house an American foursquare revival. Jason didn’t know what that meant and didn’t care. The price was right, the house was fully furnished, and its relative seclusion in the mountainous region of Idaho’s panhandle would make it harder for tabloid photographers to find him.

“They intentionally made it look old?” Dylan asked, as if it was the most absurd thing he’d heard all day.

“They copied an older style of architecture.”

“Huh.” Dylan scratched his chin and threw Jason a smart-assed grin. “Retro. Like you.”

Jason laughed, because that’s what Dylan expected. “Fuck you.” He pushed off the bumper of his car, rattling his keys in his hand. “Let’s see what it’s like inside.”

The second story extended out over the first like an overbite, creating a covered front porch that ran the length of the house. “A veranda,” Sydney had called it. The front door opened into a hallway, although Jason suspected Sydney would have said it was a foyer. Or maybe a vestibule. To the right lay a large living room, furnished in what could only be called cozy-grandma style, with lots of flowers and overstuffed cushions. A stack of moving boxes stood in the center of the floor, having been left there the previous day by the moving company, working under Sydney’s direction. To the left of the foyer sat the dining room, through which they could see the kitchen. Jason knew a mudroom and pantry made up the back half of the area. Directly ahead of where they stood by the front door, a bathroom and the staircase leading up completed the ground floor.

No ghosts, though. Not so far, at least.

“Who the hell picked out that couch?” Dylan asked.

“The previous owner, I guess.” In truth, Jason hadn’t cared much what the furniture looked like. Sydney had promised him it was all in decent condition. Jason was just happy he didn’t have to go wandering around town searching for a damn table to eat at, or a chair to sit in while he watched TV. He’d had Sydney stock the kitchen with a few essentials too, assuring he wouldn’t have to go grocery shopping for a few days at least. The last thing he needed was for somebody in Coeur d’Alene to discover the child star turned B-list actor known to the public as Jadon Walker Buttermore had moved in to their small community. The longer he remained anonymous, the better.

Dylan scowled at the couch as if it had personally offended him. Knowing Dylan and his neo-minimalist style, it probably had. “It’s like something my grandma would have bought.”

Jason laughed. “What? You have something against giant pink roses?”

“On a couch? Yeah, I do. And so should you.”

Jason sat down on the sofa and leaned back. He searched with his left hand and found the lever to extend the footrest. He reclined the backrest and smiled up at Dylan. “It’s not bad, actually.”

“You should have let me furnish it for you.”

“Yeah, right.” Jason sat upright again, shoving the footrest closed with his heels. “I’d have ended up with one designer chair that cost more than my car. And it wouldn’t even have been comfortable.”

Dylan’s laugh was sudden and loud in the confines of the quiet house. “Boy, you don’t think much of me, do you?”

That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true at all, and he suspected Dylan knew it, but Dylan always did this to him, asking questions that seemed to dare Jason to blurt out how he really felt. Jason chose to ignore most of them, this one included. “Come on. Let’s check out the rest.”

Although the house was more than twenty years old, the kitchen had been updated and included all new chrome appliances and a trash compactor that Sydney swore was top-of-the-line and quiet as a whisper. Jason didn’t bother to test the claim.

The second floor held a tiny bathroom and four bedrooms, one in each corner, which Jason supposed was what gave the foursquare its name. A stairway led to a long, slope-ceilinged attic bedroom. At the far end, the single narrow window Jason had noticed upon arrival allowed a bit of light to creep inside. It was a sad, empty room, and they didn’t linger.

“Whoever lived here sure did love flowers,” Dylan said as they scoped out the first couple of bedrooms on the second floor. “Wallpaper, bedspreads, pictures. Even the rug in the bathroom has roses on it. And they’re all pink.”

“It could be worse.”

“How?”

“Uh . . .” Jason stopped, considering. “I’m not sure, to be honest.”

They ended their tour, by some unspoken agreement, in the master bedroom. It was the one room Jason’d had refurnished before his arrival. He’d chosen the furniture himself—online, of course—and Sydney had made sure everything would be ready when he arrived. His new room held a large oak dresser, a chest of drawers, and a love seat, which he knew would end up a depository for not-quite-dirty laundry. A king-sized bed covered with a thick down comforter sat against the wall, between two nightstands.

Dylan pointed to the glass-paned door in the corner of the room. “This goes to that patio we could see from the front yard?”

“It does.”

The two front bedrooms shared a covered porch that sat dead center of the front of the house, directly below the attic window. It was a strange setup, a throwback to when husbands and wives had separate quarters. The porch would have allowed them to cross to each other’s room without alerting the children, except this house had been built at the end of the twentieth century, making the floor plan an anachronism.

Dylan opened the door, and Jason followed him outside. They still wore their jackets, but now the sun had set and the November evening felt cooler than before.

“There’s a room over the garage too?” Dylan asked.

“Yep, bed and bath.” They stood surveying the building in question from their vantage point on the porch. It was eerily silent.

“Well, is it everything you dreamed?”

Yes. Standing there with Dylan, out of sight of everybody else in the world was exactly what he dreamed about, nearly every night.

Not that he’d ever admit it out loud.

Instead, Jason nodded, then asked, as casually as he could, “You’re staying the night, right?”

Dylan grinned and stepped closer to slide his arm around Jason’s waist. “I didn’t come all this way to see your house.”

Jason’s relief felt almost tangible, so sudden and strong he wondered if Dylan sensed it. He hoped not. He hoped the darkness hid his pathetic happiness at knowing Dylan was staying. They’d been friends for more than ten years. They’d shared a bed more times than Jason could count. Dylan may have suspected Jason’s true feelings, but Jason did his best to never confirm them, especially since Dylan avoided genuine emotions and commitment the way Jason avoided anybody with a press badge hanging around their neck.

Still, Jason rejoiced as Dylan pulled him close. He sank gratefully into the warmth of Dylan’s kiss, comfortable in his friend’s arms. He grew breathless as Dylan began fighting with the buttons of Jason’s jeans.

“Let’s do it here,” Dylan whispered.

Jason glanced around in alarm, searching for the telltale wink of light reflecting off a camera lens. “Somebody will see.”

“There’s nobody around. That’s why we’re in the wilds of Idaho, remember?”

Jason’s protests dwindled as Dylan sank to his knees, pulling Jason’s pants halfway down his hips as he did. He traced his tongue up Jason’s erection. “God, Jase. It’s been too long.”

“I know.” Way too long since he’d had Dylan to himself. Too many lonely nights since he’d felt Dylan’s touch. He’d been in love with his friend for longer than he cared to admit, but this was the first time in months they’d been alone together. Still, he was hesitant to do anything out in the open. “Dylan, wait. I—” His words died as Dylan wrapped his lips around Jason’s glans. “Oh God.”

Dylan sucked him in deep, stalling for moment with his nose pressed against Jason’s pubic bone. Then, finally, he began to move, sliding his warm mouth up and down Jason’s length. Jason gripped the cold porch railing with one hand, tangled the fingers of the other into Dylan’s heavily moussed hair, and tried to lose himself to the pleasure of being sucked by the man he loved. He breathed deep, willing the tension away. Doing his best to banish the pressure of trying to make it in Hollywood and failing, of never living up to what was expected. He tried to forget it all. To simply revel in the pure joy of being with Dylan here and now, knowing they had one full night together, just the two of them. No other struggling actors or desperate starlets. No two-bit directors or double-crossing producers. And above all, no media waiting to catch them with their pants down.

Literally.

But as good as it was being with Dylan, the real world always intruded. His house was set back half an acre from the road, but anybody who came up the drive would be able to see them. The No Trespassing signs wouldn’t mean a thing to a photographer hoping for a scoop.

Jason moaned—part pleasure, part disappointment that even now he couldn’t relax—and opened his eyes. He kept his hand on Dylan’s head as he surveyed the tree line, his chest tight with anxiety at what he might find.

But the grounds around the house—his house, he had to remind himself—were dark and still and silent. Nobody lingered there.

Yes, this could really happen. Jason almost laughed at the realization. He imagined being fucked by Dylan right there on the porch. The thought thrilled him, and his throaty moan made Dylan speed up, his ministrations gaining a new urgency as he sucked Jason’s cock. In the low light on the porch, Jason could barely make out the movement of Dylan’s hand between his legs as he stroked himself.

Did they have any lube handy? Or condoms?

Fuck it. Just this for now. I’ll let him suck me here, where only the moon can see. We’ll have time for the rest later.

He surveyed the yard again, his eyes half-closed, his breath quick and labored as his orgasm neared. He peered past their parked cars. Found the garage. Followed its lines up toward the second-story guesthouse and its single window—

“Holy shit!” Jason jumped back, away from the porch railing, away from Dylan, trying to clumsily pull his pants up and hide himself against the wall.

“What the hell, Jase?” Dylan’s voice was low and hoarse.

“There was somebody—” But there wasn’t. Jason swore he’d seen a face in the window of the apartment over the garage, but now it stood empty except for the unmoving curtains. Jason swallowed hard, willing his heart to stop pounding. He pointed with a shaking hand toward the garage. “I thought I saw somebody in the guesthouse.”

“I’ve never met anybody as paranoid as you.” Dylan pushed himself up from his knees, his pants still hanging open, his erect cock sticking into the night air like some kind of ridiculous talisman. “Not that it isn’t justified, but . . .” He gestured to the empty lawn. “There’s nobody there.”

“I thought I saw—”

“What? A photographer?”

Jason shook his head, holding his pants closed around his waning erection, trying to sort through his thoughts. Had he imagined it? “It was a man.”

“Did he have a camera?”

The question took him aback. “No,” he said, almost surprised at his own answer. He’d seen only a face. Not even a full face, to be honest. Only the pale suggestion of eyes and a chin, and lips held in a comical O of surprise.

But now, the window was empty. The curtains weren’t even swaying. The room over the garage was pitch dark.

“Do you want me to go check?” Dylan asked with the accommodating condescension of a father offering to check for monsters under his teenage daughter’s bed.

“No.” Jason took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, feigning a bravado he didn’t feel. “You’re right. There’s nobody there. I must have been seeing things.”

Dylan grinned and moved closer, wrapping his arms around him. “You need to relax, JayWalk.”

It was the press’s nickname for Jason. He hated it, although it didn’t sound quite so ridiculous when Dylan said it. “I’m trying.”

“You want a drink?”

“That won’t help.”

“Some weed?” He kissed Jason’s neck, pushing his erection insistently against him. “Poppers? A Valium? I have some in my bag. Tell me what you need, baby, and I’ll get it. You know that. Anything for you.”

Anything.

As long as it was only for tonight.

Anything he needed, but only until morning.

“Let’s go inside,” Jason said. “I have a brand-new bed in there, you know.”

Dylan’s laugh was throaty and gratifying. “Then let’s go break it in.”

Jason followed him inside, glancing once toward the guesthouse over the garage.

Nobody there.

***

Jason woke to birds chirping happily outside the window. Sunlight was streaming through the thin white curtains, making the entire room feel like a midmorning dream. Dylan slept next to him, his bare back rising and falling with his soft snores. For a while, Jason simply watched him, remembering the night before. Reliving how good it felt to fall asleep next to the man he loved.

If only it could be like this every day.

But no. Dylan would go back to California, and Jason would be left alone in a house that was way too big for him.

He was looking forward to it. Not to Dylan leaving, of course. That’d break his heart, like it always did. But after that, there’d be only him, the house, and the bliss of seclusion. People often said privacy was the last luxury. Jason knew it was true. After a lifetime in the limelight—or chasing the limelight, at any rate—he’d learned that privacy was a commodity more precious than gold, as unattainable as stardom and fame, rarer than real breasts in porn. Privacy was the great white whale, and Jason was determined to harpoon that beast and make it his.

Buying the house had been the first step.

He climbed out of bed and considered what to wear. Of course, the closet and all the drawers were empty. They’d never gotten around to bringing his suitcases in from the car. Some of the boxes in the living room held clothes, but he’d didn’t relish the idea of digging through them naked. He put on the jeans he’d worn the day before and went barefoot down the stairs in search of coffee. He waited until it was brewing to check his cell phone. No messages from Natalie Reuben, his agent. That meant no pictures had surfaced of him and Dylan on the porch.

Not yet, at least.

He took his coffee out onto the veranda. Movement flashed in his peripheral vision, but when he turned, he caught only the unmistakable white tale of a deer bounding into the trees.

“Hey, you can stay,” he called after it. “As long as you don’t have a camera.”

The deer kept running, clearly unimpressed by Jason’s concession.

Jason rested his hip against the railing and searched in vain for more wildlife. Sydney had mentioned deer, caribou, bighorn sheep, and lemmings, although Jason wouldn’t know a lemming if it popped up and said hello. She’d also mentioned foxes, wolves, wolverines, and grizzlies, although she’d assured him those were more elusive. Jason had jokingly told her he’d rather face a grizzly than a photographer. Now, staring out into the woods that surrounded him, he wasn’t so sure.

His eyes fell at last on the garage. It’d been built in the style of an old barn, with a tall, rounded roof. The big doors meant for cars were on the far side of the building. On the near side, there was only a single, person-sized doorway, with a cobblestone path leading to the mudroom off the kitchen. Jason eyed the window on the second floor. Had he really seen somebody in it?

He left his coffee cup on the porch and descended the front steps, angling off the path toward the garage, the frosty grass crunching under his bare feet. It was colder than he expected, each step worse than the one before, and he ended up doing an ungraceful skip-hop-hop across the frozen ground, trying to walk without letting his feet touch the ground any longer than necessary. He imagined he looked like those idiots who walked across coals, so he stopped when he reached the cobblestones and glanced around, hoping no photographers had shown up to capture it on film. No matter how innocuous the activity, the tabloids always managed to put a tantalizing spin on things. He imagined the headlines.

Jadon Walker Buttermore on Drugs! Thinks the Ground Is Hot Lava!

JayWalk in the Throes of Drug-Induced Hallucination!

JayWalking His Way to the Loony Bin!

Not as sensational as a sex tape, but still enough to sell a few copies.

His paranoia proved unwarranted. He saw no sign of trespassers. Then again, he hadn’t seen the photographer who’d taken the pictures of him and Dylan eight months earlier, either. He hadn’t known until Natalie called him the next morning that he’d made StarWatch’s cover once again. In some ways, it had been a relief. He’d been debating the best way to come out for ages. But being outed in such a sensational way hadn’t been part of the plan.

He glanced toward his bedroom, and the second-floor porch, where he and Dylan had made out the night before. He shuddered, thinking how careless he’d been. Some people said there was no such thing as bad press, but those people had clearly never been caught in a tabloid’s crosshairs.

“Can’t let that happen again,” he mumbled as he turned toward the garage.

The door was nothing special. A four-paned window up top, solid wood below. He tried the knob, but found it locked. Nothing of interest when he peered inside, either. Empty spaces where cars belonged and empty shelves along the walls. He knew from viewing the floor plans that the staircase to the guesthouse lay directly to his right, along the same interior wall that held the door, but he couldn’t see it.

He tried the knob a second time, for no good reason whatsoever. Still locked. Not that he’d expected that to change.

If a photographer had found their way inside, would they have thought to lock the door behind them? Would they still be up there, or had they snuck out during the night?

Jason crouched and inspected the cobblestones at his feet, searching for footprints, or—

Well, to be honest, he didn’t know what exactly. Maybe a note written in chalk, “The paparazzi was here”?

He found nothing but dirt and damp cobblestones.

He crossed back over to the house, confident that he looked less ridiculous than he had the first time. He went quietly up the stairs, wondering if Dylan was still asleep. He imagined crawling under his new down comforter, snuggling into the familiar warmth of Dylan’s arms, maybe making love one more time before saying good-bye. It disappointed him to find Dylan already up and half-dressed.

“Hey, there you are,” Dylan said as he buttoned his shirt. His jeans were on too, although his feet were still bare.

Jason settled on the bed and crossed his legs. “Are you leaving already?”

“I have a flight to catch.”

“I see.” Jason had driven his car full of belongings to Idaho and checked into a motel in nearby Coeur d’Alene a few days before the closing. He’d been thrilled when Dylan had called at the last minute and told him he’d booked a flight to Spokane and would be there in time to help Jason with the move. And now here they were: Jason’s bags still sitting in his car in the driveway, and Dylan already with one foot out the door.

Jason fiddled with the ragged hem of his jeans, debating. He wanted to ask what was so urgent that Dylan had to rush out before breakfast. He wanted to suggest that Dylan stay, if not another night, at least a few more hours. But he couldn’t figure out how to say any of it without sounding desperate.

“I have an appointment for new head shots at four,” Dylan went on. “And then later tonight . . .” He grinned mischievously. “I have a hot date.”

Jason’s heart sank. “Oh?”

“Remember Tryss?”

“Victim Number Five, from Summer Camp Nightmare 3?”

“That’s the one. Poor girl has daddy issues from here to the moon, a failed acting career, and a boob job she’s still paying off. It’s like the desperation trifecta.” He winked. “Even you couldn’t turn that down.”

“I have turned that down.”

Dylan laughed and perched on the edge of the love seat to pull on his shoes. When he glanced up again, Jason was surprised to find his expression somber. “It was good seeing you, Jase.”

Jason did his best to keep his tone casual when he answered. “You too."

“I had a great time last night.”

“So did I.” But those words didn't sound casual at all. Jason knew his heartache had crept into his voice, but Dylan showed no sign of having heard it as he crossed the room and put a hand on either side of Jason’s face, leaning close to peer into his eyes.

“You know I love you, right?”

Jason’s heart leapt. He swallowed hard. “You do?”

“Of course. You’re like a brother to me. You know that.”

Jason was pretty sure most brothers didn’t do what they’d done the night before, but he didn’t argue. He only hoped Dylan couldn’t see how much those words hurt him. “I love you too.” He was proud that he managed to keep his voice steady.

And casual.

“You’ll call me if you need anything, right?” Dylan asked.

Jason nodded. “Right,” he lied.

“Good.” Dylan kissed him—not like a brother, certainly, but not quite like a lover either.

Like a friend.

“Take care, JayWalk.”

“You too.”

And then Dylan walked down the stairs. Out the front door. Jason refused to watch. He only listened as Dylan’s car crunched over the gravel drive toward the main road.

And then there was only Jason, and the solitude he’d longed for so desperately.

Funny how solitude and loneliness felt so much alike.

Dangerous Spirits by Jordan L Hawk

Chapter 1 

“And that is my report,” Henry Strauss concluded. “We successfully put an end to the haunting, and the usefulness of my inventions was proven once and for all.” 

He stepped away from the podium where he’d placed his notes and gazed out over the gathering. Almost every member of the Baltimore Psychical Society had come to hear his lecture, and he scanned the faces of the men—and a few women—awaiting the spread of approving smiles. The beginnings of applause. Perhaps a standing ovation? 

The small lecture hall remained utterly silent, save for the occasional cough or rattle of papers. Stony faces stared back at him, and two of the women leaned together, whispering behind their fans. 

“Er…” Henry resisted the impulse to tug at his collar. Although the windows were open to let in a breeze, the inescapable heat of early July remained oppressive even after sunset. “Are there, ah, any questions?” 

Dr. Kelly, the Psychical Society’s president, slowly folded his arms over his chest. His beard jutted out in front of him, like an angry badger attached to his chin. “Mr. Strauss,” he said, and Henry tried not to flinch at his cold tone, “for years you have insisted on expounding your wild theories to us. You have claimed our beloved dead are nothing more than electromagnetic aberrations—”

“Because they are,” Henry objected. “Otherworldly spirits do manifest as electromagnetic fields, at least on this side of the veil. But our brains themselves are powered by just such impulses. There is nothing wrong with accepting the findings of science.” 

“These are the souls of the departed! Not mere—mere electrical impulses!” Dr. Kelly glared at him. “I granted you one more opportunity to speak to us, in the hope you might have something useful to say. And you bring us this?” 

“Er…yes?” Henry’s knees turned to water. He wanted to sink through the floor. Or hide behind the podium, perhaps, until everyone left. “I…I thought my inventions made a very good showing.” 

Kelly dropped his arms to his sides, his face thunderous. “A good showing? Mr. Gladfield, the very man who invited you to try your inventions, died, Mr. Strauss! I’m sure I have no need to remind you he was a close friend of this society’s former president.” 

“Well, yes.” Henry’s thoughts scrambled wildly, like rabbits in a trap. “But—” 

“Not only did this haunting end in utter disaster, the owner of the house dead and yourself almost killed by a maniac, but you still had to rely on the actions of mediums to remove the spirits.” 

“But we did remove them!” Henry seized on the fact. “By combining the best of our abilities, Mr. Night and I put an end to the haunting and freed Reyhome Castle’s trapped spirits.”

“It seems to me,” said Mr. Tilling, the secretary, “your presence rather made things worse. If Mr. Gladfield hadn’t made the thing into a contest and involved you, a group of competent mediums would have cleared the house without such…mayhem.” 

Henry swallowed. “I-I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but if Mr. Gladfield told us beforehand what to expect, things might not have—” 

“Don’t blame Mr. Gladfield for your failure,” Kelly cut him off. “I suggest you retire to your store and ask yourself if you might be better suited to another line of work. And I will thank you not to darken the doorstep of this society with your presence again.” 

He rose to his feet and departed with swift strides. The rest of the society took its cue from him, shuffling toward the exit, collecting capes and hats along the way. A few shot Henry amused looks, others sly sneers as they exchanged remarks with their friends. Thankfully the scuff of shoes and rustle of clothing kept him from making out their words. 

Henry’s face burned with humiliation, and his fingers shook. He wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to go. So he only stood on the stage, until everyone had left except for one other man. 

“I’m sorry, old boy,” Arthur Burwell said as he made his way to the stage. His steps echoed in the otherwise empty room, magnified by the acoustics. “Dr. Kelly is an ass, to have said such things in front of everyone else.”

Henry looked at Arthur, the only person who’d stuck by him after the Strauss family fell from respectable wealth to impoverishment. He’d stood at Henry’s side since boyhood, through all the years of striving and setbacks. 

For the first time, Henry wished his friend absent. Thank heavens neither Vincent nor Lizzie possessed any interest in joining the Society, and thus missed the debacle. 

Henry swallowed again; his collar seemed intent on strangling him. “I…I thought they’d finally see. Now that I have proof…” He trailed away as Kelly’s accusations came back. “You don’t think he was right, do you? Was I responsible for Gladfield’s death?” 

“No, of course not,” Arthur said staunchly. 

Arthur didn’t know the details, though. If Henry hadn’t exposed Lizzie’s secret—that the anatomy beneath her petticoats wasn’t what one might expect—Gladfield wouldn’t have attacked her. The swirl of pain and fury wouldn’t have given the ghost the energy to hurl Gladfield over the balcony and to his doom. 

“Clearly Mr. Night and Miss Devereaux believe in your work,” Arthur went on. “They wouldn’t have gone into business with you otherwise, would they?” 

“I suppose not.” Still, Kelly’s words seemed to ring in his ears. 

With a sigh, Henry gathered his papers from the podium. How proud he’d been of the presentation. He’d worked on it for weeks, performing it in front of a little audience of Jo, Arthur, Vincent, and Lizzie. Jo clapped when he finished, her face bright, so proud of her cousin. And Vincent—they’d joked about Henry having to go on tour, or being invited to take over the presidency of the Psychical Society. 

Oh God. “Vincent. I’m supposed to meet him at the saloon.” 

Arthur nodded solemnly. “A good thing. I imagine you could use a drink.” 

~ * ~ 

Henry stood outside the saloon and tried to dredge up a smile. He wished for Arthur’s strong shoulder to lean on, but his friend had a wife and young child, to whom he returned immediately after the lecture. 

Vincent had suggested they meet here to celebrate Henry’s triumph. Tonight, after all these years, the Psychical Society was to have finally given Henry his due. They were meant to toast Henry’s victory with whiskey, laugh and sing until the barkeep threw them out, then stumble home to bed and a more private celebration. 

Instead, he’d have to go in and confess the humiliating truth. 

He took a deep breath, fighting against the hollow ache in his chest. Vincent would be outraged on Henry’s behalf when he found out, surely. As Arthur said, he’d seen the usefulness of Henry’s inventions, believed in them so much he agreed to go into business together. Moreover, to talk Lizzie into doing the same, uprooting them both from New York to Baltimore in the process. 

In other words, Vincent had bet his entire livelihood on Henry’s ability to make his inventions acceptable—marketable, even. And Henry couldn’t even convince the Psychical Society they were anything but a hazard. What hope did he have of convincing other mediums, or the general public? Perhaps Dr. Kelly was right. 

Perhaps he should give up on the spirit world and turn his attention to more practical pursuits. But it would mean admitting Vincent had wasted both his time and his money on Henry’s schemes. What could he say? “Sorry you and Lizzie poured every cent you own into our shop. Better luck next time?” 

The situation hadn’t come to that yet. Perhaps it wouldn’t. Henry would simply worry about getting through the next few minutes and gauge Vincent’s reaction afterward. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and pushed open the door. 

Laughter and the clink of glasses greeted him. The saloon was a comfortable place, full of polished wood and brass, and he’d drank here many a time with Arthur. Sometimes when he needed encouragement or a friendly ear, sometimes to celebrate—his scraping together enough funds to buy his repair shop; Arthur’s engagement; the opening of the new occult store with Vincent and Lizzie. Tonight was supposed to have been another one of those bright memories to cherish long after the final pint was drained. 

Henry squinted through the haze of cigar smoke in hopes of spotting Vincent. He wasn’t at the bar, or any of the tables near the front door. Where…? 

There. Vincent sat in a far corner, and even after half a year, the sight of him stole Henry’s breath. Some would dismiss him for his copper skin, but Henry had always found Vincent achingly beautiful. He’d grown out his thick black hair, adopting the style flaunted by Mr. Wilde during his recent American tour. It seemed to emphasize Vincent’s eyes, so dark it was almost impossible to distinguish between pupil and iris. High cheekbones, a wide nose, and full lips completed the picture, but it was the heart within that had truly captured Henry. 

And right now, Vincent sat with another man. 

Henry recognized the pale hair and skin, coupled with a cream linen coat, even without seeing the man’s face. Christopher Maillard, self-styled poet and artist, and handsome as the very devil. A man of independent means with a keen interest in spiritualism and a disdain for the Psychical Society as being too skeptical. 

Henry crossed the room quickly. “What do you think of my verse?” Christopher asked Vincent. “Your performance at the séance last month inspired me.” 

What on earth did he mean? Of course Vincent did private séances, as did Lizzie. But what sort of performance would inspire Maillard to capture it in rhyme? 

Vincent offered Maillard a lazy smile. “Exquisite work, Christopher. As always.” 

Henry clenched his fists. Was this to be the cap on his night? To stand here in defeat and shame, while his lover was seduced away by some—some poet? 

Vincent’s black eyes shifted from Christopher, perhaps alerted by some movement of Henry’s. A spark seemed to light their depths, and his smile slid from lazy to welcoming. “Henry! You’re here at last! I expect all your admirers kept you late with their questions?”

Henry opened his mouth to confess his own heavy feet caused his delay. Combined with the desire not to spend his funds on a cab, as they might have to soon tighten their belts. 

“Yes, do tell us all about your lecture,” Maillard put in. “I’ve heard nothing else from Vincent all night. He’s positively bursting with pride.” 

Maillard gave him a look of droll amusement, as if he couldn’t imagine Henry having anything interesting or important to say. Vincent gazed at him hopefully. Waiting to hear how all his faith in Henry was repaid. 

Without conscious decision, Henry said, “It was a resounding success. The president himself wished to offer his congratulations. I’m sorry to have made you wait.” 

Vincent threw back his head and let out a laugh of sheer delight. “I knew it! Barkeep! Another round for the table—your best whiskey!” 

The smirk slipped from Maillard’s face. “Well done,” he muttered. 

“I…yes,” Henry said faintly. And downed his whiskey in a single gulp. 

~ * ~ 

Vincent linked arms with Henry, and they walked—or perhaps stumbled—through the streets back to the shop. Although Vincent rented an apartment of his own, he frequently spent the night in Henry’s bed above Strauss, Night & Devereaux: Occult Services. Given the lateness of the hour, Jo ought to be asleep by now. Henry certainly hoped so, not because she didn’t understand the nature of his relationship with Vincent, but because he didn’t want to spin another false tale of the evening. 

Why on earth did he make such a statement? And why hadn’t he corrected himself immediately? 

Vincent had been so proud of him, though. And to confess he’d failed in front of Maillard, to admit Vincent made a mistake when it came to joining his fate with Henry’s…seemed unendurable. 

“I wore the cufflinks you gave me for my birthday, to bring you luck tonight,” Vincent said, holding up his free arm. The small gold stud gleamed faintly in the gaslight. “See? It worked.” 

“I see,” Henry said weakly. He needed to confess the lie. Now, before it was too late. 

“Look there!” Vincent exclaimed, swinging Henry around. Startled by the sudden move, Henry nearly lost his footing. Vincent caught him, laughing. “How much whiskey did you have?” 

“Not enough,” Henry muttered. 

“Good.” Vincent’s eyes took on a new heat. “Because I have another celebration in mind.” 

Desire tightened Henry’s throat—and his trousers. He ached to pull Vincent close and kiss him. But ending the night in jail, on charges of unnatural acts, would take the evening from humiliating to disastrous. 

“Don’t say such things on the street,” he cautioned.

Vincent gestured. “It’s after midnight. We’re the only fools about. Now look.” 

Vincent’s object of fascination seemed to be an advertisement, pasted to the side of the nearest building. 

One Week Only! 

Dr. Calgori 

Oracle of the Spirits 

Will Astound and Amaze You! 

Learn the Insights of the Otherworld!

 

And in smaller print: 

This lyceum sponsored by the Baltimore Psychical Society.

 

Vincent leaned his head against Henry’s shoulder. “That’s going to be us, someday,” he said dreamily. “Up on a stage together. Performing for crowds in New York. San Francisco. London.” 

Bile clawed at Henry’s throat, as if the whiskeys wished to return the way they’d come. He swallowed hard. “Is that what you want?” 

Vincent seemed to consider. “I never thought about it before. It would have seemed an impossible dream.” He turned his warm smile on Henry. “But with you…everything seems possible.”

~ * ~ 

Vincent had barely shut the door behind them before Henry pounced. Henry and his cousin Jo lived in the small suite of rooms above the shop, while Vincent and Lizzie each leased apartments a short distance away. Henry occasionally spent the night in Vincent’s bed, but as he disliked leaving Jo alone for too long, they more often found themselves here. 

A situation to which Vincent didn’t object. All of his previous affairs had been of the most casual sort, and he rather liked seeing some of his spare clothes hung in the wardrobe, bright against the more somber tones of Henry’s suits. It made him feel as if perhaps moving from New York to Baltimore had been the right thing to do. As if he might again find the sort of home he’d once enjoyed as an apprentice, after James Dunne rescued him from the streets of the Bowery. 

Assuming Henry didn’t leave him behind. 

Henry caught Vincent’s hair in his fingers, tugging him down for an urgent kiss. Henry’s mouth tasted of whiskey, his tongue hot and wet as it slid against Vincent’s. Vincent shaped Henry’s form, shoving beneath his coat to catch his slender hips and pull him tight. The hard ridge of Henry’s erection pressed against Vincent’s own, and he ground against Henry, receiving a moan for his efforts. 

“I want you,” Henry breathed when their lips parted again. 

The words made Vincent’s heart speed. “What do you want from me?” he asked, lust thickening his voice.

Henry’s pale skin flushed pink, whether from the whiskey, the heat of a July night, or desire Vincent didn’t know. All three, most likely. “Everything,” he growled, and kissed Vincent again. 

Vincent wished he could give it to Henry. The fame and recognition Henry craved. The dream they’d shared in front of the poster. 

He hadn’t told Henry when he applied for membership in the Psychical Society. Not because he wished to hide anything; it simply slipped Vincent’s mind during the chaos of the move from New York. 

Then the letter came. Oh, it was polite, as such things went, but still sent a clear message. The Baltimore Psychical Society was for whites only. 

He’d kept the rejection a secret from Henry and lied when Henry suggested he join. The thought of confessing to his lover he’d been turned away because of the color of his skin etched his veins with an acidic mixture of anger and shame. 

Henry wouldn’t have stood it for a moment. He would have been furious, would have sworn never to speak to a single member again. Probably would have written Dr. Kelly an angry letter. All of which would spell disaster for S, N, & D. 

Tonight’s triumph meant great things for their business. New connections. New opportunities. And if the price was Vincent keeping his mouth shut, he would pay it. Grudgingly, perhaps, but it was how the world worked. 

He pushed the dark thoughts aside. Tonight they celebrated, and he refused to let his lingering anger sour Henry’s moment of triumph. Vincent dragged Henry to the bed, shedding clothes as they went. The breeze wafting through the light curtains was a blessing against his naked skin. He ran his hands over Henry’s shoulders, avoiding by habit the still-painful scars where a bullet tore through flesh and bone last January. He ducked his head, kissing his way down Henry’s throat, his cock swelling with anticipation when Henry tipped his head back to give him access. The taste of salt and sweat filled Vincent's mouth as he sucked first on one pink nipple, then the other, biting and worrying until Henry moaned softly beneath him. He made his way down farther, pausing to nibble at the ticklish spot on Henry’s belly and getting a strangled curse for a reward. 

He sat back for a moment to admire his handiwork. Without the shields of his gold-rimmed spectacles, Henry’s eyes looked oddly vulnerable, their blue a thin ring around pupils gone wide with desire. Vincent’s bites marbled his pale skin with spots of red. His nipples were hard nubs, his prick dark against his belly. 

“Mmm, what a sight you are.” Vincent licked his lips slowly, watching from beneath his eyelashes as Henry tracked the movement hungrily. 

“I could say the same of you,” Henry replied. His hand went to his cock, stroking slowly. Moisture glistened around the slit. “Just looking at you tries my control.” 

Vincent bent down and licked away some of the slickness from the tip of Henry’s cock. “And what would you do, if you lost control?” 

Henry’s face reddened. Vincent lost any shame at an early age, but Henry’s upbringing had been rather more refined. Still, he was beginning to come around with suitable encouragement from Vincent. “Fling you down and bugger you until you spill.” 

Vincent tugged at his own prick, hips thrusting forward both to tease Henry and in response to the pleasure of his hand. “Do it.”

Fish and Ghosts by Rhys Ford

Prologue
“SMELL THAT?” Wolf Kincaid paused at a narrow doorway, his broad shoulders wedged up against the creaking wooden frame. “Effervescent in nature, a whiff of dirt.”

He was speaking of the wispy mist blanketing the battered floor, its swirls created by the uneven knotty planks as much as by the two men walking down the hall. Around Wolf, the plantation house creaked with noise and echoes, tidbits of sound reaching back to tantalize the men sent to document its haunted history.

Built during the early days of Louisiana’s settlement, Willow Hills Plantation was once a hub of Southern activity, providing the surrounding area with food and, during bleaker times, an avenue for escaped slaves to begin a new life in the North. Stripped down nearly to its frame by its aging tenants, Willow Hills had been resurrected from its near death as a bed-and-breakfast. Positioned as the last stop of an Underground Railroad tour, the plantation soon earned a reputation of being a great place to eat as well as a home to restless spirits.

It was the latter part of its reputation that Wolf Kincaid came to tear apart.

“Hey, Wolf, want me to get an air sample?” Matt peeked out from behind his shoulder-mount camera, its illuminated trim splashing up enough of a glow for them to see in the plantation’s dark halls. “Or is it an ambient leak from outside? Swamp gas?”

“Some kind of gas,” Wolf muttered. “Nah, I know what it is. Don’t bother.”

No, he wasn’t going to feel bad about taking out the Willow Hills ghosts.

And if he had a chance, he’d go back in time and kick the shit out of its builders too. At a little over six feet, he should have had more space to walk around in the upper floors’ hallways. Instead, he felt like Alice after she had too many frosted cakes. His elbows hurt from banging into the walls, and the household staff wouldn’t have to dust for cobwebs because Wolf was pretty sure he’d walked through all of the ones in the attic storerooms. If he’d thought ahead, he could have taken a feather duster, done the job right, and charged the Willows for a deep cleaning as well as a spectral investigation.

Another step into yet another tiny room in the warren of servants’ quarters and Wolf found himself face-to-face with an apparition.

As apparitions went, it was fairly strong. White pallor, groaning black mouth, and empty eye sockets, with trails of ebony bleeding out under the spirit’s surrounding mottled skin. Her features were difficult to see, but the jut of her breasts straining against the thin lawn shirt she wore left Wolf with no doubt that he was staring through a woman.

Then she opened her mouth and a horrendous shriek rattled his eardrums and set fire to Wolf’s nerves.

Somewhere behind him, Matt screamed, and from the thudding sounds that soon followed, Wolf guessed he’d toppled over, probably taking the camera with him. The woman flickered in and out, a blue-white veil of features and fabric. Without warning, she rushed them, advancing on Wolf with her hands stretched out in front of her like talons.

He ducked. It was instinct born of human nature, and he cursed himself for it nearly as soon as he curled his shoulders away from the ghost. An icy chill hit him, whooshing over his face and arms. Then another struck, a stronger blast of air, cold enough to peel goose bumps up from his skin. The screaming continued, a murderous shriek echoed at a lower volume by his cameraman.

Something wet struck his cheek, and Wolf turned, looking up at the angled ceiling, where clotting strands of something dark and viscous dripped slowly down on top of them. It smelled rank and of curdled metal. Dabbing at a moist spot on his cheek, Wolf tasted the thick fluid, recoiling at its sourness when it spread over his tongue.

“Blood,” he murmured, holding up his wet finger for Matt to see. “Are you recording this?”

“I’m fucking freezing my nuts off, and I think I swallowed my tongue.” The young man struggled to get to his feet, tugging his ill-fitting Hellsinger Investigations T-shirt down over his slightly rounded belly. “Did you fucking see that? Shit, tell me you got readings on that.”

“Oh, I got something on it,” Wolf replied with a grin. “Come on, Matty. See if you can keep up.”

He left the younger man behind, edging past him, then launching into a full run down the tight staircase leading to the kitchens. His elbows took a beating. Obviously, his body had picked through his genetic soup and decided it preferred the enormous bulk of his Scottish ancestors above everything else and poured out his muscles and bones with a maniacal, enthusiastic glee.

While height and brawn were good in a fight, it made for shitty going while trying to run down a spiral staircase meant for tiny seventeenth-century women.

Somewhere behind him, Matt clomped along. He’d hired the young man for his filming and technical skills, not for going through an obstacle course, but Wolf didn’t really care. Most of the time, Matt could keep up. This time, however, it wasn’t as important as Wolf getting down to where he thought the apparition originated.

Because he needed to put an end to the haunting.

It was what he was paid to do. It was what he loved to do. Capturing that moment on film wasn’t as important as just having that moment.

And Wolf Kincaid was famous for having those kinds of moments.

Booming thumps echoed in the rear of the house, percussive rounds loud enough to shatter the eerie silence that settled down after the ghost’s shrieking. The walls around Wolf shook, and he ducked out of the way as a framed sampler fell off its hanger as he rounded the stairwell’s landing.

Behind him, Matt followed, stomping and cursing at the tight fit. The young man would have a hard time of it. The camera was too big, too bulky to make the tight turns quickly if Matt insisted on keeping it fixed to his shoulder to film. Which was what he’d certainly do. It was what Wolf paid him to do, even as he was tumbling ass over teakettle down the stairs behind his boss.

The staircase let out into the servants’ kitchen, a dank-smelling, closed-in room that, despite the staff’s best efforts, seemed to cling to its grimy lower-class roots. Wolf slipped on a tile, his sneaker catching on a thick line of grout, the sandy mixture providing some traction against the overpolished ceramic floor.

Ahead, the noises grew louder, more ear-shearing rattles and booms. More shrieks followed, echoing first upstairs, then suddenly snapping to the bottom floor, louder and more profane than the ghostly banshee moans. Rounding the corner, Wolf found himself in a room directly beneath the staircase, a long, rectangular space the plantation used for storage.

A stein flew past Wolf’s head, nearly clocking him on the temple. The heavy ceramic shattered against a wall behind him, and he felt a shard cut his cheek, the brief sting deepening into something heavy and wet on his skin. Another stein followed, then a plate wide enough to host a good-sized turkey.

“Fuck!” Matt exploded into a round of curses. From the sounds coming from behind him, Wolf guessed a piece of flying crockery had found its target in the cameraman or his equipment. “Poltergeists now?”

Wolf fumbled to find a light switch. His fingers found a bank of sliders on the wall next to the door, and the storeroom burst into view, two banks of overhead fluorescents throwing everything into a stark contrast of bright and shadow. Fully drenched in light, two women in period costume froze in place, one caught in the middle of throwing a metal steaming tray while the other’s hands were tangled in audio-visual feed lines. The cables disappeared through a small hole in the ceiling tiles, and nearby, a tripod lay on its side on what looked like a camera case. Both women were bleached white from heavy layers of makeup, their eyes hollow and bleak from a coating of dense theatrical kohl.

Smug, Wolf gave both women a short, mocking bow, then sneered, “Hello, ladies.”


Chapter 1
“THEY WERE pretending to be ghosts so people would go stay there?” Nahryn placed a steaming mug of black coffee in front of Wolf and settled into an empty wing chair next to his. “Why would someone do that?”

A bubbly young Armenian woman and Hellsinger’s Girl Friday, Nahryn kept their office running at a finely tuned hum and, more importantly to Wolf, made certain he had a pot of Ka‘u coffee to bolster him by the time he made it into their San Francisco office.

Even if sometimes her coffee was strong enough to bleach Wolf’s dark-brown hair to white from its bitter shock.

“Because ghosts equal profit,” Gidget pronounced from behind her teacup, her mascara-thick eyelashes fluttering the steam rising from her Earl Grey. “It was a pretty stupid rig too. Projection onto dry ice mists with leads feeding into speakers on the third floor. They’re never going to get the pig’s blood out of those ceiling beams.”

Their technician and Matt’s lover went for a more Rosie the Riveter look that morning, a piss-yellow bandana holding back a spill of flame-red curls from her pale face and her overalls creaking as she shifted in her chair, the heavy denim still so new it stank of dye. Glass cherries dangled from her lobes, a row of four in each ear, and they chimed when she moved her head. While they matched the printed cherries on her button-up shirt, Wolf thought it looked like she’d lost a fight with a fruit salad.

He’d tell Gidget that as soon as he told Nahryn about her coffee. One wrong, pissy word and Gidget could have his sensors bleeping a spectral hit on every pile of dog shit he walked by.

While he might get the hots for a long-legged man in jeans, he could commiserate with a straight man about the minefields of living with a woman. He spent days on end with two of them and still had to tread carefully with the best of them. Also—Wolf grinned into his coffee—he always had Matt to throw in as a sacrificial lamb whenever he needed an out.

“But that’s lying,” Nahryn insisted.

“It’s what keeps us in business, Nah-nah,” Wolf pointed out. “And since Willow Hills invoked our confidentiality clause and paid their invoice in full, we can’t say anything about their two wayward docents. The powers that be didn’t know, and now that they do, they want to make sure no one else does.”

“So we can’t even tell people they’re lying?” Her big brown eyes were narrowing. “That’s wrong too. The world sucks.”

“People hire us to prove their ghosts are real or at least come up inconclusive.” Turning on his tablet, Wolf tapped through his appointments. “Willow Hills gambled and lost. They didn’t know they were playing loaded dice. It happens sometimes. A lot of people think they can pull one over an investigator—”

“But the equipment doesn’t lie,” Gidget crowed, resting her heels on the corner of the conference table.

“Nope. It usually doesn’t.” Wolf saluted her with his coffee mug. “Let’s see what we’ve got on the books for today.”

“You have an appointment with a Mrs. Walter Pryce the Third in half an hour. She called right as I was making coffee, so I didn’t get a chance to put it down on the books yet.” Nahryn scrolled through her own tablet, then stopped to wrangle her curly brown hair into a tie. “She wants to hire you to look into a haunting. She thinks it’s bullshit.”

“She actually say bullshit?” Wolf’s eyebrows lifted. “People with the Third in their names don’t usually trot out the word bullshit.”

“No, she said implausible, but I was having problems spelling that so I just wrote down bullshit.” Nahryn grinned at him. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

“Nope, I don’t,” Wolf admitted. “Okay, I’m going to talk with Mrs. Pryce. Then, after that, I’ll take all of you to 39 for some lunch.”

“Crab?” Nahryn paused halfway out of her chair and did a little dance with her butt against the upholstery. “’Cause you know… crab.”

“For you, Nah-nah, we can get crab.” He tweaked his Girl Friday’s nose. “First Mrs. Pryce’s boo-wigglies and someone get Matt on the phone. About time he got to work.”


“MY NEPHEW is insane.”

Wolf spared the woman a brief glance as he shuffled through the papers she’d brought with her. Mrs. Walter Pryce III was an older woman, one Born-to-the-Park, pinkie-lifting Junior Leaguer. Patting her swing of artfully done blonde hair, she took a moment to pause at the doorway of his pier-front office, her critical gaze taking in the space’s blend of gentlemen’s club furnishings and broad, sweeping view of the water. He almost didn’t catch the curl in her lip or the slight flare of her nostril, but he did. The brittle smile that chased after the hint of disapproval slipped from her face. After tugging carefully at the hem of her cardigan, she then smoothed her black pencil skirt and held her head up as she let herself be led into Hellsinger’s conference room.

Now, settled into a leather wing chair and armed with a porcelain teacup filled with a lavender-lemon blend, Mrs. Pryce seemed much more in control, especially after she’d shocked Wolf with her pronouncement. She nodded curtly at Wolf’s glance, probably mistaking his curiosity for something else. Or maybe, Wolf thought, she didn’t really care what he thought just so long as he took the assignment and delivered on the job.

“Rather than me reading through now, why don’t you give me the highlights so I can decide if I’ll take the case?” Wolf matched Mrs. Pryce’s haughty sip of her tea with a sloppy slurp of his coffee.

“I didn’t realize I was here to be auditioned.” Another sip, and this time, the nostril flare remained too long on her face to be dismissed as a tic.

“I don’t take every case presented to us,” Wolf replied. “If I did, I’d never get any sleep. But please, tell me about your nephew… the insane one.”

“Are you mocking me, Mr. Kincaid?”

“Not at all, Ms. Pryce.” Wolf shook his head. A lot of people walked into Hellsinger either thinking they were crazy and hoping to find out they weren’t or dancing on the razor’s edge of needing a wraparound jacket and looking for someone to prove them sane. It was, however, the first time someone sat across of him and openly declared her prey nuts. “Please go on. I’m all ears.”

“Tristan has always been a delicate boy.” Her pinkie flexed slightly, hovering over the cup’s handle as if she was afraid to let it touch the porcelain. “It all started when Great Uncle Mortimer Pryce died—”

“Mortimer?” Wolf nearly snorted coffee through his nose. “Really?”

“It’s a family name,” she replied smoothly. “My third son is named after him.”

“God help him,” he muttered to himself. “Sorry, continue. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Tristan’s parents were quite normal. Did the best they could for him, but of course, he always seemed to wander away. Even if he was right in front of you, he would… rather… appear to not be paying attention. Great Uncle Mortimer was fond of the boy and would have Tristan visit him over the summers. I personally didn’t think his parents should have let him go to Hoxne Grange by himself. Mortimer was… a confirmed bachelor, if you know what I mean?” Her eyebrows somehow both lifted and scowled with disapproval, something Wolf had not thought possible before he’d met the woman.

He didn’t answer, merely blinking with a muted ignorance of what she was implying. “There wasn’t anyone for him to play with?”

“No, that is not what I meant,” Mrs. Pryce said firmly. “Tristan was a young boy and at an impressionable age. Great Uncle Mortimer should not have had access to him. He filled the boy’s mind with rubbish.”

“What kind of rubbish?”

“That Hoxne Grange is haunted and that he somehow was its caretaker… the ghosts’ caretaker.” She shuddered, either with the foolishness or the growing bitterness of the cooling tea. “Mortimer was one thing. I mean, he was an older gentleman. Very set in his ways and the Grange is… well, it’s a family legacy. The Pryce family had it built nearly a century and a half ago. It’s on a fantastic property in Mill Valley. Great Uncle Mortimer inherited it when his father died. When he passed, he left everything to Tristan. It’s been a touchy subject in the family since then.”

“So Tristan getting the property wasn’t expected?” Wolf began taking notes, diagramming out the Pryce family tree.

“No, my husband is the next eldest son in the Pryce family. Tristan’s father was his youngest brother.” She set her cup down, the saucer rattling beneath it. “It should have gone to him, but instead, Tristan is Mortimer’s sole heir, and from what we can tell, he’s continued the man’s insane claims about the Grange being haunted.”

“How long has he been its owner?”

“Since he was nineteen. Really, it was too big a burden to hand over to a teenager. He’s almost twenty-eight.” Mrs. Pryce’s mouth flattened into a line, crinkling her pink lipstick. “Luckily, he kept most of the landscaping staff, and there is a daily housekeeping staff that comes in, so at least the estate isn’t being run to the ground.”

“So he’s maintained it?”

“Thankfully, Mortimer set up a trust fund to dispense monies to Tristan until his twenty-eighth birthday. It truly is a blessing. Tristan’s… an artist of sorts. A children’s book writer, I think. Certainly not enough of an income to keep the Grange up.” She lifted her shoulders in an elegant shrug. “On Tristan’s birthday, he’ll inherit the rest of the estate and have full control of its assets. The family is concerned that with Tristan’s… peculiarities… he’ll be taken advantage of. We’d like you to help us ensure this will not happen.”

“What about Tristan’s parents?” Wolf cocked his head, tapping the tip of his pencil on two empty boxes on his flow chart.

“Carol and Sandy… Alexander was his real name… they died in a small plane crash off of the coast of Italy about six months after Tristan inherited the estate.” A frown crinkled her smooth brow, and she played with a button on her sweater. “Sandy was against Tristan living there. He thought Mortimer was setting his son up to continue playing his little ghost game. Of course, Tristan denies this. He fully believes the Grange hosts his little friends. He’s turned the family home into an inn, Mr. Kincaid, and the majority of his guests are not real.”

Wolf didn’t have to guess at the Pryces’ motivations. Mortimer’s money and estate seemed to be their first priority, although he couldn’t rule out the woman’s concern for her nephew. A few taps on his tablet called up the Grange’s visual from an overhead map. Constructed during the Gilded Age, the sprawling estate was built into a nest of hills, and from what Wolf could make out, clearly designed by someone with a love for the Renaissance Revival form. A photo of Hoxne Grange called up a view of its front drive and landscaped grounds. The place was huge—sprawling seemed to be too weak of a word for the winged W set among the redwood trees—and embellished with formal gardens.

“What do you want me to do? I’m not in the business of declaring people mentally incompetent,” Wolf pointed out. “Even if I’ve got a sheepskin telling you I can.”

“The family would like you to stay at the Grange and investigate Tristan’s claims. Your agency is known to be fair. We’d just like you to show Tristan that his ghosts only exist in his mind. If you can do that, Mr. Kincaid, just show him that the Grange isn’t a way station for phantoms, we will pay you anything you ask for. He needs to be shown reality, Mr. Kincaid, and I think you’re just the man to do that.”


HIS UNCLE was going to wear a hole in the library floor; Tristan was sure of it. The last half hour was ticked off by the squeak of his Italian loafers when he turned, a five-second interval bleeding off Tristan’s morning. Checking the grandfather clock for what he thought might have been the hundredth time since Walter Pryce III came through his front door, Tristan waited for his uncle to wind up yet another argument meant to move him out of the Grange.

“Your aunt is speaking with the agency now—” Walter began another circuit, his meaty hands clasped around his back.

“Is she still counted as my aunt if she’s your third wife?” Tristan huffed a breath up at his forehead, hoping to move a chunk of blond hair away from his eyes. If he used his fingers, he knew he’d get trapped in playing with his hair, and anything Walter said to him would be lost in the contemplation of how the sunlight changed the colors as it bled through the shafts. “I mean, Aunt Judith counts because she was first, right? Sharon maybe because she had Mortie, but Ashley? Is she my aunt too?”

“Tristan, please concentrate on what I’m saying to you.” The man harrumphed, exhaling forcefully enough to make his lips flap. Tristan’s fingers itched for a sketchbook, wanting to scribble out his impressions of a disgruntled walrus waddling back and forth on an ice floe. “We’re hoping you’ll see reason.”

“Reason….” Tristan repeated softly. “By opening the Grange up to people who chase ghosts?”

“They are paranormal psychologists. Or at least the agency head is.” Walter turned again, squeaking off another tick of time. “I know it would be terrible to discover that perhaps you’ve been encouraged to… um… what is the word I’m looking for?”

“Hallucinate?” he supplied for his uncle. “Sucking on guano from the bats in my belfry? Rowing with one oar?”

“You’re not crazy!” His uncle frowned, caught in midstep, his large belly jiggling under his suit. “Look, boy, I’m fond of you. I want the best for you. Just let them come stay here for a bit and see what they can find. Is that too much to ask?”

Tristan stretched out his legs, rubbing at the cramp forming along his thigh. He’d not asked Mara to turn the heat on in the library that morning until Uncle Walter’s sedan pulled up in front of the Grange. It had been an unexpected visit, and they’d both sworn under their breath when the man’s driver let his short, soft-bellied uncle out of the car.

Well, he’d sworn. Mara merely muttered darkly and scurried off to turn the heat on before pulling together a coffee tray for his guest. He’d sworn enough for both of them. His elderly housekeeper, while a pleasant woman for the most part, liked to get her daily work done and out of the way so she could spend her afternoons watching the shows she’d recorded the night before. Since most of her day included making sure he kept himself fed, Tristan didn’t care how she spent her days so long as the Grange was always guest ready. With fifteen bedrooms to keep up and two young women from the nearby town coming in to help her dust and mop, Mara kept the Grange primed and lemony-fresh, and she resented his uncle’s sudden appearance on a tightly scheduled Tuesday morning.

Tristan wasn’t too fond of Walter’s arrival either. He had only ten more minutes before he had to be at the reception desk, and from the man’s squeaky pacing, it didn’t sound like Walter Pryce was going to leave until Tristan gave him some kind of concession.

“And if they find out I’m not crazy?” he offered up in exchange. “Suppose they hand you a report that I’m sane and the Grange is what Uncle Mortimer and I say it is? Will you leave me be then?”

The look of confusion on his uncle’s face told Tristan the man had not considered that possibility. A few lip flaps and another squeaka-squeaka pass later, Walter Pryce grumbled, “If he comes back and says that there’s something here, then yes, I’ll acknowledge that there might be something to your claims. But the agency has to verify that there is some sort of activity here. If not, then I’m going to insist you stop this nonsense and come home.”

“I am home, Uncle Walter,” Tristan said softly. “I’ve lived here at the Grange for most of my adult life and spent nearly all of my summers here. If this isn’t home, then where is that?”

“Then we’ll come to you.” The man’s hand on his shoulder was meant to be reassuring, but Tristan felt it held a greater weight than his uncle’s skin, bones, and flesh. “We’ll come here to you at the Grange. It is the family home, after all.”

He was able to hustle his uncle out with a few murmured assurances and then exhaled a sigh of relief when the door closed behind him. A few seconds later, the sedan’s quiet engine rumbled away and Tristan was left with the silence of the Grange around him.

The snick-snick of a dog’s nails on the foyer’s parquet floors echoed up into the high ceiling, and Tristan grinned at the shaggy gray head poking out from around the side of the sweeping mahogany counter Mortimer Pryce had built to be the Grange’s reception desk.

“Come on out, Boris.” He whistled to the Irish wolfhound. “He’s gone.”

“That dog knows evil when he smells it.” Mara appeared at Tristan’s elbow, moving as silently as one of the hall’s guests.

“He knows Uncle Walter doesn’t like him.” Bending over, Tristan scratched at the enormous dog’s floppy ears, sending Boris into a wiggling dance of ecstasy. “The man’s not evil, he’s just… closed-minded.”

“Well, ghosts or no, he’s a menace.” The woman’s harrumph was less pronounced than Walter’s, but it was still impressive. “Your ghosties are your business. This is your house. If you want to hold balls for faeries, it’s your right, and damn anyone else who says something against it.”

A dusting rag hung from her elbow crook, and a faint hint of the green-tea soap Tristan gave her for Christmas perfumed her soft white skin, its delicate scent fighting a losing battle against lemon polish and the arthritic salve Mara used for her aching knees. A softly curved woman, she came up to Tristan’s shoulder and often was in and out of a room, leaving behind only plates of sandwiches and cookies as evidence she’d been there. Something clung to the frosted candy floss of Mara’s silvery hair, and Tristan reached over to pluck it off.

It was a single diamond stud, and he handed it to her. “Did you find the other one?”

“No.” She shook her head, closing his fingers over the stone. “You keep that one. Maybe even change that silly hoop you have in your ear. You look like a little boy playing pirate.”

“Maybe.” He’d never told Mara the hoop belonged to his mother, a sliver of gold some faceless official handed him over her remains. She would scold him about being morbid, not understanding the hoop made him feel close to the woman who’d given birth to him but never really understood the changeling she’d been saddled with. “Or maybe even a second hole?”

“All you need is a parrot instead of that dumb Sasquatch you’ve brought into this house.” A deep belling roll began to sound off from the library, and Mara sniffed at the chilling air. “Well, that’s time, then. I’ll be off. You deal with… that. Don’t get to talking too much. I’ll be bringing you lunch at noon, and don’t forget, the gardeners will be here this afternoon, so get that beast to his walk before then.”

“Yes, Mara.”

He was talking to her back by the time the final chime from the library’s grandfather clock struck. Settling himself on the stool behind the old-fashioned reception desk, Tristan immediately regretted leaving his coffee behind. There was no telling how late his morning arrival would be, and he’d only had half a cup. He’d have to scare up another pot before he headed to his study on the third floor.

“If I’d really been thinking, I would have brought a sketchbook too,” he informed Boris. The dog lolled his long pink tongue at him and began a leisurely scratch at a spot near his jowls. “Really, Uncle Walter showing up just screwed the whole morning.”

He didn’t have to wait long. A few minutes after he’d sat down, the Grange’s front doors rattled and swung open. A brisk wind cut through the open portal, carrying in the scent of rain on its breath. As suddenly as it opened, the wide doors closed, whispering on their well-oiled hinges. From behind the desk, Boris whimpered, tucking himself into a huddle, and Tristan patted the dog’s broad head.

A wet footprint appeared on the wooden floor about two feet into the foyer, then another, a sopping trail of steps marking someone’s progress toward the reception area. Elongated shadows played beneath a large round table set in the middle of the circular area, and something brushed against a stray pink rose that drooped from the enormous flower display sitting in a mint-green urn on the table’s top.

She came into view a step or two after she passed the table, a bedraggled woman dressed in a neatly patched plain dress. Clutching her case in front of her in a white-knuckled grip, she nodded carefully at Tristan, then plastered a tentative smile on her pleasant face, clearing her throat before she spoke.

“I’ve come about the cook’s position, sir.” Her melodic voice was stamped with the distinct grit of a Northern Londoner, and if Tristan looked carefully, he knew he would see the black grime of the Lower Hells stuck under her fingernails. The rest of her was neat and trim despite the wear on her clothes and the fatigue on her still young face. “I’ve got no references, as the Lady turned me out for what the Lord was doing, but….”

“I don’t need your references. You’ll do fine,” Tristan reassured her. “Wages are forty pounds, and you’ll be given tea, beer, and sugar, as well.”

“That’s too generous, sir.” She blushed, a pink lightening up her pallor. “I’m not skilled for that—”

“We’ve only one cook position,” he cut her off gently. “Kitchens are through that door and down the hall. Can you start now? I’ve nearly a full inn and need a dinner set up for the guests. Your rooms will be behind the kitchen.”

“Yes, sir. I can start immediately.” She dropped into a short curtsey, nearly losing her satchel. “My name’s Heather. Heather Cook, sir. Thank you so much. I won’t be letting you down.”

“I know, Heather. I know,” Tristan said, pointing to the door. “Welcome to Hoxne Grange. We’re glad to have you here.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, she whispered away, dropping out of sight in flecks of light until nothing remained of her but the wet footprints on the foyer’s wooden floor. He was about to fetch a mop when Mara came out of the door he’d directed Heather to.

“So she’s gone, then?” Mara asked, wheeling out a metal mop bucket in front of her.

“Yeah, she is.” Tristan smiled, saddened by the young dead woman he’d spoken to.

“Well, then, it’s done until next Tuesday,” his housekeeper pronounced in a firm voice. “I’ll clean this up, and you go on upstairs. There’s coffee waiting for you and some brekkie. Maybe later on, you’ll get a nap. I know how Tuesdays wear you down.”

“Thank you, Mara.” He kissed the froth of silvery-white curls at her temple. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d be mopping your own damned floors every Tuesday after you hire your dead cook again.” She slapped at his arm. “Go on with you, and take that cowardly beast with you.”

John Inman
John has been writing fiction for as long as he can remember. Born on a small farm in Indiana, he now resides in San Diego, California where he spends his time gardening, pampering his pets, hiking and biking the trails and canyons of San Diego, and of course, writing. He and his partner share a passion for theater, books, film, and the continuing fight for marriage equality. If you would like to know more about John, check out his website.

Marie Sexton
Marie Sexton lives in Colorado. She’s a fan of just about anything that involves muscular young men piling on top of each other. In particular, she loves the Denver Broncos and enjoys going to the games with her husband. Her imaginary friends often tag along. Marie has one daughter, two cats, and one dog, all of whom seem bent on destroying what remains of her sanity. She loves them anyway.

Jordan L Hawk

Jordan L. Hawk is a trans author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave him a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When he isn’t writing, he brews his own beer and tries to keep the cats from destroying the house. His best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.

If you want to contact Jordan, just click on the links below or send an email.

Rhys Ford
Rhys Ford is an award-winning author with several long-running LGBT+ mystery, thriller, paranormal, and urban fantasy series and was a 2016 LAMBDA finalist with her novel, Murder and Mayhem. She is published by Dreamspinner Press and DSP Publications.

She’s also quite skeptical about bios without a dash of something personal and really, who doesn’t mention their cats, dog and cars in a bio? She shares the house with Yoshi, a grumpy tuxedo cat and Tam, a diabetic black pygmy panther, as well as a ginger cairn terrorist named Gus. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird and enjoys murdering make-believe people.

John Inman

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Spirit by John Inman

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