B00AO57VOY EBOK by AJ Myers Read Free Book Online

knowing I had just watched her die.
    “Ember!”  I turned my
tear-streaked face toward Nathan and was surprised by the terror I saw on his
face.  Before I could say a word, he grabbed me up in crushing hold and buried
his face in my hair.  “God!  You scared the hell out of me!  What happened to
you?  I couldn’t get you to answer me!  I tried everything, but it was like you
were gone!”
    “I was,” I choked out,
turning my head to look at Casey again.  It was only then that I realized the
ghost who’d led me into my trance was still there, watching me with a gleam of
pride in her eyes. 
    “We need to get out of
here,” Nathan said tensely, looking toward the door.  “Someone’s coming.  I can
hear their radios from here.”
    “Hold on, I need to see
something,” I told him, wiggling out of his grasp.  Stepping toward the corpse
on the table, I reached for the edge of the sheet before hesitating.  Looking
over my shoulder at Nathan, I whispered, “Could you turn around for just a
second?”
    “She gone, Em,” Nathan said,
giving me a perplexed look.  “I honestly don’t think she’ll mind.”
    “I do,” I told him, looking
at Casey again.  “I mind.”
    I waited until Nathan,
grumbling about prison sentences, turned around.  Only then did I pull the
sheet back to reveal Jack’s last act of brutality.  I frowned at what was
revealed, not understanding what I was seeing.  Directly over Casey’s heart
were carved three arrows, one straight up and the other two crossing each other
over the first one’s shaft.  The question was, what did it mean?
    “Em, you might want to
hurry,” Nathan said, suddenly blurring toward the door, “Our company just
arrived.”
    “Forgive me,” I whispered to
Casey as I pulled my phone out again.  Feeling like the worst kind of sicko, I
snapped a picture of the macabre carvings and then shoved my phone back in the
pocket in the front of my shirt and pulled the sheet back over Casey’s body.
    “Hurry, ma cher, ” the
ghost across from me said.  “I fear Nathaniel is correct.  Your time has run
out.”
    With one last glance at
Casey, I turned and ran toward Nathan who was holding the door open for me.  I
had just cleared the threshold with Nathan hot on my heels when all the lights
in the funeral home snapped on at once and we heard the sound of footsteps
coming down the hall to our right.
    “This way,” Nathan said,
grabbing my hand and pulling me toward one of the doors down the hall.  We
slipped inside and closed the door behind us just as a voice I couldn’t stand
drifted down the hall toward us. 
    “Who the hell breaks into a
funeral home?” Sheriff Martin’s voice was tight and angry and I had to bite
back a moan.  I mean, he was the Sheriff!  Shouldn’t he have been home spoiling
his overindulged skank of a daughter or something?  “All right, boys.  Fan out
and check these rooms just in case.  It was probably just kids, but given that
we have a serial killer on the loose, we can’t be too careful.”
    “Oh shit!” I whispered,
looking up at Nathan. 
    “We’re screwed,” he
whispered back.
    “I am not going to
jail,” I hissed back, turning around in circles as I looked for a place to
hide.  I gulped loudly when I saw which room we’d run into. 
    “What a surprise,” I
muttered, staring at the showroom full of coffins.  Looking up at Nathan, I
tried for a smile.  “Baby, you know that promise I made you?”
    “Yeah,” he said, drawing the
word out like he was dreading what I was about to say. 
    “It looks like I’m gonna have
to break it after all.”

 

    “Nathan, I said I was—”
    “Sorry,” he finished for me
in a growl.  “I heard you.  All twenty times.”
    “But, you’re still—”
    “I’m not mad,” he bit out,
interrupting me again. 
    “Then why are you talking to
me like—?”  He hadn’t let me finish an entire sentence since we’d escaped the
funeral home, but, for some