Closer: Bay City Paranormal Investigation, Book 4 by Ally Blue Read Free Book Online Page A

it so bad that Bo had woken up and wanted to know how the first night of the investigation went? Sam couldn’t say for sure that he wouldn’t have done the same himself if he’d been the one to wake up first.
Bo’s voice rose above the others in a soft, excited laugh that melted some of Sam’s anger. He loved that sound. The sound of Bo discovering something.
Before he’d consciously decided to, he found himself walking down the stairs. He stepped into the foyer, turned the corner into the living room and nearly walked right into Bo’s back. Bo stood at Dean’s right shoulder, peering at the thermal imaging camera.
Andre nodded from his spot perched on one of the tall chairs at the bar between the living room and kitchen. “Hey, Sam.”
Turning, Bo took Sam’s arm and pulled him close. “Sam. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” He tilted his head up to kiss Sam’s lips. The gentle touch went a long way toward dispelling the resentment Sam still felt toward Bo for letting work get in the way of their private time.
Sam summoned a smile. “You didn’t wake me. I just…” He stopped, his stomach curdling at the memory of the nightmare that had woken him. He couldn’t recall details, but he remembered the horrible, paralyzing fear, and blackness that seemed almost alive. Describing it didn’t even seem possible, and he didn’t feel like trying. “I had to pee.”
David, sprawled on the sofa beside Cecile, wrinkled his nose. “TMI, man.”
Sam flipped him off and turned back to Bo, ignoring David’s laughter. “So, what’re y’all watching?”
“I got something interesting on the thermal.” Dean insinuated himself between Sam and Bo and rewound the thermal video a few seconds. “Check it out.”
Sam peered over Dean’s shoulder at the video screen. Dean hit play. The blur of blue gray on the display resolved itself into what looked like a smooth wall and a rather rough floor.
“This is one of the old weapons bunkers,” Dean explained as the image panned slowly to the right to reveal a corner of the room. “There’s only one door into the room, and it’s behind me at this point. Cecile’s standing just outside the door, taking video of the hallway. Now watch.”
Something small and bright red darted across the bottom of the picture. “That’s just a rat or something,” Sam said, gesturing at the display. “You must’ve heard it.”
“Yeah, we did. That’s not it. Just wait—” Dean pointed at the far left side of the screen. “There. Look.”
Sam looked. On the wall to the left of the corner was the light blue figure of a man in a uniform. An oldfashioned musket was slung over his shoulder. He turned his head, seeming to stare right at the camera, though the cap he wore hid his face. As Sam watched, the figure faded and vanished.
“Wow.” Reaching around Dean’s arm, Sam rewound the video and started it again. “That’s amazing.”
“Isn’t it?” Bo rested his chin on Sam’s shoulder, watching with him. “It’s clearly a human figure, in what looks like a Confederate soldier’s uniform, but the heat signature indicates that it’s not much warmer than the wall.”
“Dean and I tested to see if it might be his own body heat reflecting off the wall,” Cecile chimed in from the sofa. “But it didn’t work. Even his reflection was hotter than whatever this was.”
“And I had to get really close to the wall to make it reflect me at all,” Dean added. “Way closer than I was standing when I was filming. The walls at the fort are all stone or brick, so they don’t reflect well. This one was actually one of the smoother ones, because it had been painted at one point.”
“Pretty impressive.” Halting the video again, Sam glanced over at Andre. “Did y’all get anything else?”
Andre shrugged. “Hopefully. We had a few personal experiences, but we won’t know if we caught anything else concrete until we review the rest of the video and audio.”
“Which we’re