Missing in Michigan Read online

  Missing in Michigan

  Alexa Bentley Paranormal Mysteries Book One

  April A. Taylor

  Missing in Michigan: Alexa Bentley Paranormal Mysteries Book One Copyright © 2018 by April A. Taylor. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by OliviaProDesign

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

  April A. Taylor

  Visit my website at www.AprilATaylor.net

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: June 2018

  Midnight Grasshopper Books

  Bibliography

  Alexa Bentley Paranormal Mysteries

  Book One – Missing in Michigan

  Book Two – Frightened in France

  Book Three – Lost in Louisiana (COMING SOON!)

  Midnight Myths and Fairy Tales Series

  Book One – Vasilisa the Terrible: A Baba Yaga Story

  Book Two – Death Song of the Sea: A Celtic Story

  Horror

  The Haunting of Cabin Green: A Modern Gothic Horror Novel

  Reviews

  Alexa Bentley Paranormal Mysteries

  “I love Alex! She’s the witty, sometimes snarky, definitely quirky best friend you didn’t know you needed.” – Goodreads Reviewer

  “The author’s voice is fresh and inviting. I was intrigued from beginning to end! I honestly can’t wait till book 2.” – Goodreads Reviewer

  Midnight Myths and Fairy Tales

  “Beautifully bewitching… it’s a fast-paced, captivating tale, and the writing is exquisite.” – Kindle Reviewer

  “I was enthralled… The story is like a witch’s spell drawing the reader in.” – Kindle Reviewer

  The Haunting of Cabin Green

  “This was a very interesting psychological thriller… It reminded me of a Stephen King Novel. Taylor did a fantastic job on her detail of the eerie experiences that become Ben’s reality.” – N.M. McGregor, Author of The Montana Series

  This book is for every quirky, witty, sassy woman who helped inspire the character of Alexa Bentley, ranging from old friends to a hilarious cashier at Kroger. Keep being you, ladies!

  CONTENTS

  Bibliography

  Reviews

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  My name is Alexa Bentley, but you can call me Alex. I’m also what you might call a ghost therapist. Think that sounds like a bunch of woo? I did too, until I didn’t.

  Do you believe all our cares simply melt away and our soul soars weightless after death? I hate to break it to you, but everyone you’ve ever loved and lost still has all the same baggage. And in some cases, dying makes it even worse.

  The hardest part for me is when they don’t know their life is over. Imagine having to tell a powerfully psychotic killer that he’s dead. Or how about telling a devoted mother she can no longer help her children? It gets messy. And when things get messy in the spirit world, humans often pay a steep price.

  That brings us to today. There’s a good reason I’m lying flat on my ass in the dusty attic of an old Victorian home in Baltimore. The ghost I’m currently trying to counsel is not taking it well.

  I steel myself against the inevitable next assault and raise my head. “I’m very sorry for your loss. But you’re scaring your wife. Is that really what you want?”

  The ghost’s cold eyes consider me. Spirits don’t look like people envision, at least not to me. Where you might see nothing at all or just the slightest wisp of a darkened outline, I see them as they once were. But even the kindest, most gregarious ghosts often become a hardened version of their former selves. Unfortunately for me, there’s nothing kind about this one.

  A blast of air engulfs my body as a roar of anguish escapes his spectral lips. I end up on my back again. I’ve picked more splinters out of my behind than any one person should ever have occasion to, and I’m pretty sure the one that just wedged itself into my skin won’t be the last of the day.

  Hostility oozes out of him. I do a quick mental checklist. His name is Ronald Bellhouse. He was an accountant. His wife, Maryann, still lives in this house. Well, she did, anyway. His frequent moaning and thrashing has her so afraid that she recently jumped out a second-story window. I guess it’s more accurate to say she currently lives at Baltimore General Hospital.

  “Maryann needs you to stop this, Ronald. And I’m here to help.”

  His cruel laughter fills the room. “Help? How could you possibly help me? You’re a mortal,” he sneers.

  “So, you know what you are, then?”

  “I’m a god!”

  Oh boy. That’s not good. Usually they’re broken-hearted about being dead, but this one is suffering from delusions of grandeur.

  “Okay. Tell me, Ronald... I mean, ‘god,’ why you’re staying in this attic, then. I mean, surely there’s much more for you to see, and oversee, in the rest of the world, right?”

  He looks me up and down. I can see his non-existent brain doing summersaults. I’ve clearly given him something new to think about.

  “Unless you leave this attic, no one will know they should worship you. No one will know to be afraid of you, either.”

  He chuckles maliciously. “Maryann knows.”

  “Sure, but is that really enough? A god like yourself deserves praise and fear from millions, right?”

  His eyes light up greedily. “Millions?”

  “Yes. You can have it all, but only if you leave this house.”

  The last hint of hesitation falls away. He flies straight toward me, and I barely manage to hit the deck in time. Great. Another splinter.

  As his spirit splits free of the attic where he’d become stuck, his form dissipates. “No!” he calls as he realizes the truth. Leaving the attic means leaving the human realm forever.

  I stand up and dust myself off. I’ll need to head to the bathroom with my trusty tweezers soon - which I keep on me at all times - but for now, I allow myself to smile at another job well-done. Maryann can come home.

  Chapter Two

  My raven locks blend into the darkness as I exit the airport. It’s a few minutes after midnight, and I’m dragging my shuffling feet toward my car. Ghost therapy takes me all over the globe. Sometimes, like right now, I wish it didn’t.

  Still, I can’t help but feel some pride at the thought that Maryann has regained her home. Losing her husband was traumatic enough - even if he clearly wasn’t the kind, decent man she’d always believed. There’s
no way I was going to break that illusion, either.

  As far as Maryann knows, her husband’s confused soul is now resting peacefully, and he spoke lovingly of their time together before he passed on. Being a ghost psychologist requires a dash of human counseling skills, too. After all, freeing a spirit is typically done on behalf of the living, not the dead.

  I arrive at my rundown house. What? You thought being a therapist to the dead actually paid the bills? I’m lucky to eek by from month-to-month, but there’s nothing else I can do with my life. Believe me, I’ve tried. The problem is that if I don’t seek out the ghosts, they’ll find me instead. It’s always worse when they do, so I try to stay one step ahead.

  I’ve barely unlocked the door and turned off my security system - a necessary precaution where I live - when I notice an oddly-shaped red envelope mixed in with the mail on the floor. Yes, my house is old enough that there’s a mail slot on the front door.

  I know I’m going to regret this, but I abandon my previous plan to take a quick shower and get some sleep. I know it can wait until morning. But what if it can’t?

  Sighing, I grab my letter opener and hear the satisfying rip of the seal splitting open. A sweet smell envelops my head, and I sneeze twice in a row. Pulling the parchment free of the envelope, I notice my knees are getting shaky. I must be more exhausted than I realized.

  I stumble to the couch, avoiding the section my cat, Riley, tried to destroy, and sink into the brown cushion. Unfolding the letter, I’m struck by a jumbled mess of visions and emotions. This happens sometimes, and it means the ghost in question is begging for relief.

  I scan the letter’s contents as Riley jumps into my lap. His purrs begin like clockwork as I absentmindedly scratch his jet-black chin and cheeks. “Sorry, buddy. It looks like I’ll be out of here again come dawn.”

  This is by far the most intriguing letter I’ve ever read, and I’ve received so many they’ve started to take over the coat closet. With my mind burning, I head up the thin staircase. I look longingly at the bathroom door before giving up on the idea of taking a shower. There will be time tomorrow. For now, I must sleep.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The plane lands at the Marquette International Airport. As a Michigan resident, I’ve been to the Upper Peninsula a few times, but this is the first time I’ve flown in. The seven-hour drive from Detroit felt like a liability, but now I have to pick up a rental car. I add the expense to my ongoing mental tally and wince. With any luck, this client will be able to compensate me better than the last.

  I exit the rental car facility with a small, economical vehicle. It’s not flashy, and it putzes down the highway, but it’ll suffice. I’m headed toward downtown Munising, which I know from experience is barely big enough to count as a downtown area.

  On the way, I take a few minutes to reflect on the contents of the letter that caused me to call my cat sitter for the second time this week. It’s a good thing she lives down the block and doesn’t charge much. Riley loves spending time with her, too, which makes it a lot easier to leave again so quickly. This seems like an odd case, but one that definitely requires some assistance. On the plus side, the ghost doesn’t seem to have bad intentions. At least not yet.

  I pull into the small downtown area of Munising and scour the buildings for the address that was indicated in the letter. Spotting it, I realize I’ve just run into my first problem of the trip. Parallel parking? Ugh. I’m good with ghosts, but parallel parking is a skill I’m pretty sure I’ll never master.

  There’s a lot of swearing and reversing I’m not proud of, but I finally manage to park somewhat respectably. I exit the rental car and see a blonde-haired woman in her late twenties eyeing me quizzically. Her left eyebrow cocks upward, and my face turns crimson. With my luck, this will be the letter writer. As if being around other people wasn’t hard enough already.

  I gracelessly extract myself from the rental car and manage to step in a puddle. Before I can get over the shock of having an unexpectedly cold and wet sock, the woman approaches me.

  “Hi. Um… are you Ms. Bentley?”

  My bad luck is clearly holding fast. Clearing my throat, I attempt to respond without doing anything else embarrassing.

  “Yes. But please, call me Alex. And you must be Leslie?”

  She nods her agreement, but I can see skepticism all over her freckled face. Not that I can blame her, but I’m pretty sure it has more to do with me than the spirit world. I wish she hadn’t seen me struggle to park.

  Hesitation lingers in the air for a few seconds before she turns on the small-town charm. “Thank you for coming. I really appreciate it, dear. And I’ve heard you’re the best! Shall we?”

  Friendlessness oozes from her words, but the same sentiment doesn’t quite reach her brown eyes. Her words also give me pause. Who could she have heard that from? Most people who utilize my services want nothing more than a return to normality, which doesn’t lend itself well to getting testimonials. And it’s not like there’s a Yelp category for ghost psychologists.

  As we walk into the lobby, I’m surprised to see she owns a massage business. Ghosts don’t tend to linger around places of this nature, especially if they didn’t own the building.

  “Can you tell me again what happened?” I ask. It seems repetitive, but I’ve learned this is the best way to get all of the details.

  “Mrs. Felton was one of my regulars. A few weeks ago, she passed away on my table.”

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.” I start to reach out for her in a comforting gesture but stop myself. Physical contact is something I’m not very comfortable with, which helps explain why I’m single. Well, that and the fact that my last relationship was beyond disastrous.

  She continues without noticing my halted effort. “It was terrible. One second, I was massaging her feet, and the next…” A sob hitches in her throat. I look away to help her maintain her dignity. A loud honking announces she’s blowing her nose.

  “Sorry about that,” she says. “So, like I was saying, she passed away on my table. They said it was a heart attack? But I don’t know. If you ask me, she died from grief.”

  “What was she grieving?” I ask, but Leslie doesn’t appear to notice.

  “I understand she’s been through a lot, I really do. But why did she have to die on my table? And why won’t she leave me alone?” The whiny tone in her voice is unmistakable, and under different circumstances, I’d hold it against her.

  “The problem,” she continues, “is that she’s scaring away all my customers. I barely paid my bills this month, and next month… Let’s just say that if this doesn’t work, I’m going to get tossed on the streets.”

  Great. Another client who can’t pay enough to help keep me from being tossed on the streets. But what am I going to do? I’ve already come all this way. I might as well talk to her ghost.

  “What does she do that’s scaring people away?”

  Leslie stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “She cries and moans whenever I’m giving a massage, that’s what! And let me tell you, that’s the last thing people need when they’re trying to relax. I can’t exactly charge sixty dollars an hour to massage people while they listen to a ghost blubber, now can I?”

  I shake my head no sympathetically. This is one of the biggest problems with ghosts who won’t leave the place where they died. They fail to realize how much it hurts the living. In many cases, they terrify their own loved ones so much it brings on a mental breakdown. That may not be the case here, but the ghost clearly needs some closure.

  “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got,” I say.

  Her face becomes grim, but determined, as she opens the door into her massage studio. “Go on in,” she says, while gesturing for me to enter the room first.

  I walk through the doorframe, and it hits me like a ton of bricks. The enormity of this spirit’s emotional baggage is beyond anything I’ve ever encountered before. Explosions sound in my mind. The essential oil diffuser on the rig
ht side of the room sprays the scent of pain everywhere. I’m pretty sure that’s not a scent Leslie bought through a catalog.

  Staggering, I fall to the floor with a thud. Her floor is carpeted, so there’s no risk of splinters. I’m going to have a nasty bruise, though. My eyes are leaking from the intensity of this small space when it suddenly goes quiet. I rub my eyes a few times and wipe away the remnants of my tears. And that’s when I see Mrs. Felton.

  It’s instantly clear to me she’s unlike any other ghost I’ve ever met. There’s a hopefulness in her dead eyes that makes them look almost alive. There’s also a spark of recognition that’s very curious. A sweet scent enters the room; it’s identical to the smell of Leslie’s letter. We lock eyes for a second before I speak.

  “Hello. Are you Mrs. Felton?”

  A soft, sad voice fills the air. “I am, dear.”

  “Do you know where you are?”

  She titters, but not in a malicious way. “Of course. This is Leslie’s massage room. I’m quite sorry for her troubles, but I can’t seem to leave. And I need to find my son first. If I don’t, who will?”

  Confusion clouds my face. This is already the oddest spectral encounter of my career. It’s also clear this deceased woman may need my counseling services more than most. I sit on the edge of Leslie’s office chair.

  “How about you tell me your story from the beginning, Mrs. Felton?”

  Chapter Three

  Sitting in my ugly little hotel room eating a greasy, overpriced pizza doesn’t make the words Mrs. Felton spoke go away. I’ve been listening to the dead speak for more than a decade, but I’ve never heard anything quite like this.