Blackmail was such a lovely word, Lynne mused as she listened in on the chaos at the Trent home. All it had taken was one night of drunken, forgettable sex with Liam and she had a direct line via the man’s cell phone to all that was going on during the current event. Her only regret was that she didn’t have a front-row seat for the action. It sounded more exciting than anything she’d witnessed on the show or in person.
The crying and whimpering coming from Megan was music to her ears. Her mouth twisted into a sneer. How could O’Malley have any interest in the little wuss? He needed a real woman and she planned to be the one.
Her panties dampened at the thought of Jack in her bed. She’d imagined the boss man’s face on Liam every minute they were in bed, even calling him Jack in her mind as his poor substitute pounded away on her. Thankfully it had only been a few minutes at best. She shuddered. A few minutes too much.
Her first inclination had been to go along for the event, but she’d been afraid her thoughts would show on her face. Telling Jack she had a cold and would man the phones at the office had been easy. He just didn’t know the only phone she was worried about was in his computer guru’s pocket.
She couldn’t hear everything, but she could hear enough to know something spectacular had happened at the house. A twinge of regret shot through her. What was it like to really be in the presence of paranormal phenomena? Up to now, she’d only experienced the random shutting doors that could be the wind and the voices that you thought you heard but couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure.
Lynne was the only one on the team without actual ghost experience. The paranormal had never touched her life. Jack had his sister, Donna had photographed orbs and spectral images, Liam had caught real voices on his computers, and Rob had all his gadgets detecting EMFs and EVPs. Only she and Luke had nothing to show for their time at Ghost Releasers and Luke didn’t care if the money kept flowing in. The man was a human cash register.
She listened back in as the clangs and snaps sounded of equipment being wrapped up and put away. Tapping on her phone, she sent a text to Liam to get him to pull the phone out of his pocket. She needed to find out what was happening.
“Give me a minute with this and I’ll help you with your stuff, Rob,” she heard Liam’s voice over the open phone.
“What’s happening?” she hissed at him.
“We’re wrapping up,” the man replied in a whisper. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me, Liam, or I’ll tell your sweet little wife what we were doing at that hotel. Videotape and all.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to put the phone on the table, so I can hear everything.”
A thud sounded from the phone. She smiled. All men were like little boys. Threaten to tell on them to mommy and they all complied. Jack’s rich baritone came through the phone’s speaker. She got chills just hearing his voice. She wanted to hear that voice in her bedroom, in her bed. Telling her to do all the nasty things she loved to do.
“You can do this, Megan. You must let Aaron go. Your husband is dead, but you are still here. You must release him. He needs to go to where he is supposed to be.”
“I can’t,” Megan’s voice whined.
“You can do this.”
Lynne sneered. She knew that deep, cultured voice all too well. Andrea’s voice sent shivers up her spine as well. That tone of belief had made Lynne do all kinds of things she hadn’t thought she was capable of. Things that had her believing she was Andrea’s friend, her sister, maybe something more.
She wiped an angry tear from her eye. All lies. Every word out of the bitch’s mouth had been a lie.
Lynne had been grooming her for months. They did each other’s hair. They snuggled in one bed, sharing a bowl of popcorn watching a scary movie. She’d been one step away from going the next step in their relationship when Andrea went to a frat party.
Overnight, she had no time for Lynne, but all the time in the world for Brad, Devin, and Buffy with their animal-logoed polo shirts and upper crust snootiness. She’d come back to the dorm to find Andrea’s side of the room empty and the mattress bare. Once she’d tracked her down, the girl acted like she didn’t even know Lynne.
“Okay.” She caught the bare whisper of Megan’s voice, dragging her back from the past.
Jack’s voice came through the phone and she closed her eyes and listened as he became the Ghost Releaser of paranormal fame.
“Spirits welcomed and not. You have no place here. This home is for the living. Your place is elsewhere. You must move on. Megan needs to be at peace here. We release you.”
“I release you.” Megan’s voice was a bare whisper.
“Like you mean it,” Jack added.
“I release you.”
White noise filled the phone. It sounded like a hurricane. Did they open all the windows?
“Go away. Please go away. Please. Please. Please.”
Megan’s voice screamed over the roaring of the wind and then the phone fell silent with a crash of sound.
“What the fuck was that?” Lynne’s mouth fell open.