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“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Andrea asked as they pulled into the Ghost Releasers parking lot in downtown Sacramento. The sedate brick building gave no indication of the ghostly business occupying it.

Megan thumped her fingers against the hard cast on her broken arm. The day she’d fallen at the house was still all a blur, but she would never forget the malicious intent behind whatever spectral force had pushed her off the attic ladder.

“I need to know,” she told her sister. “We’ve put this off long enough. Jack was nice enough to not do this until I could get here, even though it is days later than I’d planned.”

“Jack, is it?” Her sister’s smile and raised eyebrow said she sensed a juicy secret.

“It’s nothing,” she hedged. “We just had dinner and some kisses.”

Andrea squealed. “Kisses? You haven’t said anything.”

Her face flushed and she ducked to hide what she was sure was a bright-red face. “I don’t know if there is anything to tell. I invited him into the house and he refused.”

Her sister’s mouth dropped open. “Does he already have someone?”

“I don’t think so. He said it was because I was drunk.”

“You were drunk? Megan! You don’t even hardly drink.”

She nodded. “I know. After a bottle of wine at da Vinci’s, I was beyond tipsy.”

Andrea smiled again. “He may look like a pirate, but I’m thinking there is a gentleman lurking behind that scruffy face and long hair.”

“Let’s go inside already,” Megan said, pushing the car door open. “This is more important than something that might not be anything.”

Andrea got out on her side and they walked together to the front door. Her sister grabbed the handle and pulled it open. A flood of cool air washed over them. Lynne sat at her desk. The woman’s face perked up until her gaze hit them, then her smile turned into a frown. As she spotted Andrea, a look of pure hatred twisted her face. An icy spike shot down Megan’s spine. She never wanted that venomous glare turned on her. She didn’t know what the woman thought her sister had done, but Lynne had taken it personally.

“I’ll let Mr. O’Malley know you’re here,” she spat out, her tone past the line of insolence.

“No need, Lynne,” a deep baritone announced as Jack stepped out of his office.

His gaze lingered on her face and a smile shot across his face. “Megan, I’m glad you finally made it.”

He stared at her cast. “Are you up for this?”

She frowned as she glared at Andrea and Jack. “I’m fine. I wish everyone would stop hovering. It’s just a broken arm. It isn’t as if I haven’t been hurt worse in cheer squad.”

Jack stepped forward and kissed her. It wasn’t the inferno of the other night, but it wasn’t a chaste, client kiss on the cheek either. She ignored Andrea’s loud sigh at her side. Breathing in the subtle scent that was Jack, she sighed and melted as he whispered in her ear. The hair rose on her neck and delicious shivers skittered down her spine.

“I’ve been thinking about you.”

Her face heated and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She was out of her league. Flirting as a mature woman was so different from the fun times of high school. The stakes were higher and more meaningful. At least, she hoped they had meaning to him as well. Maybe it all meant nothing. Then he placed his hand on the small of her back. In an instant, she wished they were somewhere all alone, with a lot fewer clothes.

The heat of his palm scorched at the dip in her spine. His hand slid away as he pulled back and included her sister in their conversation. Her heart dropped at the loss of closeness and warmth.

“The crew is in the large conference room. The guys have only done some preliminary searching. They are all chomping at the bit to show you what they’ve found. Would you ladies like anything before we get started?”

Megan glanced at Lynne and her hostile look that said she would spit in her water cup. She shuddered. “No, thank you. Let’s just start, please.”

“Of course,” Jack said, directing them down the hall.

Three heads looked up as they came through the doorway. She couldn’t remember which man was Liam and which one Rob, but Donna she remembered from letting her look through the camera that night and the bright red hair the woman wore piled on her head.

“I thought you said a friend would be here as well?”

“Stephen couldn’t stay another day, he had to fly to Ireland to investigate a haunting at a castle.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry about that. I know you said he really wanted to see the evidence.”

Jack seated them on a small couch to the side. “Stephen can see it when he returns. You both can sit here so you won’t be on camera.”

Andrea sat up straight as soon as she sat next to her sister. “You assured us that Megan’s footage wouldn’t be used by Ghost Releasers. The contract was very specific.”

His smile remained as he winked at Megan. “I stand by my word. But all our business is recorded. I never know what will happen down the road and I’ve had clients change their minds and then I have no footage of their reveal.”

“Anyway,” Donna piped up, looking their way. “Some of the evidence is photos, film, or EVPs that mean nothing to you, but showcase our equipment and its use at the scene. We can use a snippet here or there during explanations on the show.”

Megan nodded and reached for Andrea’s hand. “It’s fine. Just show us how you do this ghost business.”

Laughter rang out across the room and broke up the tension. Jack strode over and took the seat at the head of the table. A man she hadn’t noticed stood by the other end and held a camera on his shoulder.

Jack stared at him. “Only those of us at the table.”

“Check, boss,” the man replied.

“Cut when I say so in case we decide to include the clients in the conversation.”

“No problem, Jack. Just give the signal.”

Megan sat forward in her seat as the action of Jack O’Malley’s Ghost Releasers started. In rapid-fire sentences, he asked each of his crew for anything they’d uncovered. Shivers shot down her spine and goose bumps raised on her bare arms as they all listened once again to the eerie sounds at her house. Things she hadn’t noticed during the adrenaline rush of the actual event.

She stared as Liam and Rob projected images onto a television hanging on the wall. The blue tones between the red and orange signatures of Andrea and Luke shook her. How could things be there in the room and not seen? Did the dead surround us day and night? Didn’t they know this was our world?

Her mind swung back to the room at Jack’s harsh tone and the angry shove of his hands through his long hair.

“What do you mean you didn’t get that last voice? We all heard it.”

Donna swallowed, and the sound carried in the silent room. “I didn’t mean we didn’t get it. I meant it isn’t all that we got. Are you sure we should play it?” Her glance swung over Megan and Andrea on the couch. Her dark eyes showed concern.

“Play it,” he whispered, his teeth clenched together with an audible grinding sound and a muscle popping in his cheek.

Liam pushed some buttons and white noise filled the room. Megan leaned forward, trying to catch the sound in between the static.

“Mine,” the deep, angry scream ricocheted around the room.

She jammed her arm across her roiling stomach, the rugged plaster catching on her blouse and scratching her skin. The malevolent tone still frightened her. Her mind replayed being choked, the air not filling her lungs. Gray fog edged her vision at the memory of the rough, mean words.

“No one else. She is mine. No one. She is mine. She is mine.”

Jumping out of her seat, her vision swam. She didn’t realize she was crying until the hot wetness rolled down her cheeks.

“That is not Aaron. He would never say that. Do you understand? Never.”

Jack’s hand flung up and his voice carried across the table. “Cut.”

Before she saw him move, he was in front of her, wrapping his arms around her body. She sank into his warmth.

“He wouldn’t,” she cried.

“I believe you.”

Her knees gave out. Slowly, he lowered her back to the couch and squatted in front of her. Her hands still clasped in his. They shook even as she tried to pull herself together. This damsel-in-distress crap sucked. She wanted her life back. Now. She needed the strength she’d had when her husband had been deployed and she’d been on her own for months at a time. She filled her lungs with a deep, steadying breath.

“Was that all?”

He smiled at her, a twinkle in his dark eyes. “Don’t you think you’ve heard enough?”

“No, I need to hear it all. To see it all. This is my life we are talking about.”

“Aaron said he had to protect me. I have to know from what.”

“Damn,” Jack yelled out. “I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

“What? I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I had you release Aaron. To let him move on. But he was there to protect you. And now, he’s gone.”

She shook her head. “Can’t I just tell this other thing to leave too?” The paranormal world had layers she didn’t understand, like a library without an index. It needed an instruction manual.

He ran a hand up and down her arm without the cast, but his gaze shot to it, wincing. “It is not going to leave. It thinks you are his. You need to stay somewhere else until I can do some research. Contact some people I know.”

Andrea coughed and turned a bright red. “No publicity. Martin-Stovall’s do not make news.”

Megan wanted to laugh at the look Jack shot at her sister. She’d wanted to give her that look for years. Especially when she copied their mother subconsciously.

“What is more important; your privacy or Megan’s life? Do you think anyone bought the story that she fell from the attic by accident? Her house is haunted. I just pray the entity isn’t attached to Megan herself, or she isn’t safe anywhere.”

Andrea’s eyebrows shot up. “You can’t be serious?”

Jack glared right back at her. “I don’t joke about anything in this business. Just because we can’t see these beings doesn’t mean they aren’t there. After the other night at Megan’s how can you still doubt the supernatural world?”

She would have laughed at her sister’s dumbfounded silence if she didn’t feel less like laughing at this moment than any time in her life.