GHOST OF A CHANCE, a paranormal short story Read Online Free Page B

Shark River Inlet.  When we used to spend summers down the shore my grandmother would tell us stories about it,” Peter added.
    “But your grandmother would have been young during Prohibition.”
    “Six or seven.  Her father told her the stories.  She used to say that her mother would ask him to stop,” he said as if suddenly remembering it.  He moved, sitting back on the edge of the desk as she faced him.  His thigh skimmed her legs, awakening the connection she had experienced before in the parlor.
    Needing a little space, she moved away from him. “If your great-grandmother was Anna Dolan, and if the bootlegging had caused her to lose her husband, that could explain why she wouldn’t want to glamorize the rum-running.”
    “Sounds plausible, but how do we prove it?” he asked.
    Tracy smiled.  “Not we .  Me.  Remember the contest?”
    With his proximity to Tracy, he had forgotten about a lot, including the contest.  He supposed that was exactly what his father had wanted, and something inside of him rebelled for a moment, but only for a moment.  It would have been foolish to ignore what he was feeling on account of his father’s manipulation.  But if anything, the contest had made the situation a little more difficult.  “I suppose that I should go so that the other contestants don’t feel slighted somehow.”
    “I suppose,” she said, but it was half-hearted.
    “The rest of them are in the parlor, arguing about Tommy’s data and what it means.”  Which was what he supposed they should be doing and so he said, “We could join them.”
    Tracy considered returning to the parlor and experienced a chill again at the thought of the spirits that still might be in the room.  “Or we could go for walk around the grounds since our time in the mansion is limited.”
    His smile broadened and spread up to his eyes, which glittered a bright blue.  “Seems like a much better use of our time.”
    He pushed off the edge of the desk and offered her his arm.
    “Shall we?”
     

Chapter 6
    Tracy slipped her arm through his.  Awareness of him awoke again.  How could it not?  He was a handsome and seemingly caring man.  What she was experiencing was due to that and not to any lingering effects from what had happened in the parlor.
    If anything had actually occurred there, she thought.  The logical and practical side of her refused to believe that Nancy the psychic had somehow managed to channel a spirit or two.  Especially one who managed to take over Tracy’s body for only the space of a few heartbeats and yet had left behind emotions she was finding it hard to forget.
    Instead of heading out her bedroom door, Peter walked her to the French doors and tossed them open.  They strolled through the gardens and down to the water’s edge.  The wind had kicked up the surf, washing ashore small jellyfish that glittered like diamonds from the moonbeams.
    “It was dark the night it happened.  Anna was afraid,” Tracy said, and wrapped her arms around herself, slightly cold from the strong ocean breeze.
    Peter, who had been walking beside her with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched against the nip of the wind, slipped one arm around her and pulled her close.  The warmth of him abated the cold instantly.  “Francis was afraid also.  I remember that feeling from the parlor room.  He was very very fearful.”
    “A local fisherman had been beaten to death about a week before.  He used to deliver fish to the mansion.  Maybe he brought more than that to the back door,” she said, providing Peter with the information she had discovered during her earlier research.
    “If Izzy killed the Ryans—”
    “I think the dead fisherman was a warning to Skippy to stop, but Izzy might not have been happy to stop there,” Tracy said as they neared a jetty that marked the end of the mansion’s property.  She stopped and looked back toward the house, noticed the boathouse about ten feet away from