Courting Danger (San Amaro Investigations)

Chapter 1

One

The house was lit up with Christmas lights that looked straight out of a Hallmark movie, white and colored, outlining the trim and windows, making the whole place appear delightfully inviting.

It was almost three days past New Year’s, and they clearly wanted to maintain the illusion that everything was fine. Absolutely fine.

The weather was bitterly cold and when I glanced up at the sky, craning my neck to get a view through the windshield, I expected rain. Despite the impending downpour, someone walked by my car in shorts and a tank top.

California winters were always unexpected to those of us occupying the Golden State.

Somehow, despite all reason, the annual recurrence of a few days of frigid rain and temperatures below seventy degrees was a surprise every year.

We all freaked out, and either pulled on three sweatshirts and the jacket we’d bought for that one skiing trip five years ago, or we continued on as normal, wearing board shorts and flip-flops in temperatures that even someone on a different coast might term “sweater weather.”

I pulled my jacket tighter around me, sighing heavily before opening the door to get out of my heated car and head into the cold. Even with the layers on, it was unpleasant. Groaning, I opened the back seat and pulled out my satchel and the duffel bag I’d packed with overnight gear.

Around me, the houses were mostly quiet.

It was an older area of town and their mid-century design was in contrast with my destination’s mid-1800’s aesthetic.

With the satchel slung across my torso and the duffel hefted over my shoulder, I took one more look at the Victorian that occupied more space than anything else nearby.

The lights all flashed on, setting the warm yellow exterior aglow as a series of bistro lights and sconces lit the extensive porch.

I winced as a fat drop of freezing rain hit the top of my head and jogged toward the house.

Hopefully the lighting was on a timer and not part of the reason my client had called me in.

Because the gorgeous house, with its detailed paintwork, inviting deck chairs on the porch, peaked roof, and a turret on the side, was haunted.

The porch shielded me from the rain, and I looked out at the well kept garden, the manicured lawn broken up by a Japanese maple, and a few bushes pruned in round spheres.

I’d checked the yard a couple of times this week, hoping to find an open grave or some animal bones.

Something to indicate what caused the haunting.

After a daytime and a nighttime visit, I’d turned up nothing. No random tombstones, no mysterious coffin-shaped holes, just a lot of nosy neighbors looking at me through their blinds.

Given the people who usually stayed at the place, onsite graves would have been a selling point, and the photos would have been prominent on the Rntl listing. My phone pinged, and I saw a text from my client with the code for the door.

I typed the code into the digital lock on the door, which whirred for a moment before the deadbolt slid back.

Making my way inside, I sighed in relief.

Despite its dated exterior, the inside was toasty warm, a smart thermostat near the entryway alerting me that the house was now considered ‘occupied’ and the temperature would stay at a pleasant seventy-eight degrees until eleven p.m.

The high tech didn’t surprise me. As a vacation rental priced at $1,500 a night, renters expected luxury.

The house, or “Remodeled Haunted San Amaro Victorian - Gorgeous Ocean Views” as it was called on the Rntl site, had two main kinds of clientele.

The first was groups looking to add a bit of spice to their vacation in San Amaro.

The second was people who rented it as a wedding venue through a private realtor.

I’d heard of the house before, but I’d always assumed that it was haunted the way that the “artisanal sustenance store” around the corner from my apartment was a grocery store.

It had the history, the trappings, but none of the actual food that I would want to eat.

Or, in the case of the house: great facade, no ghost.

Neither the tourists nor the brides had been happy when the ‘haunted’ house started actually haunting them.

The string of one star reviews led me to get a phone call from a receptionist, who passed me to a secretary, who passed me to the client, an LA-based real estate investor who I could tell was actually using one of those office putting greens as we talked.

Mr. Putting Green was direct. He wanted to stop receiving reviews that said, “One Star. Something climbed up my leg in the middle of the night, and when we turned on the light, there was blood dripping out of the vents. Left and stayed at a Motel 6 where nothing paranormal is trying to kill us.”

So, he came to me. The best paranormal PI in San Amaro.

Granted, I was the only paranormal-focused PI in San Amaro, but that just meant that I could charge Mr. Gentrification Personified a higher per diem than I charge my clients who don’t order espressos from their personal chef while they’re on the phone with me.

It also meant that I couldn’t half-ass this job.

I’d read the reviews. Whatever was haunting this place had started with cold spots, but the most recent review had mentioned something shoving a vacationer down the stairs.

Luckily it hadn’t ended in murder, but there was a big fat yet attached to that thought.

I didn’t have to be a criminal profiler to say that whatever was doing this was escalating, fast.

Just to be safe, I walked all the rooms of the house with a little more thoroughness than I’d done the exterior, since I wasn’t being rained on while I checked out the completely remodeled interior.

They’d kept the original layout, but everything else was modern.

Central heating, probably air conditioning for the ten days a year San Amaro got over ninety degrees.

The front door opened onto a modest foyer, with a stairway that bisected the downstairs, separating the family room with a seventy-two-inch TV and the artfully decorated fake Christmas tree from the dining room with a massive table set for ten people, complete with holly and miniature reindeer.

A kitchen connected the dining room to a living room with a covered pool table and a bookshelf full of local history.

The remodel converted what looked like a maid’s quarters into storage space that held anything the local tourist could want: beach chairs, picnic gear, even hiking sticks.

The whole place was still set up for the holidays, even though the guests who were paying double the normal rate had canceled after seeing the most recent sling of bad reviews.

(“Five thousand dollars for a professional holiday decorator to come in, and I’m expecting three thousand a night.

Booked solid through the end of January, and what do I get?

Cancellation, cancellation, cancellation.

And because it’s a safety risk, they get to keep their money! I don’t get a cent!”)

Upstairs, the four massive bedrooms stocked with an assortment of queen beds, twin-sized bunk beds, and fold-away cots told me that usually this house was full of guests.

Tossing my duffel bag in what looked like the master bedroom, I headed downstairs again.

There hadn’t been anything that stood out on my tour, but I had a few more tricks to try before I resorted to standing near a stairway waiting to get pushed down it.

I’d barely gotten to the kitchen to check out what a fully stocked kitchen looked like in practice when someone pounded on the front door. With a groan, I headed back to the entryway.

“SAPD, please open the door.”

I squinted at the shapes blurred through the privacy glass in the front door and rolled my eyes up with a sigh.

My eyes caught on green. Someone had even strung long garlands around the doorway.

After a moment, I opened the door and saw two of San Amaro’s boys in blue, each wearing a gaudy yellow rain jacket, the reflective strips bright from the well-lit house.

“How can I help you, officers?” I asked.

“We got a call about a prowler in the area,” one of the officers said. He was my height, and his pale skin had gone ruddy in the cold. He wore his jacket open, and I realized that his hand was hovering over his gun.

Ah.

I knew what they saw. A six-foot guy, light brown hair probably looking more messy than tousled because of the rain.

I wasn’t as muscular as I’d been a few years ago, but it still gave the impression I was a threat.

My sister called it “heroin jock.” Of course, the words she actually used were “Hermes’ staff, Parker, could you eat a sandwich or something?

You look like a varsity swimmer who got hooked on drugs when his top-choice school didn’t recruit him. ”

The trigger-happy cop seemed satisfied he’d found his prowler, but I wasn’t about to go down that easily.

“I haven’t seen anything,” I said. “Sorry.”

“You got a name?” angry cop asked.

“Parker Ferro,” I said. The only ID I had on me was my real one. I hadn’t thought I’d need a fake ID for a haunting.

“You mind if we take a look around, Mr. Ferro?” the second officer said.

He nudged his partner slightly and the man startled and shot him a narrow-eyed look.

Still, he moved his hand a little farther from his gun.

He’d downgraded me from someone he might have to shoot to someone he wanted to be ready to shoot, you know, just in case.

Cop number two was the sort of guy that normally I’d give the once over.

Tall, broad, with warm brown skin, he’d probably even deserve my best crappy pickup line.

If he laughed the way his smile lines said he could, maybe I’d even buy him a drink.

Was that size just extra layers because of the rain, or was he as muscled as he looked?