GENRE: Gay Mystery Interracial Spicy Romance
LENGTH: 77,995 words
RATING:

PI Bradshaw receives a late night call from a client desperate to find her missing daughter. The woman asks to meet him at a storage unit in upstate New York. The woman hangs up before Bradshaw can inquire further. Woken by the jarring news, Bradshaw decides to meet the frantic, mysterious woman pleading for his help.

Working as a private investigator has its drawbacks. Bradshaw often receives prank calls from clients with run-of-the-mill requests and chooses his cases wisely. But there is something unusual and unnerving about this particular call. The hopeless plea in the woman’s voice and the anonymity of her demand ignite a maelstrom of questions.

While Bradshaw decides whether the call is worth pursuing, a young dead girl from the Other Side visits him, demanding attention and seeking help for the request he just received. Who is this spirit? What does she want? And how is she linked to the caller?

EXCERPT:
Note: may contain sexually explicit scenes of a homoerotic nature.

Thunder cleaved the sky, pulling me out of my foggy dream.

In the glass, a flash of white light and a dash of movement scurried past my periphery.

I shuddered at the pale flesh of a disfigured face sneering at me.

I turned.

Nothing -- a line of locked unit doors.

Then footsteps, sprinting away, and a gaggle of laughter from around the corner, along the corridor.

“Hello?” I yelled, chasing another phantom. My legs felt like rubber bands as I dashed to the end of the long hall. I stopped at the stairwell door, out of breath.

The sound footsteps seized. But intoxicating laughter followed.

“Who’s there?” I yelled. “This isn’t funny.”

A mockery of demonic laughter filled the air and cooled my skin.

I stepped back, drew a breath.

Behind me, one of the two elevators dinged. The doors opened.

Curiosity consumed me.

I should not have turned around to the sound.

The lights went out when I did, plunging me into complete darkness.

Up ahead, the exit signs flickered.

I reached into my coat pocket and gripped the small bottle of mace I carried with me when working cases. My heart thrashed behind my ribs, like a pack of hungry rats gnawing through the lining of muscles, tendons, and intestines.

A coldness coiled in the space behind me. A round of knuckles tapped against my head, and the sound of teeth clicked close to my ear. I ran toward the elevator doors. They closed before I reached it.

I banged hard on the doors and pressed the down button several times.

In the dim light of the corridor, I noticed shadowy movement from something skittering across the wall, a chittering screech of insectile legs rushing at me in the dark.

I raced a few feet to the left of the elevators to the stairwell door.

Locked.

I backed up against the rain-streaked window and closed my eyes.

Maybe if I stayed in place, camouflaging myself in the scrim of the storm, it wouldn’t see me. Or I’d join my parents on the Other Side.

Let whatever chased me devour me whole. Rip at my jugular, spew all my secrets, and leave me to die. No more running from the dead things that live in the dark.

I ran.

As fast as my middle-aged legs could move, through the maze of corridors, around and around, until I stopped to catch my breath next to a large metal door at the far end.

Something hissed at me somewhere in the enclosing blackness.

I grasped the doorknob and yanked it outward, dashed into the stairwell. I ran down a flight of stairs, my feet pounding like gunfire under me.

I didn’t look up when the doors flung open, and whatever was following me scurried across the ceiling, down the walls, and along the stairs, its legs clicking-clacking like chopsticks.

I lost my balance midway, but reached out to steady myself.

Teeth gnashed and sharp claws raked closely at the side of my face.

I ran down the rest of the stairs to the bottom floor, tripping off the last step and tumbling across the hard concrete.