Chapter 1

Oh God, they’re here!

Samantha Gladstone’s heart sped up. She had hoped this would never happen. But, there sat Lucas Hart’s red Mustang, with the ridiculous tags, GhostMe. So much for wishful thinking.

As Director of the Paranormal Encounters TV Show, he had interviewed Sam back in August. Uncle Hal pushed for a Halloween live show, and in August he’d even persuaded the City Council to change the town name from Gladstone to Phantom Horse, Colorado. She really didn’t think they could pull this off so soon. But there they were! The whole Paranormal Encounters team and American Paranormal Investigations, Inc. team, judging by the door signs on the vehicles.

And Lucas Hart had parked right there, in her assigned faculty parking spot. “Damn!”

Tyson Adcock sat up straighter in the back seat of her car. “What?”

Principal James Chambers and Vice Principal Emily Wesley stood at the entrance to the parking lot, communication radios in hand. Orange cones blocked anyone from entering. Sam pulled parallel with the entrance and Wesley bent over to speak to Sam through her window. “Sorry, Miss Gladstone. We are diverting all faculty to park around by the soccer field. I know it’s an inconvenience and we’re trying to get this cleared up with the Mayor. But for now, please park over there.” She pointed a curved index finger toward the field, the walkie-talkie in the same hand. Sam nodded agreeably. Ms. Wesley’s usually lovely Filipino complexion looked ashamed. She had probably had all the negative feedback she needed for one day.

“Well, Ty, looks like we get to walk a little further today.” It was all Sam could manage to say in a civilized tone. A seven-year-old didn’t need to hear the words she wanted to spew at the impertinent parking lot thieves. Angry, vulgar words that would get her in trouble if Ty repeated them to his mother. Violet Snow was one of her best friends. And one of many reasons she was late to work today.

Sam gawked at the equipment as she drove by. Crates and cases were neatly arranged in parking spaces. Men and a few girls dashed back and forth, unloading more cases, cables, and Sam had no idea what else. They must have started out early this morning to already be here from Denver. It was a good three-hour drive and it looked like they had been here at least an hour already. Both entrances to the faculty parking lot were blocked with orange cones.

She fumed! How dare they block the entire faculty parking lot! “Ugh!” Did Principal Chambers know this was coming? By the expressions on his and Ms. Wesley’s faces, Sam thought not. Besides, if he had known, he would have alerted the faculty on Friday before school ended to park somewhere else today. Samantha closed her eyes. Would they be parking here the entire time of their investigation? Clear until Halloween? “UGH!” Emily said they were trying to get this cleared up with the Mayor. Did Uncle Hal agree for them to park in the school parking lot? What gives him the right? That arrogant—

“What’s going on, Aunt Sam?” Tyson’s head twisted and turned like a parrot, his eyes were wide with curiosity.

“I suspect Mayor Hal got his TV show.” Sam couldn’t help but express her frustration. The coffee she had picked up at Hal’s diner, which her cousin, Leanne Gladstone, ran for her father, wasn’t sitting well in Sam’s stomach. She really wanted to scream, but she didn’t want to upset Tyson more than he already was. This Monday morning had been rough on both of them.

“What TV show?” Tyson asked, still perusing all that his young eyes could take in.

“The Paranormal Investigation team from Denver. They are here to make a TV show about the Gladstone legend, the Phantom Horse and Rider. Remember, Mayor Hal changed the name of our town to Phantom Horse, Colorado, just after school started? It was one of the first things you studied in Social Studies. We all did. Mayor Hal wants to bring tourists in. Thinks it’ll help with our economy.”

Tyson’s brows squeezed together. “What’s a economy?”

Sam thought for a moment. “AN Economy” —she corrected his grammar— “means spending money. Mayor Hal thinks having this story told on TV will help Gladstone, er, Phantom Horse make more money, as a town.”

“How?”

Sam sighed. She hated her Uncle’s whole plan for exploiting Grandpa Harold’s ghost. It was a nightmarish memory for her to begin with. And these Paranormal Freak Hunters were going to make her quaint little town look like a bunch of yahoos without a lick of common sense. But Tyson was an inquisitive second grader and deserved a less biased answer to his question. “Mayor Hal thinks after people all over America watch the TV show about our Phantom Horse and Rider on TV, they will want to come here to do their own ghost hunts. They’ll stay in our hotels, eat at our restaurants, and buy souvenirs and other things in our shops. They’ll spend money while they are here and that will help our town’s economy.”

“Oh.” Tyson was very intelligent for his seven years, but did he really understand Sam’s explanation? He sat back and stared out the window of her vanilla-white Mitsubishi. It was just like her life, plain vanilla, nothing exciting or colorful. Just the way she liked it.

Today, however, had started out with a bit of excitement, if you can call having your electricity interrupted and your alarm not going off exciting. Then the water supply to her apartment had been shut off for an emergency repair, probably associated with the electricity break. So, no shower, no first cup of coffee.

Then Ty was having one of those mornings, too. His mother had been fussing at him to hurry, but he, too, was running late. Sam received her payment from Vi for taking Ty to school, a bag of sweet rolls, and rushed the kid to her car. The Sweet Cheeks bakery was always busy of a morning and it was impossible for Vi to get a break to run her son to school. It worked out well for Sam and Vi ... and Tyson. This morning, though, he looked as disheveled as she felt. It seemed every traffic light turned red, not a single green to let her make up any lost time.

And now this.

“What you gonna do, Aunt Sam?” Ty had a tendency to take on adult concerns, far beyond what his maturity level should handle. It was one of the things Vi tried so hard to protect him from.

“Oh, don’t worry, Ty. We’ll figure out something.” She slowly pulled past the teacher’s parking lot. The orange cones had been her last straw. Anger festered in her chest. She drove around the corner. Recognizing other teachers’ cars parallel parked along the curb, she parked her’s in front of Coach Addy Ringer’s electric-blue Toyota Tacoma truck. Addy’s ability to parallel park her big ol’ truck impressed Sam. She set her brake.

She hated being late. It threw her whole day off and the kids suffered for it. “Come on, Ty. No time to dawdle.”

Ty leapt from the car and waited for Sam to come around to him. He was good about staying close to her and she appreciated that. Violet had taught him to be very wary about wandering off alone, ever since her ex-husband left them over three years ago. Vi was always afraid Tyler Adcock would show up out of nowhere and try to take their son. Even though the judge granted her managerial custody of Tyson, Tyler could be unpredictable. According to Vi, Tyler had threatened to come get Tyson on several occasions, with or without her permission. As it was, she hadn’t seen him in over a year.

Sam gathered the drink carrier with two coffees. She lifted the sack with the sweet roll from Vi and held it with her teeth. Her purse and satchel with homework papers she slung over one shoulder and shoved the door closed with her bottom. A click of her key fob locked the car. She took a big breath and stumbled forward to take Ty’s hand and guide him across the soccer field. She was panting for breath in no time and Ty kept looking up at her. He was a sensitive child, and Sam tried not to reveal her frustrations.

But everything had piled up this morning. Now this long walk across a wet field was just icing on the poop cake of life for Sam. Her patience wore dangerously thin. The sack became saturated with spit in no time. There was nothing she could do about that until she got to her classroom. She kept trudging forward.

The cute black and white checkered pumps she had chosen this morning quickly became a huge mistake. The small heels sunk into the soft loam with every step. She groaned and tried to walk on the balls of her feet as if she were in six-inch heels. Ty watched her carefully. “You okay, Aunt Sam?”

“I’m okay.” She mumbled with the sack between her teeth. Just then her ankle twisted and a heel broke off her shoe. The coffees tumbled from the carrier and one spilled into the grass. “Sh—aah!” she growled, jerking the one coffee up. Its lid had stayed intact. The other was a lost cause.

She looked at the broken shoe on her foot and then at Ty. “Could you please get that for me?” Pointing with her nose at the heel buried in the muddy grass. She placed both cups back in the carrier, even though one was empty. Despite her horrible morning, she didn’t want to litter.

“Sure.” Ty quickly lifted the heel and handed it to Sam.

“Sweetheart.” She sighed. “Could you carry it for me?”

He nodded and juggled it between his hands. She limped closer to the school building. Those paranormal freaks needed to be sent to detention! Anger prickled her skin like a cactus-covered shawl. She wanted to slash every tire in the parking lot. Not just the little red Mustang’s.

Her ankle hurt. Her back hurt. Her calves hurt from trying to tiptoe. The sack in her mouth had soaked up so much saliva it disintegrated in her mouth. She let go of Ty and took the sack, then held Ty’s hand again with two fingers.

Ty smiled at her. “You love Momma’s sweet rolls, don’t you?”

Sam sighed. “Yes.” She did, but for right now, she grew more enraged with each difficult step, and her sweet tooth was taking a serious back seat to the anger. It shouldn’t be this difficult to walk to work in the morning!

She had a spare set of shoes she kept in her desk because with fourth graders, one never knew when someone would get sick and ruin the pair one had on. So the broken heel wouldn’t be a day-long problem. Just a momentary one, right now. To be honest, she’d had enough problems this one morning to last a month or two.

As she finally stepped on the asphalt, she stopped abruptly. Ty looked up at her with fear in his eyes. “Oh. It’s okay, Ty. I just thought of something.”

“What?”

She nodded. “I’m not sure we should walk through the middle of all this.” Something in her gut told her she should avoid the parking lot altogether. But she was sick of traipsing on the wet grass. She transferred the sack to her other hand, adjusted the satchel and purse on her shoulder, and moved forward cautiously. Squeezing Tyson’s hand so that she had a firm grip on him, she led him through the flurry of activity.

Ty looked at the large cases and all the people moving among them. His eyes were as big as a full moon. “Wow!”

“Yeah.” Sam didn’t try to hide her sarcasm. “Wow.”

A rough voice called from across the lot. “Tyson!”

Sam turned to see who was calling his name. Her gut clenched. A man who was the spitting image of Ty stood between a cargo van and a black Hummer with his arms outstretched for Tyson to run into.

Tyson shoved up against Sam and she stumbled. “It’s all right, Ty. I’m here. Let’s get you into the building.” She wrapped her hand with the sack around his shoulder and hurried as best she could with the broken heel to the entrance. She marched in a lop-sided gait straight to the school office, through the half-swinging door, and back to Theresa Campbell’s office.