We’re one week away from the release of By Your Side!
“By Your Side is a riveting trip through paranormal mayhem… Giunta’s endearing, determined characters encounter spirits both benign and fierce… “Page-turner” may be a book-review cliché, but it fits By Your Side from start to finish.” —Howard Weinstein, NYT Bestselling Author and longtime Star Trek writer.
Click here for more info on By Your Side and to pre-order the ebook for $2.99 from Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Nook, or Smashwords.
For now, enjoy the following scenes from Chapter Seven – The House that Elias Built
“You have reached your destination.”
Miranda brought her car to a stop in front of a two-story stone home that was just as secluded as Tammy’s place.
“So this is where Jeff Vernon took out his kids then offed himself,” Eddie said from the backseat.
“It happened on the property, yes, but not in this house,” Amy reminded him.
“I wonder if Jeff Vernon knows that.”
In the rearview mirror, a second pair of headlights closed in before gliding to the right. Eddie watched through the rear windshield as Marc’s SUV rolled to a stop beside Elias Gray’s house. “Huh, a driveway. Missed that.”
Miranda peered up at a meager blue glow from one of the second-floor windows. Two young girls stared back.
“Randy, what do you see?” Amy slid down in her seat to follow Miranda’s gaze. “What’s up there?”
In unison, the girls stepped away. Shadows on the ceiling quivered and jumped in the dim light as if cast by the gamboling flames of a candle. Then there were gunshots. Two of them.
Miranda gasped, her body jolting with each explosive burst.
Eddie leaned forward between the front seats. “Whoa, Randy, what happened?”
“Nothing. I’m… I’m fine.”
There was a knock on the driver side window. Miranda screamed, sending Eddie reeling into the farthest corner of the back seat.
“You sure about that?” Amy asked.
Miranda glared at Marc as she slapped the button to lower the window.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you,” he said. “Just wondering if we were waiting for something.”
“Nope, not at all.”
“You OK?”
“No,” Eddie said.
“Yes.” Miranda smiled. “I’m fine. We’re all fine and we’ll be out in a moment.”
With that, she closed the window, leaving Marc with a befuddled expression as he wandered off. Miranda leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
“Can you tell us what you saw up there?” Amy asked.
“I suspect we’re going to have an eventful night so let’s get on it.”
* * *
The team gathered on the front porch. As she rang the doorbell, a growing tightness in Miranda’s chest added to her festering anxiety. Within a few seconds, the lights on either side of the storm door flashed on. Elias Gray was waiting for them—and he wasn’t alone.
“Hey, gang.” Tammy pushed open the storm door and leaned out.
“I didn’t see your car out there,” Miranda said.
“It’s in the driveway.”
“We didn’t see that either,” Eddie muttered.
Tammy stepped aside. “Oh, well, come on in. I’ll introduce everyone.”
Miranda held open the storm door and waved in the rest of the team ahead of her. Once they were inside, she started to follow, but there was a presence somewhere nearby. It wasn’t attached to the house, but it was observing them. She crossed the porch to the railing but could see little in the darkness save for the first few rows of a sprawling cornfield several yards beyond the driveway.
Behind her, the storm door swung open. Marc joined her at the railing. “What’s going on?”
“We’re being watched.”
“Something in the house?”
Miranda shook her head. “Whatever’s in the house knows we’re here. I sensed that the moment we pulled up. This is different. It’s out there somewhere. Same thing I felt at the restaurant.”
Marc glanced up and down the street.
“Don’t bother. You won’t see anything,” Miranda said. “One way or another, whoever it is will show themselves in time.”
* * *
Frank Knedlhans felt like a reporter again.
It had been far too long since he’d staked out a story, but not so long that he’d forgotten how. He had kept a discreet distance from Amy and her friends during the drive from Steinman Park to the art dealer’s house.
What the hell are you people up to? Frank turned off his headlights and rolled to a stop. The street curved to the left about forty yards past Elias Gray’s property. Just before the apex of the curve, where Frank had stopped his car, the street intersected with a dirt road that led to an Amish farm about a quarter mile away. Gray’s house remained visible for about fifty feet along the dirt road before trees and overgrowth obstructed the view.
Frank marveled at how little had changed in thirty-three years as he put his Jeep in reverse and backed up onto the dry, cracked soil. The last time he’d parked here, he was a twenty-six-year-old reporter for the Intelligencer, clad in an impenetrable armor of callous indifference. In retrospect, Frank realized that he’d been an arrogant, callow prick who had confused objectivity with apathy. People had been nothing more than a job. Their pain, guilt, victories, and losses were mere fodder for the front page.
On that particular occasion, the job had been Nancy Vernon, the last surviving member of a family whose six month ordeal had thrust them into the media spotlight—and just as quickly destroyed them.
Covering Jeff Vernon’s embezzlement trial had been standard fare and when the man was acquitted, Frank had moved on to the next assignment. A week later, Jeff returned to the headlines for reasons far more dire than embezzlement and Frank was all over it. According to the police, there had been no suicide note and no indication that Jeff had become mentally unstable in the days before he murdered his daughters and took his own life.
Afterwards, Nancy had become a recluse, refusing to open her door to anyone but family and friends. One day, Frank had learned that she put the house on the market. Refusing to let her slip away without a statement, he’d waited for two hours parked on the same dirt road then as tonight. Frank had never been above stalking. It had proven effective in getting to Nancy before they found her body in the basement the following day.
The porch lights flashed on at Gray’s house, bringing Frank’s thoughts back to the task at hand. The door opened and the group filed in—all but the blonde. Just as she had at Steinman Park, the woman pulled away from the rest. She stared into the cornfield as if searching for something.
“Who are you, lady?”
Check back next week for our final excerpt from By Your Side!
