Ghost Walking (A Maggie York Paranormal Mystery Book 1)
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Authors: Ally Shields
Tags: #paranormal fantasy
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Now Available
Maggie York Paranormal Mysteries
Ghost Walking (Book 1)
The Guardian Witch Series
Awakening the Fire (Book 1)
Fire Within (Book 2)
Burning Both Ends (Book 3)
Blood and Fire (Book 4)
Fire Storm (Book 5)
Wild Fire (Book 6)
Eternal Fires (Book 7)
“Heart’s Pride” Valentines Heat I
Elvenrude Novels
Cross Keys (Book One)
Cross Keys: Revelations (Book Two)
Cross Keys: Unity (Book Three)
Ghost Walking
A Maggie York Paranormal Mystery Book One
Ally Shields
Copyright Warning
EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (
http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/
).
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Published By
Etopia Press
1643 Warwick Ave., #124
Warwick, RI 02889
Ghost Walking
Copyright © 2016 by Ally Shields
ISBN: 978-1-944138-43-1
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Etopia Press electronic publication: April 2016
DEDICATION
To the city of New Orleans, a vibrant and indomitable haven of dreams—real and imagined.
Disclaimer:
Ghost Walking
is a work of fiction. Certain liberties were taken with New Orleans’ locations, police procedures, and municipal buildings in its creation; characters and events exist only in the author’s imagination. To my knowledge there is no District 13.
CHAPTER ONE
New Orleans streets at night were darker, more mysterious than most places on earth. If ghosts were going to live anywhere, this was the place, and October was the time of year. A faint breeze stirred the humid air, but Maggie barely noticed. Her eyes scanned the shadows, watching for movement, anything that didn’t fit…human or not. Not that she accepted the local belief in paranormal beings. Like, um, ghosts, for example. Not one bit. She shook her head, sending her red hair swinging against her cheeks. More likely she was going crazy.
Her boots clicked loudly on the uneven sidewalk, and she studied the unlit stoops of the houses that butted up to the concrete. Maybe it was the narrow streets or the black recesses created by spreading live oaks that made this portion of the French Quarter so eerie, as if it was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.
She paused at the corner, looked over her shoulder, then continued across the cobblestone street. Even the beam from the single light pole was swallowed by the night, giving off only a hazy glow. It was hard to read the building numbers. She was looking for Daddy Mo’s, one of New Orleans’ late-hours jazz clubs.
Hoping to find a murderer. Her murderer. Or he had intended to be.
She shifted her tense shoulders, and the resulting twinge in her rib cage was a sharp reminder of that night six months ago. The bullet had nicked her heart, collapsed her lung. By the time the paramedics rolled her gurney into the hospital, she’d coded twice and was legally dead. But they’d brought her back.
Yeah, well, sort of. Not the old Maggie—seasoned, no-nonsense homicide cop—but a new version of Marguerite Durant York, one she didn’t yet understand. She’d returned…changed, hearing voices and seeing things she shouldn’t be able to see.
It cost her the one thing that mattered—her career on the major crimes squad. Oh, sure, she’d been placed on extended medical leave for PTSD rather than fired, but no one came back to the force from that kind of diagnosis. At twenty-nine, she’d been at the top of her game, and the fall had been a bitter blow. Due to the shooting and her
hallucinations
—before she’d learned to shut up—the department had insisted on counseling, and she’d gone a few times before dropping out. She couldn’t tell her shrink the truth, and keeping up the lies was just too hard. Instead, she’d spent a day at the spa, and she and her best friend had indulged in a week of shopping therapy. At night she spent long hours working out her issues at the gun range. But nothing made
them
go away.
Now, all that was left was the hunt.
Finally spotting the right building number, Maggie hurried around the corner and approached the lighted side entrance. Music and loud voices drifted through the door. As she pushed it open, the scent of bourbon, cigar smoke, and the beat of Creole music bombarded her. She edged her way through the standing-room-only crowd and ordered a whiskey sour at the bar. While she waited, she leaned against the counter and surveyed the room.
A man at a nearby table lifted his brows in invitation. Maggie shook her head and looked away. Her gaze slid around the room, stopping to assess each dark-haired male. Seeking a two-bit player named Bobby Hurst.
After months of fruitless searching, she had the name of someone who’d been on the scene that night. Maybe he was the shooter, maybe not, but his prints had been the only clear set found at the scene. A thumb and index finger on a metal pipe used in the fight she and her partner had attempted to break up. Unidentified, until Hurst’s recent arrest for drunken driving. He still might have gone unnoticed, except he’d failed to appear for his court hearing two days ago and his last known address had been vacated.
Someone took a deeper look at the case, ran the prints…and Ray Coridan called her.
She owed Coridan. Her former partner had continued to give her behind-the-scenes access to the police investigation. Without that, she would have gone crazy. A grim smile flitted across her lips. “Crazier” might be more accurate.
She stiffened, her stomach suddenly churning. She
felt
one of them, the reason she was no longer an active force cop, and she turned toward the sensory projection.
A man wearing a gold and black sports hoodie stood across the room, his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. The hood was pulled forward over his head leaving his face and eyes in shadow, but she knew he was staring at her. Medium height and build, slightly disheveled. Nothing about him was remarkable, except he faded in and out—and nobody else could see him.