"My name is Amy Allan. I see dead people. I speak to dead people. And they speak to me."
The Day Before the Investigation
Amy Allan awoke with an excruciating headache. All through the night, the dead had been trying to speak to her, calling out to her in her dreams.
Listen to us, Amy, the haunting voices beckoned. We have so much to tell you.
Amy was a psychic medium. For years, she had been communicating with the dead. When she met Matt, he had trouble believing that Amy was for real. After they were married, he had no other choice but to share her with the spirits that called to her from the great beyond. He became her cameraman on a reality T.V. series, "The Dead Files." Together, they went to haunted locations, seeking answers to various paranormal occurrences. Amy made it her mission to help the dead communicate with the living. The main purpose of her efforts was to give the spirits peace and the living a sense of closure.
Tomorrow they were about to embark on another mission. It would be just like all the others... or so at first she thought. She was just starting to realize that she was about step into her greatest challenge, the mother of all missions.
"Are you ready for this?" Matt asked as he walked into Amy's motel room.
Despite the fact that Amy and Matt were now divorced, they were still very close. He accompanied her on every ghost adventure. She couldn't have done it without him. As he stood over her bed in her motel room, Amy managed to give him a smile, despite the pain that throbbed in her head.
"No, Matt, are you ready for this?" Amy asked.
Matt shrugged. "Another haunted mansion. Ghosts. Apparitions. Moving objects. Strange voices. Frightened house guests. We see it all the time."
"No, this one is different," Amy responded.
"How do you know?"
"I can feel it."
She climbed out of bed, only wearing a thin, cotton nightie. Matt got an eyeful of her curvaceous body.
"Isn't that what you wore on our wedding night?"
Amy's face contorted into one of her famous half-grimaces. Matt gave her a heated smirk.
It took a great deal of strength for Amy to return to the subject of their next investigation. "Pack up your gear and get your mind out of the gutter," Amy insisted. "It's time we searched that mansion in Salem from top to bottom. We need to interview everyone who lives there."
"But tomorrow is Halloween night," Matt protested. "And it's such a long drive. My legs will get sore."
He gave her a look as if to say, *Will you rub them?
"You have no clue, do you?" she said as she gave him a sharp look. "A child died in that house. Long, long ago... And now the inhabitants have been seeing a creepy child ghost. Not only have they seen it, it's been speaking to them. The family is half scared out of their minds."
Once again, Matt shrugged. "We've heard it all before. Bring in the holy water and a priest."
"I feel something, Matt. And it isn't good."
His eyes swept over her luscious body, clad in nothing more than a form-fitting nightie. "I feel something, too," he said in a breathless whisper.
"Just you wait," she said. "You'll be sorry that you made light of this. You'll be very sorry when we step into that house."
Matt knew her well enough that he knew he should be frightened. He should be very frightened, because Amy knew ghosts. She could 'feel' things from afar.
"What the hell do you think happened there?" he asked.
"A child was murdered," she replied. "And I sense a secret. There are secrets there. Terrible, terrible secrets. It's our job to solve the mystery and put the spirits to rest."
"Awww hell, I knew you were going to say that. Why us? Why again?"
"Because they need us, Matt. The Alamain family needs our skills."
"Your skills. I don't have any skills."
"You have skills."
He smirked again. His blue eyes sparkled devilishly. She knew it was going to be a long car ride to Salem.