Wicked Little Secret (Paranormal in Manhattan 3) Read online

  Wicked Little Secret

  Paranormal in Manhattan Mystery:

  Book 3

  By Lotta Smith

  Copyright

  Wicked Little Secret© 2016 Lotta Smith.

  Cover copyright 2016 Viola Estrella

  Editing and proofreading: Hot Tree Editing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author/and publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents and places are the products of the author’s imagination, and are used fictitiously. None of the characters in this book is based on an actual person. Any resemblance to locales, actual events, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and an unintentional.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  Table of Content

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  EPILOGUE

  About the author

  PROLOGUE

  Aurora Westwood was irritable.

  As the most celebrated psychic in America, she had it all—bestseller books, her own TV show, a large mansion with a green garden in the Upper West Side, an even larger mansion in the Hamptons, and a smorgasbord of prime-location estates all over the world.

  She regarded herself as more of a sorceress than a psychic. The only reason she used the title of psychic was because it had a more captivating effect on American consumers than the term sorceress. She could communicate with and exorcise dead people’s spirits, but she also had power to control, manipulate, enslave them, and create magic agents out of lifeless objects.

  She saw many imitators emerging into the spotlight and then disappearing throughout her decades-long career. Seeing recycled versions of herself being wiped out of the picture only augmented her confidence. Sometimes, she went so far as to sponsor her imitators secretly, using shell companies, only to dump them later by blowing their cover, revealing their fraudulent nature, and boosting her own reputation.

  An earlier incident had upset Aurora. She found a woman as good as herself, maybe even better. This woman, Amanda Meyer was able to disable Aurora’s spell without using magical words or anything. She practically broke Aurora’s sorcery just by being there. She was working with the FBI, and she didn’t seem to be interested in the showbiz industry. However, the woman was much younger than her.

  On that fateful day about two months ago, Aurora was scheduled to interview a billionaire’s wife—a possible murder victim—in her TV show, The Voice from the Other End. In her long career as a psychic medium, Aurora had assisted law enforcement and solved numberless cases, and that day was supposed to turn out to be as glorious as ever. The cameras… TV crews… the setting… everything had been carefully planned and executed for shooting. The episode was promised to be another success, but the FBI and Amanda happened. The case was closed without Aurora’s involvement.

  Aurora had been surveying and manipulating the entire event using a magic agent disguised as a rosary, but somehow she couldn’t take a full control of the whole situation. And she blamed that for Amanda’s presence. The rosary had sufficient power to manipulate everyone including the police and the FBI, but the people gathered in place were least affected. Witnessing her spell broken was the last straw for her. The moment Amanda approached and looked at the rosary, it exposed its ugly true form of a magic agent spider. Amanda’s power was so strong that the spider, which was originally the size of a rat, had to dissolve into thousands of tiny spiders, to escape from her.

  To Aurora’s annoyance, she saw a vision of Amanda becoming an obstacle in the near future. It plagued her the entire way from the Midtown TV studio to her home overlooking the Hudson River. Even after taking a long bath, the foreboding image of the newbie psychic remained in her soul.

  Sitting at the makeup table in the bedroom, looking into the mirror, she was deep in thought, muttering to herself, “I have to do something about her.”

  “I know!” All of a sudden, a furry black spider the size of a Chihuahua popped up on the makeup table. “It’s about that girl called Mandy, isn’t it?” the spider said in a chipper tone.

  Without a word, Aurora lifted an arm to swat the monster spider, but she stopped short. The spider wasn’t real, for it was a magic agent she had previously created to pass the time. The funny thing was that she had disabled him, but he reappeared in front of her. Also, he was larger than before. The last time they’d talked, the spider was only as large as a rat.

  “Don’t hit me! I have an idea,” the spider said proudly, jumping up and down.

  “What idea?” Aurora asked. She detested this creature and its disgusting spider form, but at the same time, she was a little curious about him. “Tell it now, or I’ll make you disappear. This time, you’re going to perish into total nothingness.”

  “Wow, I’m scared. Though if I were you, I wouldn’t kill me because I’m a part of you, and getting rid of me is synonymous with murdering a part of you.” The spider chuckled, but he stopped doing so when Aurora clenched her fist. “Okay, so you’re concerned about this Mandy. You want to get her out of the picture before she gets in your way, right?”

  “I’m too good for her to get in my way.” Aurora shrugged. “Still, she’s offensive.”

  “I know!” the spider enthusiastically agreed. “My guess is that she’ll be interviewing many spirits of the dead, won’t she?”

  “I think so. She’s with the feds… aha!” A wide smile spread across Aurora’s face. “I can use the help of those spirits! Especially if I provide them with a little portion of my power. After all, the kind of spirits the feds would need help with will be obsessed with wrath and vengeance. Yes, I can do it. Definitely!”

  With the heavy cloud of irritation clearing from her mind, she felt youthful. She was determined to strike Amanda Meyer out of the picture.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Manhattan skyline outside the office windows was uncharacteristically clean and translucent—radiant, even. The rain and thunderstorm that poured and roared until half an hour ago had washed away all the grime and dirt from the air. I was glad for that because I was expecting to go out soon, and I appreciated the nice weather. The rain had started just minutes before I made it back to the office from my lunch break, and I didn’t enjoy my previous run in the drizzle.

  It was the moment when I took a look at my phone, computer screen, and the clock on the wall for the umpteenth time that Rick Rowling made a comment. “Mandy, you’ve been checking the time every thirty seconds for the past hour. Why don’t you just set an alarm on your phone?”

  “I know, but even if I used an alarm, I’d have to keep checking the time. I really don’t want to be late for this appointment.” I glanced at the clock again. I was a little nervous because it was the first time I’d be working on my own and collaborati
ng with people from another department. No, a little nervous was an understatement. Actually, nerves were somersaulting in my stomach. “I want to make a good impression,” I admitted. At the very least, I wanted to be remembered as a punctual person.

  “You can show off your skills, but don’t act like you’d give anything to please them. If you give them the wrong impression, they’ll start taking advantage of you. Don’t ever short-sell yourself, because that means short-selling me as well. I don’t want that to happen. Okay?” Rowling warned me. My boss hated to be exploited, mostly because he was the one who usually took advantage of others.

  “Okay. I got it.” I nodded, making a mental note not to be underrated by the people I was going to work with.

  My name is Amanda Meyer, but most people call me Mandy. I happen to work for the FBI’s New York City field office. If it was a book, film, or TV show, I would be a special agent, profiler, or sniper serving our country and protecting the citizens from terrorists and other catastrophes, such as vicious attacks by deranged, psychopathic aliens. But I’m talking about my life, and it’s not as exciting or glamorous as those of fictional characters from the big screens or the actresses portraying these characters.

  My job title is special assistant, though I haven’t figured out what is so special about being an assistant. Perhaps it’s just the feds’ jargon of calling common things special so they sound distinctive, or it might be that they’re simply obsessed with specialness to the point of naming positions at the in-bureau cafeteria as special cook, special barista, and special cashier.

  As a special assistant, most of my tasks were clerical, such as keeping case files up to date, answering phone calls, calendar creation and maintenance, and making coffee for my wacky, temperamental boss. Oh, I forgot to include “communication with dead people” in the list of my job duties—or maybe I had deliberately omitted that task.

  Yes, you heard me right, I talk to dead people. On this particular day, I was going to interview a murdered IT engineer in order to help agents from the counterterror unit obtain information from the victim.

  I know. In general, we don’t interview dead people, mostly because they don’t talk to us. Asking the people in Deadville how they ended up dying, and who killed them was considered a special asset. Presumably because I happened to be a part of the Paranormal Cases Division, which dealt with cases involving supernatural elements, and I was the only person at the New York City field office with the ability to communicate with the deceased.

  Anyway, my ghost whisperer skill just popped up out of nowhere since I started this job. And guess what? It’s not easy, especially when the interviewee is either unaware of his/her death, vengeful, or has pathological liar traits. Things can get ugly, stressful, and downright weird sometimes. I once tried to quit talking to dead people and focus on clerical tasks, but Sheldon Hernandez, the head of the New York City field office, dismissed my plea immediately.

  I suppose that I should be grateful for my good fortune. At least my name isn’t Clarice Starling and I don’t have to deal with Hannibal the Cannibal. So far, Rick Rowling is my only colleague in the Paranormal Cases Division. He’s monikered as Zombie Repellant. Not that he smells of rotten flesh or looks like an undead. Just the opposite actually, he's exceptionally good-looking. Perhaps even better-looking than your average heartthrobs on the big screens, and he smells wonderful...sexy, even. This unearthly nickname has more to do with his outrageous, loose-cannon attitude. But at least I haven’t caught him cracking open any human skulls and eating their brains.

  As I checked the time over and over by looking at the office clock, my computer screen, and my phone, Rowling said, “Mandy, you’re nervous, aren’t you?”

  “No!” I said, a little bit too desperately, which prompted my boss to raise an eyebrow. “Okay, so I’m feeling like it’s the first day of school, but I’ll be fine,” I added hurriedly.

  “I don’t think so.” He looked at his computer screen. “Okay, I can reschedule my physical fitness test. I’m coming with you. All you have to do is sign here,” he said, producing a piece of paper from a thin paper folder.

  “Excuse me?” My voice jumped an octave. Not only because he suddenly changed his schedule, offering to tag along with me to the crime scene like a babysitter, but also because I caught a glimpse of the document. It stated that I certified that he had a sprained ankle and, hence, recommend avoiding vigorous exercise. “Rick, you don’t have a sprained ankle. You had no problem running back to the office after lunch. How could you be hurt and run like that?” I pointed out.

  “You don’t need to remind me what I was doing a few hours ago. I’m faking an injury, not dementia.” He shrugged and produced another piece of paper. “Does a strain sound more convincing than a sprain? I have both versions of sick notes just in case.” He took out more documents, signed by a doctor—except I wasn’t sure if this doctor really existed. Assuming from the signature, Meredith Grey was the doctor’s name. I was familiar with the name, since it was the same as the protagonist on Grey’s Anatomy.

  “No. That’s not the point. I’m not signing the document to confirm your injury,” I declared, feeling a little victorious. Being his assistant, and Rowling coming with a personality that didn’t take no for an answer, I hardly ever had the pleasure of denying him. “After all, you’re not hurt.”

  “Hmm, then what do you say of postponing the test to prevent injuries?” he persisted. “I have occasional pains and aches, and I don’t feel well enough to go on with the test. So I’ll postpone. Better safe than sorry.”

  “Well, where do you have pains and aches?” I asked, narrowing my eyes and crossing my arms. In my previous life as a medical student, I had seen many people trying to fake ailments, but this time I was confident and determined not to be manipulated by my boss. As far as I knew, he was one of the healthiest, fittest, and toughest people I’d ever met. Standing at 6’2”, he practically looked like a model from Calvin Klein’s men’s underwear collection, but underneath the fine baby blue linen suit, he was fully armed with lean, hard muscles. And unlike the boys on the runway, his muscles were specially tailored, not just for shows but for action and combat.

  “Here and there, especially after working out in the mixed martial arts gym,” he replied. “I’ve had my share of bruises, sprains, and strains, and sometimes it gets painful.”

  “Oh really? If you’re feeling so sluggish, I suggest you cancel that skiing trip to Switzerland in two weeks.”

  “Come on, don’t be such a killjoy. Vacation is one of my few motivators to keep me moving on as an unfeigned, hardworking crime fighter in shining armor,” Rowling rebuffed my suggestion, topping his comment with a total lie. “Hey, if you sign this document, I’ll take you with me. The place is a year-round skiing heaven and so much fun. Nothing beats the joy of speeding down the Matterhorn’s glaciers, huh?”

  “Rick, if you’re trying a bribe card, it’s not working. First of all, I’m not on friendly terms with snow and gravity. Not to mention, the last time I skied I almost got stranded on the slopes and thought I was going to die. I swore off skiing when I was sixteen.”

  “You’re exaggerating.” Rowling snorted.

  “No, I’m not. By the way, did I mention I got stranded in the kids’ area? Even my high school teachers and the staff at the skiing resort had a hard time believing anyone could get lost in the kiddie area. You know, Rick, if you intend to buy me off, you should at least come up with an incentive that actually tempts me.” I winked.

  “Crap, I’ve already booked the flight and hotel for two,” he muttered.

  “You can take someone else with you. Like Brian Powers, maybe?” I suggested. “To make up for his previously canceled gig. After all, his appointment got called off because of us.”

  “That’s not funny.” He grimaced.

  “Really? I think that’s totally funny. You and Brian visiting Switzerland. Throw in another couple of guys and an unknown baby popping up from out
of nowhere. I can already picture something hilarious, like the fiasco in The Hangover.” I giggled as I imagined Rick Rowling trying to nurse a baby and failing miserably. Then I began laughing uncontrollably.

  “Mandy, did you just go nuts?” Rowling gave me a wary glance. “Don’t tell me you’re on some recreational drugs.”

  “No, just vitamins and iron pills.” As a flicker of annoyance crossed his green eyes, I cleared my throat. “Anyway, I’m not signing the document because I can’t. Not only is it highly inappropriate to fake an injury in order to postpone the physical fitness test, but I have no power to sign such a document now that you have murdered my career as a physician.”

  “Get over it. Your medical career was destined to end sooner or later considering you’re the Grim Reaper. Unless you’re an undercover assassin, you can’t work as a medical professional.” Rowling snorted. “Three people died minutes after touching you.”

  Without words, I clenched my fists.

  Whenever he brought up the unfortunate incidents that ended my potential career in medicine, I had to fight my urge to kick him really hard in the shin. The only thing that kept me from doing so was because he had the power to hire and fire me. Also, making his alleged injury into a real one by actually hurting him wasn’t high on my to-do list, either. If he actually got hurt, then he’d win this argument.

  “No. I can’t and won’t do that. I don’t want to be fired for falsely documenting your injury. You can try submitting the sick note, but you’re on your own. Please don’t get me involved with your scheme. I have to keep up with my humongous student loan.” I shook my head.

  “Ha. The feds won’t fire me unless they’re ready to kiss postretirement positions at USCAB good-bye.” Rowling stuck out his tongue like a brat. Very mature of him. He happened to be the only heir of USCAB—United States Cover All Bases—a security-based multi-billion-dollar conglomerate and a Fortune 500 company. For the bureau, Rick Rowling, the arrogant, egoistical, and outrageous loose cannon, has been the equivalent of a bad headache that cannot be gotten rid of. To make things even worse, it was rumored that he had information about scandals that involved director-class personnel at the bureau by fully utilizing his family business and connections. When Hernandez initially hired me, he was half expecting me to kill off Rowling by accident.