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  Pipeline

  The Paranormal Investigator #1

  by Christopher Carrolli

  Published by

  Melange Books, LLC

  White Bear Lake, MN 55110

  www.melange-books.com

  Pipeline, Copyright 2012 by Christopher Carrolli

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should go to melange-books.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

  ISBN: 978-1-61235-360-9

  Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States of America.

  Cover Design by Caroline Andrus

  PIPELINE

  by Christopher Carrolli

  Tracy Kimball is awakened one night by a voice emanating from the television static. She recognizes the voice--her fiancé, David, who was killed in car accident, an accident of which she survived.

  Plagued by a series of paranormal occurrences, Tracy enlists the aid of a local paranormal investigative team, who discovers that Tracy is not being haunted, she’s being warned. A race to save her ensues, leading to the final climactic ending.

  This book is dedicated to my Mother, Gladys Carrolli

  (1937-2011)

  Table of Contents

  "Pipeline"

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  About the Author

  Previews

  Chapter One

  “Tracy... ”

  The odd and distant voice jolted her awake, and she flinched her eyes open wide. It couldn’t be. She knew she wasn’t asleep just now, only at that final stage of drifting when sounds are the last things to be recognized, and that last sound was someone calling her name.

  She turned her head toward the television. The local station had concluded its late-night broadcast, and now the gray static filled the screen and crashed from the audio. She could hear it in that last phase of consciousness as sleep paralysis grounded her to the couch in helpless abandon. It was the eerie sound of her name that had released her.

  She sat up and stared at the screen.

  “Tracy.”

  There it was again. Her heart pounded hard. The voice was coming from the screen.

  “Tracy... love... you.” It called out again. The voice was strange; the words were quick, hollow, and haunting.

  She jumped from the couch and turned the volume up with the remote. Nothing—just the rushing roar of static that seemed to taunt her. She was fully awake now, knowing what she’d heard. She recognized the voice.

  “David?” She called out to the mocking screen, her chest heaving, as the tears streamed down her face.

  How? He’s dead.

  The static said no more.

  * * * *

  She sat and watched the sun rise then swallow the blue dawn, and a burst of orange ignited reality. The new day greeted her, as though all episodes in the darkness had never occurred. Three pots of coffee with just a drop of Jack Daniel’s in her cup to calm her nerves had kept her alert since the rude awakening. With the coffee cup clutched in her hand, she gazed out of the kitchen window and wondered what was real.

  “David,” she said to the empty house. Her eyes became rolling searchlights, scoping and scanning every corner and hoping for an answer.

  It was him... his voice. I know it was.

  Her thoughts carried her back to that horrible night...

  Rex’s birthday party had been in full blast when keg number two was tapped with applause. It was a scene of indulgence as roars of laughter filled the room, and the Hi-fi, Satellite radio blared Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising. A muted baseball game (silenced in full, swinging progress by the Classic Rock station) played out on a giant screen TV that hung behind a fully stocked wet bar.

  Rex was David’s longtime pal and they were celebrating his thirtieth. Earlier she had agreed to drive home, but after four Rum and Cokes, it was a far gone conclusion that David should take the wheel. He had no qualms about her quick change of mind; he felt too tired to party anyway. They were sitting at the bar when she almost swayed from the barstool.

  “You really should eat something,” he said to her. She had skipped dinner that evening, and the concerned look on his face pleaded to her.

  “I’m eating something,” she said, opening a handful of popcorn she’d snatched from the bowls set around the bar. “You should try some.”

  “No thanks, I hate popcorn.” He sipped from the foamy mug in front of him that would be his last.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Besides, you’re the designated driver now, so there.” She had designated him, playfully poking her finger to his chest.

  He laughed at her, enjoying her wacky sense of humor and deep gray eyes. Her long brown hair hung well past her shoulders, and he kissed her forehead. She smiled at him, adoring his deep blue eyes and sandy hair, his strong structure, but mostly his light hearted, easy going manner. She’d said yes when he asked her to marry him over a month ago, and she was still showing off the diamond engagement ring.

  “Well, better me than you, Princess,” he said with impish sarcasm.

  His pet name for her, “Princess,” was usually spoken with that same teasing tongue. They smiled into each other’s eyes, unaware of the impending doom the fateful night would deliver them. The song played on in the background.

  I see the Bad Moon Rising. I see trouble on the way...

  He chugged the rest of the mug and wiped the foam mustache from his face.

  “Yeah, some designated driver,” he said. “Let’s roll.”

  Don’t go around tonight, it’s bound to take your life...

  It was just after 1:30 as they cruised the highway home, and she let the cool, brisk, night air of an early spring kiss her from the open window, basking in the breeze that swept her hair backward. That invigorating feeling of being alive that came from the cold wind had sobered her mind, if only for minutes.

  The drive home was at least thirty minutes, and she killed half of that just bathing in the night breeze that now chilled her.

  “Wow, I’m beat,” David said. “I shouldn’t have downed those last two drafts.”

  She hadn’t seen the effort he’d made to keep his eyelids from closing.

  “We’re almost home,” she said, turning her head back to the window and gazing out at the twilight.

  Minutes of silence passed. She looked to see why he was so quiet.

  “David!” she screamed. His eyes were closed, his hands still clutching the wheel, and the car moved to its own destination. Her eyes caught sight of the looming road sign just ahead, blaring famil
iar words in neon orange letters against a pitch black background.

  CAUTION!

  SHADOW VALLEY CURVE AHEAD

  Shadow Valley Curve was an unlit, twisting roundabout perched high above a low lying valley shadowed and hidden below the steep embankment that neared closer and closer.

  “David!” She shook him and grabbed the wheel, attempting to steer it. He opened his eyes too late.

  The quick jerk of the steering wheel had failed, and the ground gave way underneath them. The drop was some thirty feet. Shattering glass and crunching metal intertwined in an endless, catastrophic symphony, as the car plummeted, bounced, and pummeled down the embankment, melding the Mercury into a death trap.

  She heard one last cry from David before they smashed into an oak tree that stood proud among its peers in the field below.

  Then, all sounds surrendered to silence.

  This didn’t just happen. I can’t be dead. In a moment of instant denial, she wondered if this was that moment, the moment of finality when life and the state of being became a thing of the past, and it was too late to undo it.

  A hot, sticky fluid flowed into her eyes, blinding and blurring her vision then fading her focus. The excruciating pain in her head screamed to her that she was alive. She wiped her eyes with her fingers and blood drenched her hands, gushing from her head gash, hotter and faster.

  She reached out next to her and touched the shape she’d recognized and loved, now slumped and tangled with the twisted mechanism that once was a steering column. It projected upward, impaling him through the chest. But she no longer recognized the ballooned face, lifeless with a sea of blood and broken glass sprayed through his hair. She heard something, then nothing.

  “David?” Her hand touched his arm. It was cold.

  “David? David, no....PLEASE!”

  Her screams had ripped through the night, piercing the silence and echoing to no one except the mighty oaks that towered high above as tall, deaf witnesses.

  * * * *

  She sat coffee wired and daydreaming, reliving that night in her mind. Six months had passed, but the memory was as fresh and recent as if it had happened only a week ago. She kept recalling things she hadn’t before, and little pieces began to fit a larger puzzle. Like that moment she could have sworn he was trying to speak, but Marcia had assured her that it was only that final gasp of breath that escaped him, the rattle of death as life became extinguished.

  She had awakened in the hospital in the early morning hours with her head bandaged and her mind groggy and numb. She’d spent eight long hours a day here, sometimes ten, and of all places to wake up in.

  “Tracy?” She knew the voice, and her eyes fought to focus.

  Nurse Marcia Ross was her best friend and colleague, but most of all, her mentor. She had advised Tracy throughout nursing school, ensuring that she became one of the finest, and now Marcia was like an older sister. She stood over her, and Tracy recognized her dark, ebony skin, her maternal voice.

  “Marcia—”

  “Shush, don’t talk,” she said. “You just keep still and rest—doctor’s orders.”

  The neurologist on staff at University Hospital, where they worked, had examined and diagnosed her with a severe concussion. Tracy had been the lucky one.

  “Am I all right?”

  “You got one hell of a head wound. Just lie still and don’t talk.” Marcia began to take her blood pressure.

  “David, where is David?” She knew the answer to this question; she was a nurse. But maybe somehow, some way...

  She felt a twinge of bitterness when the small, silent pause shot her down.

  “David didn’t make it, baby,” Marcia said, unable to divert her eyes from the white sheets of the bed. Tears had streamed down Marcia’s face, and she began wiping them away.

  So, she wasn’t wrong. David was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. If only she’d stayed conscious long enough to help him. If only she hadn’t drank so much. Her clouded mind flooded with hindsight all too late; the tragic hour had passed. As a nurse, she felt like she’d failed him, but worse was the notion that her stupidity had ended his life. Then, she had cried herself into oblivion.

  * * * *

  She rose from the table, realizing that hours had ticked away while she replayed that night in her mind like a movie she had seen all too often. It was noon, and her shift at the hospital began at two o’clock. She was clearing the table when the phone rang.

  Tracy stared at the caller id, noting a number she hadn’t seen before: 000-000-0000. Underneath the number it read: NO DATA SENT.

  Strange, never saw that before.

  She answered the phone.

  “Hello?”

  Static...

  “Hello?”

  Nothing but static, and then...silence.

  Chapter Two

  She stood at the third floor nurse’s station and shuffled through the small mountain of paperwork in front of her. Marcia Ross could see that Tracy wasn’t as focused as usual, but she hadn’t been for some time, at least, not since the accident.

  “Why don’t you leave this paperwork for later and go make your rounds,” Marcia said. “It will clear your head.” It wasn’t so much a question as it was a strong suggestion.

  “I’m fine,” she said, slapping down a manila folder with a puff of edgy exasperation that blew her bangs up and away from her forehead.

  “You don’t look fine,” Marcia said, as Tracy stepped away from the station hub.

  Since the accident, her colleagues had been watching her like a specimen in a Petri dish. They would cajole her into talking, but she wondered what was left to talk about. There was nothing left for her to do except throw herself into her work, and right now, she had to check on a patient: Mr. Richardson in 305.

  Mr. Richardson was eighty-eight years fragile, and frequent cardiac episodes had left him precious little time, like tiny grains of sand slipping to the bottom half of an hourglass. Serious bouts of dementia had spotlighted him as a patient, extracting extra attention from nurses, but doctors had predicted an imminent curtain call. Tracy checked his dwindling vital signs.

  He turned his head toward her, trying to speak. His blue eyes motioned behind a moistened glaze, and his mouth stretched open wide as he struggled to speak and breathe.

  “Relax, Mr. Richardson.” She shushed him. His attempts became groans.

  The old man was sedated, but he struggled and fought the euphoria. She saw the beads of sweat break on his face and his lips quiver to form words.

  “Pr—Pri—”

  “Calm down, calm down, Mr. Richardson,” she said, lulling him.

  “Prince-cess” The esses dropped off into that familiar, final gasp, and blue eyes rolled backward into eternity. The loud, fast bleeping of the monitor blared out in code.

  “CODE BLUE!” She yelled from the room and in an instant, the double doors were invaded by a small, green clad cavalry: a resident doctor, an intern, and two more nurses, one of which was Marcia.

  The intern grabbed the paddles and waited.

  “Now!” Marcia yelled.

  The old man jumped at the jolt of electricity. Nothing.

  “Again.” Nothing.

  “Clear,” Marcia said, watching the monitor, hoping for the last ditch effort.

  The body bolted one last time, but the blip became flat and the bleep unending.

  “I’m going to call it,” the intern said. “4:35.”

  The team stood silent and respectful at the spectacle of death. Tracy stood with her back against the wall, wide eyed and reeling and clutching the wall behind her. The shock raised her hair and goosed her frozen skin. She became statuesque, doing nothing, paused behind an unblinking stare. Her colleagues witnessed everything, and glares of confusion and disapproval met her. But they hadn’t heard what he called her—Princess...

  * * * *

  Dr. Kemp, a man of modest, early sixties, was the chief-of-staff at University Hospital, and Tra
cy felt no surprise when she learned that he expected her in his office at the end of her shift. She supposed she was now the talk of the hospital, having flipped out when an elderly patient died, but had she told them why, it might confirm their suspicions. Her mind flooded with improbable explanations.

  His office was a comfortable setting with a maroon colored couch against the left wall and a large, presidential desk in the middle, neat and uncluttered. A framed family portrait slanted sideways stared back at her, as she sat in a plush chair set opposite the desk for moments like these.

  “Tracy, I wanted to talk to you about what happened today,” he said, dropping the formalities. The soft toned Kemp was a pleasant man, a revered doctor, and a perfect pick as chief-of-staff. He was also an understanding friend, and she squirmed at the thought of lying to him.

  “I know,” she said.

  “They said that you froze in there, in Richardson’s room.” He paused. “That’s not like you, Tracy. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  He spoke to her now as her friend, not as her superior.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, diverting her eyes to the family portrait.

  “Tracy, you haven’t been yourself lately and everyone has noticed it, especially Marcia. Tell me, what’s been going on?”

  A brief silence passed between them. He was right. Everyone knew she hadn’t been herself since the accident, but no one would believe the events of the last twenty- four hours, these odd occurrences that were placing her perilously close to the edge. She wasn’t prepared to relate to him what happened late last night or earlier today.

  “Is it about the accident? You haven’t said much of anything since it happened. Tracy, you need to talk to someone...anyone.”