15 Amityville Horrible by Kelley Armstrong

They’d heard it, too. What the hell?
    “Keep going,” Frank said.
    I took a deep breath. “I want to speak to the spirit of Clara Davis. If she can hear me—”
    “Help me.”
    Ricardo leaped up. “ ¿Que eseco? ”
    “It’s a woman’s voice,” Cameron said. “The first was a man’s. I think it was the killer.”
    Frank motioned for me to keep going. Ricardo cursed in Spanish and pointed. The wall was sweating blood again.
    “You need to talk to them,” Frank whispered. “They have a story to tell. Help them.”
    I looked around. To my left, a shape flickered. It was Polly. Her mouth was working, but I couldn’t hear anything.
    “If you’re trying to talk to me, then talk,” I said.
    “Who is it?” Frank whispered.
    I ignored him. “I want to know what happened to you. I want you to find peace. To do that, I need to speak—”
    “He killed me,” she said.
    I looked around the small circle. Everyone was watching intently, giving no sign they’d heard her.
    “Who killed you?” I asked.
    Frank leaned from behind his camera, mouthing for me say who I was talking to. I ignored him. I tried to get Polly to give me any details on her killer, but she started getting frantic, insisting she didn’t know. That wasn’t surprising. Violent death usually wipes the last minutes from a ghost’s memory. Merciful for the ghost; terribly unhelpful for crime solving.
    I moved on to asking what she last remembered, but now my audience was getting restless. They were only hearing one side of the conversation—the boring “tell me more” side.
    “What’s she saying?” Cameron asked. “It’s a she, right?”
    Frank switched off the camera. “We need more, Jaime. The studio will kill us if you actually made contact with a spirit, and this is all we get. Let’s back up. Tell us who she is and what she’s said so far.”
    I looked over at Polly. She was kneeing in the circle, skirt pulled demurely over her knees. When she heard Frank, she started to nod.
    “I want to tell my story,” she said. “The whole story.” She met my gaze. “Only you can do that.”
    Yes, only I could do that. I thought of her terrible death. She deserved peace and justice.
    And yet…
    My gut said there was more here. Given the choice between following my head and following my gut, there’s never any contest.
    I motioned for Frank to roll the camera. “I’ve made contact with the ghost of a young woman.” I described Polly. “She says she was murdered. I’ve been unable to get details of her killer, which isn’t surprising, given that she probably can’t remember those final traumatic moments. What I’m doing now is trying to take her back—”
    “You haven’t told them my name,” she cut in.
    I turned to her. I said nothing, just turned and looked.
    Her face tightened with anger. “I’m Polly Watson. You know that. Tell that.”
    “What is your connection to this house?” I asked.
    “I came to live with my aunt and uncle the summer I was seventeen.”
    “Why?”
    “What?”
    “Why did you come to live with them? What happened?”
    “I had a fight—”
    “About what?”
    She floundered, mouth opening and closing, as she glared at me. “A boy,” she snapped finally. “It was about a boy.”
    “Did your aunt and uncle have any pets?”
    Her face screwed up. “Are you interrogating me?”
    Frank flicked off the camera again. “What’s going on here, Jaime?”
    “She’s making sure the spook is who she says she is,” Rory said. “Like asking for ID. Nothing wrong with that.”
    Cameron nodded. “I looked up Polly Watson last night, after the show. Ask her—”
    “ Get out !” a man’s voice boomed through the room.
    The door behind Ricardo flew open with a bang.
    “ Get out now! ”
    Ricardo scrambled up and raced through the door. It slammed shut behind him. Everyone else was still sitting in the circle. Rory and I got to our feet. Cameron followed. We ran to the door and tried it. It was