Echoes (Whisper Trilogy Book 2) by Michael Bray

and it was a cool place to hang out, you know? So this one day I arrive, and my buddy is all worked up and excited. This was a year or so after the fire, when everything was still in the public eye. Anyhow, I’d barely set foot in the door when he pretty much knocked me over. he told me he had something amazing to show me, something he said would blow me away. He went in the back and I stood there at the counter wondering what was causing him to freak out so much. So he brings out this box, right? And inside was this Ouija board. The thing stank of smoke, so I asked him what was so special about it.”
    Alex paused to take a swig of the vodka, and returned to his captivated audience.
    “My buddy goes on to tell me that Steve Samson had bought the board from the store a couple of weeks before the fire at the house, and had been asking a bunch of questions about haunting and how to deal with paranormal activity when he went in to get it.”
    “Bullshit!” Carrie said, lighting up a fresh cigarette.
    “It’s the absolute truth, I swear,” Alex replied. “Nobody knew who he was at the time of course, not until later. I even checked with my buddy’s dad, who showed me the credit card receipt he’d paid for the board with. It was definitely him. Anyway, you all know what happened, there was the fire and the murders and nobody thought much about how they linked until later.”
    “What happened?” Scott asked.
    “It turns out that on the night of the fire, Samson had thrown the Ouija board out with the trash. Maybe the wife hadn’t approved of trying to use it or maybe it just hadn’t worked. Nobody really knows. Anyhow, long story short, the house burns down and as we all know, Donovan ends up dead, Steve Samson ends up burnt to a crisp and is found in the snow outside, barely alive and mumbling about spirits and all sorts of other weird shit with the wife hysterical at his side. Anyway, the investigation takes place, and everything is seized by the authorities who wanted to know what the hell happened. They take whatever they can from the site including the board which, apart from a few scorch marks, was pretty much undamaged. After they were done investigating, the board was returned to the store.”
    “This is bull,” Scott said. “It all seems a bit too convenient. It would be such an easy thing to hoax too. How did they even know where the board had come from?”
    “The receipt was still in the box. They asked the wife if she wanted to keep it. She freaked and said she didn’t want anything to do with it, so it was taken back to my buddy’s shop.”
    “It all sounds too convenient to me.”
    “It’s genuine. Check this out,” Alex said, scrolling through his phone and loading an image from the gallery and passing it to Scott. “That’s the police report identifying the item as coming from my buddy’s shop. There’s also the signed release form with it from when they returned it, along a scan of Steve Samson’s credit card copy.”
    Scott looked indifferent and passed the phone around the group so everyone could take a look.
    “You can’t really tell what that is,” Scott said. “Could easily be a fake.”
    “Come on, you can trust me.”
    “Sorry,” Scott said as the phone came back to him. He passed it back to Alex.
    “Well, if it was a fake,” Alex said with a grin as he reached back into his bag. “Would I have the original?”
    He handed Scott the actual plastic wallet, enjoying the stunned expression on his friend’s face as he examined the contents.
    “Holy shit, this is real,” Scott muttered.
    “Damn right it is.”
    Alex watched as the wallet went around the circle, each in turn looking through the documents, all apart from Cody. He was watching Alex with his uncomfortable, bottomless stare.
    “This is amazing; incredible. You really have something here, an actual item from the site. This is rare man, really rare,” Scott said as he took another look at the papers.”
    “I