Read GHOST OF A CHANCE, a paranormal short story for Free Online

to face her, hands outstretched.  His voice was pleading as he said, “It was the only way to protect you.”
    “Why?” she asked, approaching him and taking hold of his hands.  As she did so, a wave of longing washed over her, so intense that her knees grew weak, but she hung on, fighting the emotions threatening her conscious being.
    “Izzy sent one of his goons for the money.”
    “What money?” she wanted to ask him, but the voice inside her head answered before she could do so.
    The bootlegging money.
    So Francis had been running rum as she had suspected.
    “I told him it was gone.  That I was giving it to the people in my ward who had lost their jobs,” Peter continued, in obvious distress.  Once again he shook his head, battling against whatever had taken hold, but Tracy smoothed her hand across his check.
    “Let him explain, Peter.  It will set him free.”
    She didn’t know how she knew that, but she did.  That was why they were here, caught in this rerun of a long ago night.
    “He said Izzy wouldn’t like that and took out a gun.”  Once again the spirit controlling Peter took over, pulling away from her and pacing back and forth before finally facing her once again.  Guilt and remorse etched on his face.
    “We fought and I killed him.  There was blood everywhere and then I knew.  I knew how to protect you.”
    This time Tracy was the one who lost command of her body as she went rushing across the floor into his arms.  The spirit within her cried, “No, Skippy.  I waited for you, but you never came.”
    Almost as if not hearing his wife’s anguish, he said, “If Izzy thought you were dead, you’d be safe.  And I was a dead man anyway.”
    “We could have fought him,” she said, her throat tight with grief and her heart heavy at the realization of what her husband had sacrificed for her safety.
    Peter calmed then, dropped his hand and covered her belly once more, a final gesture she realized.  “I could not risk it.  I left you a note.  In our secret place,” he said and motioned to a spot on the wall.
    Tracy tracked the line of his arm and could see what looked like an oval frame hung there, only it wasn’t there in reality.  Only in the dream state that had overtaken them.
    “Forgive me, love,” he said, cupping her cheek and bending to brush a kiss across her lips.
    “I forgive you,” she whispered before returning his kiss.  As their lips touched, something broke free, releasing them.
    Peter stumbled back from her, looking around the room and seeing none of the blood and upturned furniture that had been there a moment before.  The room was lit from the dull light of an emergency exit sign and Peter reached over to snap on the chandelier, which was swinging wildly.
    Tracy squinted at the bright light, shielding her eyes with her hand.  “Are you okay?”
    Looking down at his body, he realized he was physically fine, but mentally…  “What happened?  What was that?”
    Tracy walked toward him.  She laid a hand on his chest to prove to herself that he was real. “They were here.  Francis and Anna.  But now they’re gone.”
    She did a slow turn around the room, as if searching for them, but he knew that she was right.  Whatever he had been feeling before was gone, although scattered memories and emotions remained in his mind.
    “He sacrificed himself to protect them,” Peter said.
    Tracy nodded and walked toward the spot where she had earlier seen the oval frame.  “She was pregnant when she left with baby Francesca.  That was the condition she mentioned in the journal, but your father didn’t mention any aunts or uncles so…”
    Pain washed over her, so powerfully she had to put her hand to her chest to press against the spot to ease the heartache.  “She lost the baby.”
    “That’s what the journal said.  You couldn’t have known that from any of the research that you did.”
    No, she knew it from Anna.  From the pain her spirit had been