B. J. Winters

The Ghost Writer, Hale Marcum, is back - this time in court against his nemesis. The District Attorney asks for help with a cold case, and Hale is shown a diary of a 14 year old girl who disappeared five years ago. Can he find her? Or will he die trying....

In addition to the characters in Ghost Writer....

Name: Bailey Marcum

Gender: Female
Age: 24
Zodiac Sign: Libra 

Nationality: American
Current Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Height: 5' 4"
Weight: 130
Body type: Average
Hair: Brunette
Eyes: Blue

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Personality: Perky.  Protective and slightly clingy
Quote: "Pleeeessseee"
Biography/Family: One brother, Hale

Education: UCLA

Attire: Business casual.  Looks good in jeans

Strengths/Likes:
Weaknesses/Dislikes:
Bad habits: Clingy and territorial about Hale
Theme song:

Name: Joel Knight

Gender: Male

Age: 32
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn
Nationality: American
Current Residence: Los Angeles, California
Height: 5' 9"
Weight: 160lbs
Body type: Lean
Hair: shoulder length, brown.
Eyes: brown
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Personality: animated.  a genuine white knight

Quote: "Can't you see the potential?"

Biography/Family:

Education: Yale Law school

Attire: Relatively formal, but also typical southern california stereotype

Strengths/Likes:

CHAPTER 1: IT MUST BE THE CHICKEN

January 30

6:15 p.m.

Whenever I volunteer to help it brings me nothing but trouble. I remind myself of that sad fact as I look across the restaurant table at Joel Knight.

“Photocopies. You brought me photocopies?” I flip through the fifty-odd pages of paper he gave me, saying, “I touch things and get impressions. Copies won’t work for me. I’m not Superman with some sort of x-ray vision.”

I’ve known Joel more in his role as District Attorney, than as a friend. Maybe he’s forgotten the details of the Tommy Martin case we worked together over a year ago, and how I had to hold the little boy’s teddy bear before we found the body.

Playing with the binder clip that holds the copies together, I wonder what I have gotten myself into. The thin metal is nothing like the imagined pink binding of the diary of Stacy Skyler, a missing person. I don’t like to read diaries. They contain too many personal thoughts. A teenage girl in particular should be entitled to her privacy.

Joel just looks at me over a large menu, his face half hidden. He says, “I can get you the originals, Hale,” then drops his eyes. He seems busy reading about the specials, but I suspect he already knows what he plans to order.

The Italian restaurant, close to the courthouse, seemed as good a place as any to talk. We will be meeting in court tomorrow, a trial of a different type. Tonight was supposed to be preparatory, but food seemed as necessary Joel barely let me sit before passing the stack of papers across the table. I had promised to help, but now….

Tipping my neck to the side, I try to ease some of the muscle tension that’s already started to form. “It’s that important to you?” I ask.

"Yes."

I sigh with resignation. “How old was she?”

“You used the past tense.” Joel jumps on the minor clue. He puts the menu aside, revealing a childlike grin of happiness, although what he says is rather morbid. “She was fourteen.”

I feel like a dog that just performed a favorite trick. “Well, I assumed you wouldn’t have the diary unless she was the victim of some sort of crime.”

Joel nods. “She hasn’t been seen in five years, so that’s the assumption – that she’s dead.”

“Five years. The trail is cold.” Actually, everything feels cold, as though the temperature around me dropped ten degrees. I rub my forearms absently to dispel the goose bumps. I offer the only conclusion I can. “You want me to go body hunting.”

Joel doesn’t answer right away. He has the good grace to play with his water glass as though the thought is an idea he only now finds worth exploring. “Why don’t you read some of the diary and tell me what you think we might find?”

Reluctantly, I glance at the first scrawled entry. Nothing about the discourse on school strikes me as odd, or out of character, so I pick up the stack of papers and flip to the end. It’s habit, this desire to read endings first. In this case, however, it makes sense to see what the final entry was – the best clue to her whereabouts.

“So, she went to the mall, and didn’t come back?” I ask.

“Nope, she disappeared two days after that. Left, or was taken, in the middle of the night.”

“Hum,” is my only comment as I begin searching for clues, scanning the diary in reverse. It takes the review of only a handful of Stacy’s entries to understand why Joel came to me.

I test my conclusion. “You think she did automatic writing?”

“Ah, you see the difference in handwriting. Do you think that’s what it was, some sort of spirit channeling?”

I know it’s my imagination that the room is getting colder still, but I clench my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. This only allows me to nod.

He says, “Why don’t you think that someone else wrote these?”

“Experience.”