Read Online The Hysteria: Book 4, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) by Evan Ronan - Free Book Online

managed to get on my hands and knees. I looked up.
    Another bad idea.
    The pattern on the walls had taken life. It was throbbing. I could taste bile in the back of my throat.
    “What’d you give me?” I said.
    Linebacker took a knee next to me. “Where’s Megan Turner?”
    “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
    The brunette folded her arms. “Why were you talking to her ex-husband?”
    It was hard to talk. Hard to think. But some things were starting to come together.
    “You were the ones that scared that private dickless, Chester Leonard, off this case, weren’t you?”
    They didn’t answer the question. They just kept going with theirs.
    “Where’s Megan Turner?” Linebacker asked.
    “You should know—” My stomach clenched, I felt the vomit rising.
    “What did Jamie Witherspoon tell you?” Brunette asked.
    “Everything, and nothing.”
    “Where’s Megan?” Linebacker again.
    I picked my head up off the carpet and screwed a smile on my face before I barfed. Linebacker was ready for it and hopped out of the danger zone.
    Brunette didn’t even wait for me to finish puking. “What did Witherspoon tell you?”
    I held up a finger. “Need a minute here, lady.”
    I kept retching.
    “Where’s Megan?” Linebacker.
    “What did he tell you?” Brunette.
    I shut my eyes, hoping that would be enough against the wobbly wall. After a couple aftershock retches, my stomach loosened up. I kept my eyes shut tight.
    “Where’s Megan?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Mr. McCloskey, you’re going to tell us everything we want to know.”
    “Let me outta here, you fucking Nazis.” I climbed to my feet but kept my eyes closed. It seemed to be working.
    “Don’t step there—” Linebacker started saying before I wiped out presumably on my own puke.
    I went down and hit the back of my head. Not hard enough to ring my bell, just enough to hurt. I needed to get out of this room. I needed information. I needed to get these people on my side. It was time to get creative.
    I started laughing.
    “What’s so funny?” Brunette said.
    “Because you’re federal agents and you have no idea how to find one of your own, Megan Turner.”
    “Megan doesn’t work for—” Brunette started to say.
    She was cut off by a gravelly voice coming through an intercom. “Why is that funny, Mr. McCloskey?”
    “Because I know how to find her.”
    ***
    Linebacker had to help me out of the room. He deposited me in a chair and some lights came up. After my eyes adjusted, I counted three doors in the windowless room. He gave me a towel, I did a perfunctory wipe of my face. Fortune had favored the blind—somehow I hadn’t landed in the vomit when I’d slipped.
    A sixtyish man sat on the edge of a desk about five steps from me. He had enormous hands. He was movie star handsome, not a silver hair out of place on his head.
    He said, “How can we find Megan?”
    “I didn’t say you could find her. I said I could find her.”
    He smiled confidently. “How are you going to find her?”
    I shook my head. “I’ve got you at a disadvantage.”
    He laughed. “Hope really does spring eternal.”
    “You want to find Megan. You can’t. I know how. That makes me valuable to you. That’s why you pulled me out of Hell Room over there.”
    I watched his eyes when I said Hell Room. They drifted a fraction to his right. Now I knew which door would lead me back into that torture chamber, in the event I had to effectuate an escape.
    Not that I would physically be able to. I was weaker than a chemo patient.
    “I’d say, at best, we’re on an equal footing here.” He walked over to me, bent at the waist, and examined me like he was a doctor. “Feeling better?”
    “I’m fine, must have eaten something that disagreed with me is all.”
    He laughed at my bravado. “Perhaps it was that poppy seed bagel with cream cheese.”
    The nausea was dissipating. “This is where I’m supposed to be freaked out because you were following me,