Portrait of a Ghost

By Cole Knightly

Hopeless. Numb. Abandoned. These are all words Victoria has used to explain how it feels to lose her twin sister Lizzy. After receiving a series of disturbing paintings depicting her sister's suicide, Victoria starts investigating the possibility of murder. To make matters worse, she is being haunted by the ghost of her twin. When she enlists the help of Lizzy’s mysterious boyfriend Evan, Victoria takes her place as a life-model at the local art school to get close to the potential killer. If she doesn't uncover his identity soon, she will become his next victim.

**Portrait of a Ghost is a novelette of approximately 10,600 words or 40 pages.**

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alchemy Ink Publishing LLC
• Release date: Apr 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781498949804

Book preview

Hopeless. Numb. Abandoned. These are all words Victoria has used to explain how it feels to lose her twin sister Lizzy. After receiving a series of disturbing paintings depicting her sister's suicide, Victoria starts investigating the possibility of murder. To make matters worse, she is being haunted by the ghost of her twin. When she enlists the help of Lizzy’s mysterious boyfriend Evan, Victoria takes her place as a life-model at the local art school to get close to the potential killer. If she doesn't uncover his identity soon, she will become his next victim.

Chapter One

To Victoria, losing her twin sister was a lot like losing half of herself. An emptiness followed her that she thought would never go away; the surging pain in her chest made it impossible to catch her breath. She struggled to keep every part of herself from convulsing with rage, pain, and despair, if only to keep the people around her from breaking down as well.

Friends and colleagues approached her with puffy, red eyes and took her hands in their own. They said kind words and apologized for her loss. Victoria held out her chin, and through taut lips, she thanked them. Even though it felt like the grief was crushing her soul, she wore a mask of strength that radiated out to reach the other guests.

Victoria made her way through the mass of black-shrouded bodies toward her mother and father. They sat on a beige, leather couch with their arms wrapped tightly around each other as her mother sobbed into her father’s faded black jacket. He glanced up at Victoria with a hint of confusion on his face. He must have wondered why she wasn’t crying. How could she express to him that a piece of her had died when Lizzy had hung herself?

There were no words that could explain the void inside of her. No amount of tears could do so, either. She frowned deeply at that thought. They would never understand how she felt to find her twin, her best friend, dead. Victoria had been the first to know—before the police, and even before she found the body the next morning.

She knew, because she had felt it: the panic, the gasping for breath, and then the calm. Victoria had done her sobbing that night, before she dialed Lizzy’s number to tell her about the horrible feeling she’d had. When her sister hadn’t answered after the twelfth call, Victoria abandoned work and drove across town to her apartment.

You look just like her, a dark baritone voice said behind her, pulling her out of her thoughts. Usually, she would have come up with a smart-ass response, but doing so would take more energy than she was willing to part with today. When Victoria turned around, a man with neatly trimmed black hair and blue eyes, which seemed to sparkle with life, peered back at her.

I know, was all she could muster. She’d never seen the man before, and he looked to be about her and Lizzy’s age. The way he watched her sent a shiver through her body.

When she didn’t respond again, he cleared his throat to hide his