A fifteen-year-old doesn’t want to read people’s minds, or see ghosts, and she definitely doesn’t want to help solve a forty-year-old murder.

SYNOPSIS:

GHOSTLY JUSTICE

Synopsis

It’s happening again. Every time Daria Brennan walks by the vacant old Morrison house a shroud-like chill envelops her. She thinks she sees a face in one of the upper windows. Then someone calls her name. But when she turns around, there is no one there, not even the face in the window.

But Amanda is there. She knows Daria can hear her – the first one who can. The problem -- Amanda is dead. Still, she wants her murder brought to justice and for that she needs help.

Hearing and seeing a ghost though is not Daria’s only problem. There is her emotionally needy single mother, and her mother’s creepy new boyfriend. Daria doesn’t like Arlen. She doesn’t like the way he looks at her, or when he tries to touch her. Who can she tell? Her mother wouldn’t believe her.

Then her friends decide the old Morrison house would be a great place to hang out. How can she tell them about the weird feelings she is having? Against her better instincts, she follows them into the house. Everything seems fine. That is, until she sees the reflection in the mirror, one that isn’t hers. A young woman with long brown hair and old-fashioned clothes is staring back at her. Her shock intensifies when the woman whispers her name.

What is happening to her? Why is she the only one who can see or hear the vision?

Later, escaping a storm, Daria goes into the house to wait for her friends. Amanda shows herself and tells Daria not to be afraid. Over time, they become friends and Amanda tells her about her death fifty years before – a death deemed a suicide. At first, Daria is skeptical, but Amanda keeps begging for her help, invading her dreams, and her daytime thoughts. Daria hears Amanda so clearly that she has to be careful not to answer her out loud. Reluctantly, she agrees to help investigate Amanda’s murder.

The internet, the library, and the city’s newspaper morgue become Daria’s avenue for researching the story Amanda tells her. She even visits a local cemetery where the Morrison family has been buried. Waiting for the bus, after visiting the library, Daria suddenly finds herself falling onto the road. People nearby pull her to safety. Only later does Daria remember the hand on her back, the hand that shoved her in front of the bus.

Then Amanda tells her a man is watching the house. Daria thinks its her imagination but later finds out that someone is watching the house. But he is not the only one. One day, rushing to get home before her mother, Daria sees a police car in front of the house. She sneaks out the back door and runs across the yard. Then, someone is behind her, reaching out for her. The policeman? Or is it the man watching the house? Amanda’s killer?

Daria escapes but realizes she is in over her head. Gathering her evidence, she takes it to her best friend Tracey’s uncle, a policeman. He is skeptical and dismisses their allegations until the killer traps Daria in the Morrison house basement. Daria, though terrified of basements, is able to escape. Finally, Amanda’s killer is arrested.

But Daria’s troubles are not over. Called to the school office, she finds that her mother has been assaulted by Arlen and is at the hospital, battered and bruised. She apologizes for not believing Daria. Arlen is out of their life and Daria and her mother return home prepared to work on their relationship.

Amanda, her killer caught and in jail, is finally at peace and able to move on. Or so Daria thinks,