by J A Whiting
A surprised expression washed over the chief’s face as he stared at Courtney wondering why she looked so shocked to see him.
Angie said, “Chief Martin just got here. We haven’t had a chance to talk to him about our new guest.”
“There’s a new guest at the B and B I should know about?” he asked.
“No, it isn’t that. I’ll explain to both of you.” Angie leaned against the porch railing and told them how she and Jenna met the spirit dog while walking in the cemetery.
“That’s so cool.” Courtney smiled as she knelt beside the sparkling dog and reached out to pat her. “Huh, I can’t feel her, but she sure can feel my hand on her.”
“Can you see the dog, Phillip?” Finch asked.
“I can’t.” The chief squinted to see if narrowing his eyes would sharpen his vision. “What if you put a collar on her? Then I’d know where she was by seeing the collar moving around.”
One of Angie’s eyebrows shot up at the suggestion. “Maybe we could try that, but it could cause some problems if the B and B guests saw a collar floating around in mid-air.”
Courtney laughed at the mental image. “Maybe we can do that closer to Halloween.”
The little dog wagged her tail.
“Wait a second,” Courtney said. “How come all of us can see the dog? Except for Chief Martin, I mean. None of us can usually see spirits. That’s Jenna’s territory. Jenna’s the one who can see ghosts, not us.”
Jenna shrugged. “It could be that the rest of you just can’t see human ghosts?”
After more discussion about the new ghost and speculation about why all the Roseland sisters and Mr. Finch could see the dog, Finch changed the subject.
“Phillip, do you need something from us? Right before Miss Courtney came home, you mentioned that your visit wasn’t only for social reasons. Is everything all right?”
All eyes turned to the chief.
“No, it isn’t.” The man let out a sigh. “There’s a situation on the edge of town over by Silver Cove. I wondered if some of you could come take a look around.”
“What’s going on over there?” Courtney asked. “I haven’t seen anything on Twitter.”
“That’s a good thing, but I don’t expect that to last much longer. The crime scene investigators are there right now. We’ve been working hard to keep this quiet in order to process the scene without interruption from the media and people gathering to gawk. We were called to the house early this morning. The mail carrier reported that a couple days of mail had built up, but that the homeowner’s car was parked in the driveway. The mail carrier rang the doorbell, but no one answered. After an officer did a wellness check, we all descended on the place.”
Anxiety pinged through Angie’s body and Euclid let out a low hiss.
No one asked the chief any questions so as not to interrupt as he shared the preliminary information with them.
“A woman owns the house. Her name is Rachel Princeton. Do any of you know her?” The chief looked at the sisters and each one shook her head. “She’s lived there for about two years. There are signs of a struggle inside the house. There’s some blood. The woman is missing. Law enforcement in the area have been notified and are on the lookout for her.”
“If she left the house on her own,” Jenna suggested, “and she was injured, she might not have gotten too far.”
Chief Martin nodded. “There’s been a preliminary search conducted in the woods around the property. Local hospitals have been contacted. So far, nothing.”
“Do you know anything else about the woman?” Angie questioned.
“Ms. Princeton is an architect. She works from home fairly frequently. She travels for work on occasion. There’s a sister in New Hampshire. She’s on her way down.” The chief directed his question to Ellie. “Do you happen to have a room available? I suggested the sister get in touch with you.”
“We had a cancellation this morning,” Ellie told the man. “I can set it aside for her.”
“Thank you. Ms. Princeton is around thirty. Not sure about friends or if she has a partner. She lives alone.” The chief paused for a few seconds. “Would any of you be able to take a ride over there? Take a look around?”
“Now?” Angie asked.
The chief nodded. “If you can.”
“I’ll go, if someone can watch Gigi.”
“I’ll be happy to stay with the girls,” Finch offered.
“Could you get Orla to come over?” the chief asked. “I’d like to have your insight, Mr. Finch.” The man looked at the sisters. “I’d like as many of you to come along as possible. I know you’re probably busy, Ellie.” Chief Martin knew Ellie would prefer not to see the active crime scene.
“I’ll call Orla.” Jenna stood and removed her phone from her sweater pocket. She handed Libby to Finch, and went inside to place the call. Orla Abel was a family friend who lived in the house behind the Victorian with her husband Mel, and babysat the children each week when Finch went to work.
“What about the cats?” Angie asked.
“If it’s not too much trouble, it wouldn’t hurt to have them there.” The chief glanced around the porch. “What about the new ghost?”
“We’ll bring her, if she wants to come along,” Angie said.
The dog stood and walked down the porch steps to wait on the front lawn.
“It seems she’s willing to go with us.” Angie had noticed that the dog had been subdued while the chief reported the news of the recent crime. She knew the ghost dog was most likely linked to the case in some way. The timing was too perfect.
Rachel Princeton’s home was an old, well-tended white house with a wrap-around porch set back from the street with a long driveway that led to a detached two-car garage. Police cars and an ambulance parked along the drive, and several people hurried back and forth from the house to a couple of the police vans.
Angie and Jenna got out of Jenna’s car and opened the rear doors to let out the cats and ghost dog. Courtney and Finch had ridden with the chief, and she helped the older man from the vehicle and handed him his cane.
They all stood quietly for a few moments facing the house, steeling themselves to what they were about to see.
What happened here? Angie looked down at the little spirit at her feet, and the dog met her gaze with sad, sad eyes.
3
An officer spotted the chief and hurried over to converse with him in hushed tones. The police officer took a look at the cats, but didn’t ask anything about why they were there.
“We can go in,” Chief Martin told them. “You know the drill. Don’t touch anything. See what you can pick up on. There are still some investigators in the house, but the forensic evidence has been collected already. Ready?”
“Should the cats wait in the car?” Angie asked.
“Could they sniff around the property?” the chief inquired. “See if they pick up on any scents?”
“They can do that.” Angie explained to the felines that they would be going inside the house, but if either of them needed anything, they should meow at the door. “Okay, we’re all set.”
The chief led the way to the backdoor of the home. It was open so he guided his friends into the back hall and then to the kitchen. “I won’t say anything about the preliminary findings until you’re done. I don’t want to influence your impressions. Go ahead and walk around.”
The family members separated and went their own ways walking slowly through the rooms.
Angie had to suck in her breath and close her eyes when she saw the blood on the kitchen wall. She kept her eyes on the floor and entered the living room where she moved about the space trying to pick up anything that floated on the air.
She walked through the dining room, a sitting room, a library that seemed to have been used as an office, a first floor bedroom, and a bath. Upstairs there were four more bedrooms and two baths, and there was an unfinished attic on the third floor. Returning to the main floor, Angie walked back int
o the large living room and spotted the ghost dog sitting next to the fireplace.
“What’s going on here, little one? Did you know Rachel Princeton?”
The dog moved her eyes to the mantle and Angie followed her gaze.
“Oh.” Some photos in silver frames were set on the mantle and one in particular caught her eye. A woman with long brown hair smiled at the camera. She sat on a log in the woods with a small white dog next to her. The woman had her arm around her companion.
Angie spotted a purple dog collar placed next to the photograph. One word was embroidered along the length of the band. Violet.
Some tears gathered in her eyes as she looked down at the ghost dog. “Violet,” she whispered. “You were Rachel’s dog. She loved you, didn’t she?”
Little Violet stared into Angie’s eyes and the young woman’s heart contracted with sorrow.
“Angie?” Jenna walked over to her sister. “Are you done?” She noticed the expression on her sister’s face. “What’s wrong?”
Angie gestured to the photo and the dog collar on the mantle.
“Oh, I see. It’s our new friend in the picture. She used to belong to Rachel.” Jenna turned to the dog. “This was your house, right? Do you know where Rachel is?”
Violet took a quick look to the kitchen, but didn’t move from her spot sitting next to the sisters.
Courtney and Mr. Finch, leaning on his cane, walked into the room and Angie showed them the things on the mantle.
“So Violet died before Rachel’s disappearance,” Courtney thought aloud.
“But somehow the dog knew the woman was in trouble and came to Angie and Jenna for help,” Finch surmised.
“Shall we go outside and talk?” Jenna suggested. Although the house was large, it was feeling tight and cramped with all the officers and investigators coming and going.
Once outside, the sisters and Finch found the cats on the patio and they sat down to discuss what they’d all sensed.
“I ran my hand over the kitchen counter,” Finch told them. “I picked up on feelings of surprise, fear, regret. There was a chaotic atmosphere in the kitchen. I assume someone came in through the rear door and accosted Ms. Princeton. I felt the remnants of a fight. I believe Ms. Princeton was still alive when she was taken from the house.”
“Wow, Mr. Finch,” Courtney marveled at the man. “You were able to pick up a lot. I felt traces of fear and desperation, but nothing so fully formed as what you sensed.”
“So you think Rachel was taken? She didn’t leave or escape on her own?” Angie questioned.
“That is correct, Miss Angie.”
Jenna asked, “Does anyone feel something that can tell us if Rachel is still alive? Can any of you feel her energy? Is her spirit still here or has it gone?”
“I don’t feel anything either way,” Courtney offered.
The others agreed.
“That might be a good sign,” Finch told them. “At least, we don’t feel that her energy is floating away on its own. She may still be alive.”
“There’s an awful lot of blood in the kitchen,” Angie said. “I wonder if her wounds are fatal.”
“What about Violet?” Jenna asked. “Does she sense anything about her owner?”
Violet sat off to the side listening, but she didn’t react to Jenna’s question.
“And what about our fine feline friends?” Finch asked as he looked to the cats sitting on one of the patio chairs. “Euclid, Circe … did you discover anything on your inspection of the grounds?”
The cats leapt from the chair and disappeared around the corner of the house.
The sisters and Finch hurried after them and found the animals near the garage. The sun had nearly set and darkness gathered around the house. A motion detector floodlight came on when the family members got closer to the building.
Violet appeared next to the cats and she sniffed all around the ground in front of the garage. She stopped and pawed at the soil.
Chief Martin spotted the small group and strode across the lawn toward them. “Anything? Did you pick up on anything?”
Angie glanced around and noticed a small compact sedan parked in the driveway closer to the house. “Is that Rachel’s car over there?”
“That’s right,” the chief said. “The mail carrier reported that the car hasn’t moved from that spot for three days.”
“Remember we had that downpour the other night?” Angie asked. “It was a few days ago. See what the cats are looking at? The ghost dog’s name is Violet. She’s next to the cats.”
Chief Martin moved to where the cats were staring at the ground. He leaned down and looked at the spot of soil just off the driveway where the grass had died over the hot summer. “There’s a tire print here. It isn’t from Ms. Princeton’s car. It’s a truck tire.” The chief stood straight. “I don’t think it belongs to a mail truck either. I’ll get the team on it. They can take the image and determine what make of vehicle it belongs to. The print must have been made right after the rain storm we had the other day. It would have been muddy then. Good work, everyone.”
“It was Euclid, Circe, and Violet who found it,” Jenna pointed out.
“Good work, cats.” The chief smiled at the felines, then glanced around for the ghost. “Good work, Violet, wherever you are.”
The family told the chief what they’d felt when they were in the house.
“Okay, good. Mr. Finch, you believe Ms. Princeton was alive when she left the house. I guess I should say taken from the house. Let’s hope she’s still alive, and we can find her fast.”
Finch asked, “You’re the experienced one, Phillip. What are the odds that Ms. Princeton is still alive?”
The chief’s face darkened. “We think she was attacked three days ago. Based on the amount of blood in the house and the fact she’s been missing for several days, I’m sorry to say the odds aren’t good. Not good at all.”
Back at the Victorian, Angie found her husband, Josh, napping on the sofa with Gigi asleep in his arms. When she sat down next to him, he woke up and smiled at her.
“We decided to take a snooze,” he whispered, and then leaned in to kiss her.
“Have you eaten?”
“I fed Gigi, but waited to have dinner with all of you. Is everyone back now?” Josh asked. “Was the woman found?”
“Not yet. The crime scene was … a mess.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” Josh’s eyebrows scrunched together. “Where’s that light coming from?”
“What light?”
“Something’s shining on the rug. It’s all sparkly. Right over there.” Josh pointed.
Angie looked to where her husband indicated and saw Violet sitting there. With her heart starting to race, she turned quickly to Josh. “What kind of light is it?”
“Um. Sparkly.”
Gigi blinked her eyes open and looked across the room. “Doggie.”
“What doggie, honey?” Josh asked. “There’s no dog there.” Then he looked at his wife with wide eyes. “Is there?”
“There is.” Angie nodded, and explained about the ghost dog. Her face was full of excitement. “Her name is Violet. Josh, you can see her. Not completely, but you’re able to see her shimmering. This is amazing. You can see a ghost.”
Josh looked at the place on the rug where the dog was still sitting. He moved his eyes to Angie, and then back to the dog. “I can see her sparkles.”
A wide smile spread over Angie’s face. “Josh, you can see her. You can see her spirit.”
Josh didn’t say anything for several seconds. “But how can I?”
The front door of the Victorian opened and Rufus Fudge, Courtney’s boyfriend, walked into the foyer. He saw Angie, Josh, and Gigi sitting on the sofa and went into the living room to say hello.
Rufus stopped and trained his gaze on the rug. “What’s that? Where’s that weird light coming from?”
“Oh, gosh,” Angie whispered. “I’d better go get Courtney.�
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4
“Courtney’s in the kitchen.” Angie hurried over to Rufus. “Josh is trying to get Gigi to nap,” she fibbed trying to distract the young man from the unusual light on the rug.
Rufus followed Angie across the foyer and down the hall to the kitchen. “Courtney texted me. She told me all of you were with Chief Martin at a crime scene.”
“We went together. We just got back.”
Jenna and Ellie stood at the counter working on some side dishes to go with the Shepherd’s pies baking in the ovens, and Circe and Euclid were sitting on top of the refrigerator watching the goings-on.
“Hey.” With a big smile, Courtney walked over to Rufus and gave him a kiss before returning to the kitchen island. “I’m making a salad to go with dinner.”
“I’ll help you in a second.” Rufus went to the coffee bar to pour himself a hot drink.
Angie whispered to her sister, “He could see Violet’s shimmering particles.”
Courtney tilted her head as a look of astonishment washed over her face. “Well, that’s interesting.”
“Josh can see them, too. You’ll have to tell him soon.” Angie meant that her sister would need to have a talk with her boyfriend to explain about the family’s paranormal powers. He was the only one of the boyfriends and husbands who hadn’t yet been told. Courtney had been putting it off, afraid it might chase him away.
“What’s interesting?” Rufus asked his girlfriend as he sipped the hot coffee.
Courtney and Angie exchanged quick looks.
“The case we were at today,” Courtney told him. “We can’t say much about it since it’s an active investigation.”
“It’s all over social media.” Rufus sat on a stool next to the counter. “Has the woman been found?”
