by Bobbi Holmes
“You look comfortable,” Ian said when he walked into the room several minutes later.
Lily tucked a bookmark between two pages, closed the book, and set it on her lap. She smiled at Ian. “I could get used to this. Sadie does a wonderful job entertaining Connor.”
Ian glanced over at his dog, who had just snagged the ball and was returning it to the baby. “I’m not sure who is entertaining whom,” he said with a chuckle before joining Lily on the sofa. As he sat down, he lifted her bare feet from the cushion and then dropped them on his lap as he took his seat next to her.
“You don’t seem to miss teaching,” Ian noted.
“You’re right. As much as I loved it, I don’t miss it. I’m surprised at how content I am right now. In fact, I’ve been giving that some thought.”
“When I’m content, I just enjoy it and don’t think about it too much,” Ian teased.
“What I mean, I have a better support system than most. If I had a husband who believed I should be solely responsible for Connor and taking care of this house, I don’t think I’d be as happy.”
“Ahh, I’m responsible for your happiness,” he gloated.
Lily laughed. “That’s not exactly what I meant. But I do appreciate that you don’t think it’s solely my job to care for Connor—even though I’m not teaching right now. But it’s not just you. It’s our friends. Marie has been great. How many people have a ghost who doubles as a nanny?”
Ian laughed. “I don’t imagine many.”
“Having Dani and Walt across the street is so convenient, and even Heather has been awesome. I feel blessed having such a great support system. Plus, it is never boring on Beach Drive. Although, I could do without some ghostly visits.”
“You’re talking about the ghost Danielle told you about this morning?” Ian asked.
“I wish they could figure out who he was before those people show up in a few days.”
“I did a little research on everyone who’ll be staying at Marlow House,” Ian said. “The only thing I found for recent deaths of men about that age within that social group was Seraphina’s ex-boyfriend. I could only find a couple of photos of him online—not terrific pictures and none straight on. I emailed them to Walt. He said they could be him, but he can’t be sure.”
“Why recent deaths?” Lily asked.
“According to their mystery ghost, his death had something to do with Moon Runners. I looked for deaths after the book came out. But it was just a quick search, and there was limited online personal information on the people coming. And who knows, maybe this has absolutely nothing to do with them. It’s all a shot in the dark.”
“And maybe the ghost is some practical joker,” Lily suggested.
The doorbell rang. Ian looked up. “That’s probably Kelly. That’s why I came in here, to tell you she was on the way over.” He lifted Lily’s feet from his lap and stood up, while she picked up her book and opened it again.
A few minutes later Ian returned to the living room with his sister, Kelly, at his side. She wore denims, jogging shoes, and an oversized pale blue hoodie over her blouse.
“What are you reading?” Kelly asked as she walked into the room.
“A Ghost at his Back, by Cameron Lowe. I love a good ghost thriller,” Lily said with a grin as she once again closed the book and set it on her lap.
Kelly walked over to Connor, leaned down, and gave his waving hand a gentle squeeze. He smiled up at his aunt, but turned his attention back to Sadie, who had just returned with the ball. Kelly wandered over to an empty chair and sat down as she dropped her purse by her feet. Ian took a seat on the floor near Connor’s blanket and leaned back against the sofa.
Kelly watched as Sadie shoved the ball at Connor, who managed to take it from her mouth and then immediately mouthed it.
“Ewww, he’s putting it in his mouth!” Kelly shrieked.
“He puts everything in his mouth,” Ian countered.
Kelly wrinkled her nose in disgust. “But Sadie had it in her mouth.”
“We gave up trying to get them to stop sharing spit,” Lily told her.
Kelly shuddered at the thought and looked away from the baby and dog. “I imagine Danielle and Walt are all excited for their Hollywood guests. I can’t believe Seraphina Bouchard is staying at Marlow House! Joe has such a crush on her.”
“He’s going to have to stand in line. Heather told me Chris is rather taken with her himself,” Lily told her.
“Since Joe already has a girlfriend, he’d better not be standing in any lines,” Ian grumbled.
Kelly laughed. “I love that protective side of you, big brother. But I’m not worried about Joe. Heck, I have a few celebrity crushes myself.” She turned to Lily and said, “I heard Chris moved out of Marlow House. It’s a shame he wasn’t able to stay, especially with Seraphina Bouchard staying there. Heck, with Chris’s money and looks, he would actually have a shot with her.”
“It would have been a little crowded,” Lily told her. “They have all the rooms booked up. No place for Chris to bunk.”
Lily stopped talking when she heard a suspicious sound coming from her son. She looked down at him and wrinkled her nose. “I know what you did,” Lily told him. Tossing her book on the sofa, she leaned down and picked up her son; he began to wiggle.
“Sheesh, you stink!” Lily said with a laugh as she held Connor out from her.
“You want me to take him?” Ian asked.
“Nah, I’ve got this. Visit with your sister.”
Connor began to kick his legs exuberantly. “Oh, please don’t do that.” Lily laughed as she made her way to the nursery, holding the baby under his armpits and keeping him at arm’s length.
“Connor is getting so big,” Kelly said wistfully as she sat in the living room with Ian and Sadie.
“You’re telling me,” Ian agreed.
“Did the baby quilt Mom made get here?” Kelly asked.
“Yes. Lily put it over the rocker in the nursery.”
Kelly stood up. “I need to see it. I’ve only seen pictures of it.”
Moments later Kelly walked into her nephew’s nursery. She found Lily standing at the changing table, putting a new diaper on the baby.
“I wanted to see the baby quilt Mom sent you,” Kelly announced as she made her way to the rocking chair.
“It’s adorable. Your mom is so talented,” Lily said as she grabbed a clean pair of pants for the baby.
Standing by the rocking chair, Kelly examined the quilt for a moment and then glanced around the room. She spied a dry-erase board hanging on one wall near the crib. She hadn’t noticed it before. Someone had written goodbye across it in a red dry-erase pen. She didn’t recognize the handwriting. It wasn’t Ian’s and it didn’t look like Lily’s.
“When did you get that?” Kelly asked, pointing to the dry-erase board.
Lily glanced up at the board, licked her lips nervously and shrugged. “A while ago.”
“What’s it for?” Kelly asked.
“For shopping lists, that sort of thing,” Lily lied. “You know, if I need to pick up diapers or wipes. So I don’t forget.”
“Umm, why does it say ‘goodbye’?”
“I don’t know.” Lily shrugged. “Ian was just goofing around.”
Kelly frowned. She glanced from the unfamiliar handwriting to Lily, whose back was to her as she redressed the baby. Kelly’s cellphone began to buzz. She fished it from the hoodie pocket and looked at it.
“It’s Joe,” Kelly said after she read the message and put the phone back in the pocket. “I need to get going. I dropped Joe off at work this morning, and I need to go pick him up.”
“He’s off already?” Lily asked.
“He was supposed to have today off,” Kelly explained as she walked over to the changing table. “But he went in to cover for someone.” She leaned over and gave Connor a kiss. “See you later, big guy.”
Lily remained standing near the dressing table, watching her sister-in
-law leave. A moment later she walked with her son to the rocking chair and sat down. He yawned.
“I think you’re about ready for your nap, aren’t you?” Lily said softly as she cradled him in her arms. “You had a busy afternoon with Sadie, all that ball tossing—or more accurately dropping.”
The baby yawned again.
A soft knock came from the wall. Lily glanced up and watched as the eraser sitting on the ledge along the bottom of the dry-erase board floated upward and wiped away the goodbye. It settled back on the small ledge. A pen then floated upward, and off came its cap. The cap floated in the air as the pen wrote in a flourish on the board: I am here!
“Hi, Marie,” Lily greeted her in a whisper.
The pen recapped itself and settled back on the ledge.
“Can you hand me Connor’s Winnie, please,” Lily asked.
The Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear floated up from the crib and drifted across the room. Lily snatched it from the air and gave it to Connor, who hugged it tightly.
“He always has to have his Winnie,” Lily said softly. She then looked up, guessing where Marie might be. “Kelly was just here. She asked about the dry-erase board.” Lily chuckled. “I couldn’t very well tell her we put it up so you could communicate with me.”
The next moment Kelly barreled into the room.
Lily immediately stopped talking and rocking. She looked to her sister-in-law, who froze in her tracks.
“I’m so sorry,” Kelly whispered apologetically. “Did I wake him?”
Lily shook her head. “No. That’s okay. I’m just trying to get him to sleep.”
“I’m sorry. But did I leave my purse in here?” Kelly asked, glancing around the room.
“No. I think it’s on the floor by the chair you were sitting on.”
“I looked. It wasn’t there.”
“Did you ask your brother? He doesn’t like leaving purses on the floor—afraid Sadie might get in them. He probably moved it. He has this new paranoia about sugarless gum.”
“Sugarless gum?” Kelly frowned.
“Yeah. The sweetener they put in them now, it can kill a dog. A good friend of his recently lost his dog that way.” Lily almost added, Walt has already talked to Sadie about not eating gum, but Ian is still paranoid, but she caught herself.
“I didn’t ask him. I just assumed I brought it in here with me. Thanks. See you later.” Kelly started to turn from Lily when she froze, her attention riveted on the dry-erase board. The Goodbye had been cleaned off, and in its place someone had written, I am here!
Five
Chris Johnson and Heather Donovan were an odd pair. They had some things in common. They could both see ghosts. Both lived on Beach Drive. They both worked for the Glandon Foundation—or more accurately, Chris, whose real name was Chris Glandon, was the man and fortune behind the Glandon Foundation, while Heather was his faithful assistant.
Because they spent so much time together, some people around Frederickport assumed the pair was a couple, which Heather found wildly hilarious. It wasn’t that Heather thought Chris so far out of her league that she could never imagine him being interested in her—it was more she made a practice of never dating someone who was prettier than herself. Perhaps he wasn’t pretty, exactly. But it grew weary seeing how women reacted to Chris’s appearance upon first meeting him. Fortunately, Chris managed to maintain a sense of humility and had kept his ego in check. Heather suspected it had something to do with the influence of his adoptive mother, to whom he had been especially close.
Heather couldn’t imagine what those fawning women would do if they knew billions came with that pretty face. The thought made her shudder—she could see it now, women breaking into his house—if he still had one—and—well, she had read romance novels with similar plotlines.
The new bed had been delivered, and Chris had helped Heather put the sheets on the mattress. She had purchased the sheets for Chris and had washed them at her house before bringing them with her today. When helping Heather make the bed, it had dawned on Chris there was no longer a laundry room in the building. Technically speaking the room was still there, but it was empty, as the washer and dryer had been removed during the renovation.
“You can use my washing machine,” Heather offered, “until you move into your house. But I’m not going to do your laundry. The sheets were a onetime thing.”
Chris laughed and said, “Deal.”
Later that afternoon Chris sent Heather home early, considering all the hours she had been putting in recently. She happily accepted the early release. While she went straight home, she didn’t stay there. Instead, she dropped Bella off at her house and, after feeding the cat, left again to feed herself.
Kelly Bartley bore a striking resemblance to her older brother, Ian. Tall, fit, with an all-American look, she was the softer version of her sibling. She sat with her boyfriend, Joe Morelli, in Lucy’s Diner, planning to have an early dinner after picking him up from work minutes earlier.
Only half listening to Joe while he rambled on about his short day at work, Kelly silently studied his features. She inwardly sighed at his dark good looks—the friendly brown eyes, dark wavy hair and chiseled features. She never understood how Danielle had cast him aside so carelessly. Sure, he had arrested Danielle for murder, but Joe had also thought Kelly might be guilty of murder before they had hooked up, and she never held it against him. After all, that was Joe’s job.
She also didn’t understand the fascination Joe once had for Danielle—a fascination she believed had lingered after she and Joe started dating. Danielle was nice enough, but she had a penchant for attracting trouble. And it wasn’t that Danielle was some raving beauty—oh, she was cute, but she was a little on the overweight side, although recently she had dropped a few pounds. Kelly wondered if Walt Marlow might be the reason for the somewhat slimmer version.
Walt Marlow—Kelly had to admit she did find him attractive. She didn’t always, and originally she thought it odd how he dressed after he started going by Walt instead of Clint. But the look had grown on her, and recently she had been dying to see how Joe might look if he took a little more care with his wardrobe. If he would just be more cooperative…
“So did you have a nice visit with your brother and Lily?” Joe asked, interrupting Kelly’s train of thought.
“It was short. I got tied up at home answering emails, so I got there late, and then you texted me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Kelly fidgeted with her water glass, looking from it to Joe, back to the glass. “No, that’s okay. But something strange happened over there.”
“Don’t strange things always happen at your brother’s house?” Joe asked with a laugh.
“True.” Kelly then when on to tell Joe about the dry-erase board. When she was done, she said, “I just don’t see why she would have erased goodbye and then written I am here. And she told me Ian wrote the goodbye, which he obviously didn’t because whoever wrote goodbye wrote I am here. Which is also strange, because the handwriting was different from how Lily normally writes.”
“Why didn’t you ask her?” Joe asked.
“I wasn’t sure what to ask. It was the strangest thing to write. And I don’t even see how she could have done it, considering I was just out of the room for a minute, and she was holding Connor.”
“There is probably a logical explanation. I think you should just ask her,” Joe suggested.
“I suppose,” Kelly murmured. She picked up her water glass to take a sip and then noticed Heather Donovan walking into the diner alone.
“There’s Heather.” Kelly nodded toward the new arrival.
Heather, who walked in their direction, wore her long ink black hair fastened in two low pigtails, and her straight bangs needed a trimming, as they covered her eyebrows. She wore burgundy—almost black—lipstick, which gave her fair complexion an alabaster glow. She hadn’t bothered changing out of her work clothes, still wearing the black dress, its hem falling i
nches above her ankles, revealing black boots with spiky metal heels. She paused a moment when she reached Joe and Kelly’s table.
“Hi, guys,” Heather greeted as she stood next to them.
“Hi, Heather, you meeting anyone?” Kelly asked cheerfully.
“No. Just got off work and didn’t feel like cooking,” Heather told them.
“I know what you mean,” Kelly agreed.
“Would you like to join us?” Joe asked. He cringed a split second later when he felt Kelly kicking his shin under the table.
If Heather noticed the pained expression on Joe’s face, she reserved comment. Instead she said, “I appreciate the offer, but it’s been a long day, and I just need to decompress and have some alone time.”
Several minutes later, after Heather took a booth on the other side of the diner, out of earshot, but still in clear view, Joe asked, “Why did you kick me?”
“I didn’t want Heather to sit with us,” Kelly said.
“Well, kicking me after I asked was a moot—and painful point.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to talk her into joining us. Heather is…well…” Kelly glanced over to Heather, who sat alone in a booth reading her menu. “Weird.”
Heather slumped back in the booth seat looking over the menu. Nothing looked particularly appetizing.
“I should have gone to Beach Taco,” she muttered under her breath.
“Beach Taco, is that near here?” a male voice interrupted.
Heather glanced up from her menu and found an attractive young man standing over her, grinning foolishly. She just stared.
“Well, is it?” he asked, not budging from his place by her booth.
Heather frowned. “Is it what?”
“Beach Taco? Is it far from here? It’s been ages since I’ve had a taco.”
“You were eavesdropping,” Heather accused.
He shrugged. “You’re sitting alone. I don’t think it’s eavesdropping on my part if you choose to talk to yourself and I happen to walk by and hear you.” Without asking, he sat down across from her in the booth.
