Cozy Mystery Ghost Story Collection: The Complete Shannon Porter Mystery Series

by Haley Harper

As they wound through the President's Trail that took them to the base of the mountain, Shannon said, "I feel like if I hadn't come things would still be simple for you."

  Karen laughed. "That's an odd thing to say. I was doing the reno no matter what. If you hadn't been here I would have had to face my family and all this drama on my own. You've been great."

  Shannon disagreed, but she kept quiet. If her presence made her friend feel better, then she was glad to oblige. The real problem was that everything had happened so quickly there had been no time to process the hysteria. The only thing they could do was muddle along, and hope for the best.

  They hiked for over an hour, and spent equally as long in the museum. Just before it was time to meet Calvin, Karen's phone rang. Shannon watched as her friend's face paled. For a moment she thought the other woman might faint, but then a look of anger flashed through Karen's eyes.

  "I'll be home in a minute. Don't do anything until I get there," she snapped, shoving the phone back into her pocket.

  "What happened?" Shannon felt a band of dread tightening around her chest. She'd written scenes like this one too many times not to know what came next.

  Karen looked at her, expression pained, and said, "Someone broke in to the house. Everything is trashed. My brother said some of the wood work was damaged. All my hard work. Why would someone do that?"

  "I don't understand," Shannon said, although she could write the scene in her head as they spoke. She wanted to make Karen feel better, but the bottom line was clear. "Do you think someone broke in looking for the deed? Like a descendant of the Mason family."

  With a shaky laugh, Karen wrapped an arm around Shannon's shoulders. "You've been living in your fictional world for too long. Someone probably saw all the news coverage on TV, and thought we were loaded. They probably staked out the house and broke in while we were gone. The fact that they trashed so much makes me think they were looking for valuables."

  Shannon forced herself to laugh along with her, but a knot formed in the pit of her stomach that she couldn't chuckle away. Someone was looking for something valuable alright, but not in the way Karen thought. No matter how farfetched it seemed, Shannon had learned long ago that the oft quoted clichés were often full of truth. In this case, truth really was stranger than fiction.

  "Hey, I need to get back to the house to file a police report. Would you mind staying and waiting for Calvin? You know all the questions I want to ask. He'll be able to give you a ride back, I'm sure. If not give me a call and I'll pick you up."

  "No problem," Shannon said, feeling both dread and excitement at the prospect. She wanted to spend more time with Calvin, but the idea of being away from Karen at a time like this left her feeling empty and scared. Both emotions she couldn't explain away.

  She watched as Karen jogged down the Avenue of Flags toward the entrance. After her friend had disappeared from sight, Shannon went into the small restaurant. There were a few other patrons, and a waitress brought her a water and menu immediately. She gazed out the window at the enormous heads, wondering how she could incorporate the building of the monument into her new book. After looking through the information in the museum she'd been inundated with ideas. Somewhere in the mess of all of it she knew there was a kernel of plot that she could use.

  "Hey, there. We meet again." Calvin shrugged out of his pea coat as he sat down at the table opposite her. "Where's Karen? I wanted to tell her that my granddad is sorry he couldn't make it. He's feeling ill at the moment. Maybe next week."

  Shannon wanted to tell him that next week would be too late, but it felt melodramatic. She had no reason to think that anything untoward was going to happen. Nor did she think that Amos Mason had anything to add to Karen's knowledge. She was just humoring her friend's intense desire to learn about her grandfather.

  "That's too bad. I hope he feels better soon. I know Karen was really hoping that she could speak to him." Shannon paused, and looked up into Calvin's eyes. She hadn't noticed before but he had the prettiest hazel eyes she'd ever seen. Green flecked with brown. He looked so sincere, so concerned. Here was a guy she could fall for if she let herself.

  “Wait, he’s not really sick, is he? He’s with my mom again. Oh this just gets grosser every day.” She groaned and buried her head in her hands.

  Calvin laughed. “Okay, okay. You got me. But I thought maybe a little white lie might help you digest your lunch better. So you didn’t tell me where Karen is?”

  She swallowed. "I--I think something bad is happening. The police called. There was a break in at their house. I think someone is looking for the deed."

  "What makes you think that?" His voice turned cold in an instant. Shannon actually felt the ice wash through her veins.

  "Uh, well, I mean." She sighed, and picked up her fork, studying the tines while she spoke. "There was just all that stuff in the diary about the rift between Eleanor's family and Julia's family. Karen's grandfather spent his life obsessed with the story. I just wonder if he figured something out. Some key to the whole story that contributed to his disappearance. And what if one of the Mason family's descendants are back? Looking for the deed? Karen's brother, Jack, told me the story got picked up by the Associated Press. Anyone could have seen it by now."

  When she finally drew a breath she realized that Calvin's face had gone from soft and friendly to a block of stone. "I think it's time for us to leave now," he said in a voice so quiet that Shannon had to lean across the table to hear him. "I have a gun. I don't want to use it, so if you're a good girl, everything will be fine. Now get up and walk toward the parking lot. Don't try to run."

  The fear and panic that she would have expected to feel didn't come. Disbelief and astonishment at being blindsided by someone she thought of as a friend overtook her instead. Her mind shut down all parts except survival mode. As she walked she wondered how she could have written the entire scenario almost perfectly, but still hadn't seen this coming at all.

  Chapter Ten:

  Sitting in the parking garage, Shannon hoped that someone—a tourist, security guard, park ranger, anyone—would notice them and come asking questions. No one did, but hope sparked when Calvin didn’t start the car right away. She tucked her hands under her thighs, pressing them against the upholstered seat. As they went numb she willed the rest of her body to follow suit.

  “Tell me everything you know about the ghost in Karen’s house.” Calvin’s voice was low, and serious, but had it not been for the gun he might have sounded like he had on the train. Shannon’s heart clenched slightly.

  “What exactly do you want to know?” she asked slowly. “Do you want the story? Do you want the sightings? Do you want my mother’s crazy ravings? Just tell me so I know.”

  "All of it." His voice was final, and she knew there was going to be no more discussion. He cradled the gun in his left hand, resting it against his thigh. If anyone had walked by they wouldn't have been able to see it. The two of them would just look like a couple having a tense discussion. She could almost imagine what that would be like, if she had been with a boyfriend on a vacation and they couldn't agree on what to do next. She tried to mask the fear she felt because one wrong move, and he'd have that gun on her faster than she could blink.

  "Well," she began, "the general story is that there was a school teacher who came out to teach in this area and she got engaged to a prospector or a miner, his profession being left unclear. Either way once she started teaching there was a father who took an interest in her. Of course there are conflicting stories about whether or not the relationship was inappropriate or not. None of that mattered, though, because in the end her fiancé killed both of them, and possibly himself."

  "And who haunts Karen's house?" He had a smirk on his face that confused Shannon. She could see the corners of his mouth curling up, and the longer she remained silent, the wider the smile got.

  "I'm sorry, what does this have to do with anything?" Shannon asked in a shaky voice. "I mean, the ghost story does
n't have anything to do with the deed, does it?"

  "Answer my question." The words ground out through clenched teeth, and she flinched, leaning as far away from him as she could.

  "I've always been told that the ghost of the school teacher haunts the house because that's where her cottage stood before Karen's family built their house."

  "And you believe that?" He scoffed at her, and Shannon felt herself getting angry. She tried to keep her head, to keep her emotions in check, but she wasn't able to stop her body from shaking.

  "Look, I've grown used to the medium crap from my mom. She communes with her spirits and dupes people into believing she can talk to people on the other side as she calls it. Ghost stories are fun. They give you a chill, and make you look over your shoulder extra times when your home alone or out on a dark night. But come on. Do you really believe that some ghost wanders around the Day's house looking for vengeance or retribution?"

  Calvin barked out a harsh laugh. "Of course not, don't be daft. Ghosts aren't real, even when you weave a story so precisely that people will believe it without hesitation."

  Shannon narrowed her eyes, and trying to figure out what he was trying to get her to realize. She couldn't quite follow his train of thought. He obviously was getting frustrated with the game, and she needed to hurry up or who knew what would happen. She took a deep breath. "Okay, so when I was little, well, six or seven, I got to spend one summer out here with Karen's grandmother. I don't remember much of what we did, but I do remember that we were convinced the house was haunted. That's when we were told the story about the schoolteacher. Karen had an alternate theory, though, and that was that her grandfather had been murdered and haunted the house. Her grandmother backed up that theory to a degree, because she was convinced that her husband would never leave the family like that."

  Now he nodded as if she was getting the hang of his game. She furrowed her brow. “What else did you want to know? Oh, about my mother. What has your grandfather told you?" She was proud of herself for keeping her voice from shaking even though every molecule of her body was vibrating with fear and anguish. Her fight or flight response was shooting adrenaline through her veins at warp speed.

  Calvin made a disgusted noise, and shifted in his seat as a car drove by them. "Not much. Just that she's a fruit loop. She claims to be a medium, isn't that what you said? He mentioned that she practices spiritualism. What the hell is that anyway?"

  She realized that he was actually a lot more ignorant than he came across at first meeting. This wasn't the appropriate time to bring that up, though, so she said, "Spiritualism was a movement in the early twentieth century that centered on people that wanted to contact dead relatives. Mediums were usually women who claimed they could do just that, and they would hold séances where the dead would make contact by knocking on tables and ringing bells."

  "And people fell for that crap?"

  She wanted to laugh before she caught herself and realized where she actually was. "You'd be amazed." She hated that they were sitting here in the car chatting like they were friends, and Calvin wasn't threatening her with abduction and death.

  "So what does your mom say about Karen's situation?"

  "Not much," Shannon admitted. "She did mention on one of her little jags that there was a man alive who could answer all of our questions, but that's a pretty common one for her to use when she's in the middle of the performance. More often than not she'll get someone who wants her to contact someone for them, and that's how she makes extra money."

  "What does she have to say about the ghost?"

  "Nothing, why? Should she? What do you know about the ghost at Karen's house?" Her mind was clicking now, but the pieces still weren't falling into place. Calvin knew something that she didn't. Well, she had to concede he knew far more than she did, but he was trying to get her to figure something out. What that was, she still didn't know.

  "If she'd just given you a few more pieces of information, I have no doubt that you would have blown this case wide open. Like I said before, it's just too bad that you had to figure out what you did. I really liked you." She watched as his fingers ran along the length of the gun. His guard seemed to be down now. Could she escape? Do something to distract him further so she could jump out of the car and run away screaming? That would get attention. Would he shoot her if other people were around? Could she grab the gun? There was no way that she was going to be able to overwhelm him.

  She swallowed hard. "What other information should she have given me? And how would she know it?"

  "If she was as good at her craft as she makes herself out to be, then she just would have known. However since I know she's a fraud, she could have just told you what I've heard my granddad tell her. I told him not to be a blabber mouth but he insisted that she was trustworthy. And guess what? She was, and here I am giving away all our secrets. Not to worry, you won't tell anyone either."

  Frustration welled up within Shannon. She knew that he was still talking in circles to confuse her. He was taunting her, the author. She should have been able to imagine her way out of this one. That thought gave her another flash of hope. If she could write her way out of the scenario, what would she do?

  "What does your grandfather know about the ghost? My impression from Karen is that it wasn't ever really a bother or a worry, just an occasional nuisance. In fact, even after we'd been told multiple stories, I never remember feeling afraid of her."

  "That's good because it wasn't a woman."

  Shannon squinted at him. "Do you mean that the story is wrong and the ghost was a man?"

  "Is a man," Calvin smirked.

  The way he tipped his head or the way he couldn't contain his pride made her take the leap and connect the dots. Her eyes widened. "You don't mean that your grandfather was, is, the ghost, do you?"

  "Bingo! You are a genius, little lady," Calvin said, tucking the gun into his waistband, and starting the car.

  She knew that was the end of the conversation, but she didn't know why.

  Chapter Eleven:

  Calvin gripped the wheel as he drove back into town. Shannon remained quiet. When they'd climbed into the car, he'd shown her the gun so she knew it existed. What she wasn't sure of was how likely he was to use it. She watched as Karen's house passed by, and he took a sharp left on a street that seemed to be a straight vertical. As they climbed among the pines, she tried to devise her escape. It had to be timed just so. How would she write the scene? The ending of this dilemma?

  "Where are we going?" she asked, the words scratching against her dry throat.

  He glanced over at her and sighed. "Why did you have to figure it out? You could have just gone on your way, used all this as a fantastic plot twist. It's a pity. I actually liked you."

  She flinched, and looked out the window. He'd used the past tense. In her novels, that never played out well for her heroines.

  The drive that had felt like no time at all on the way up felt like an eternity now that they were back in town. Calvin tapped the steering wheel in a staccato rhythm that made her stomach clench and set her teeth on edge.

  “Did I ever tell you about my grandfather?” Calvin asked. “I mean, you’ve seen him, and your flighty flake of your mother seems to think he’s her next meal ticket, but you don’t really know anything about him. He used to work as a blaster with the Crazy Horse monument. There was this crazy story floating around back then about some guy who stole loads of dynamite from the Mount Rushmore blasts back in the day, and he went on to blow up all his enemies. So my granddad stole some from Crazy Horse. He had it for years.”

  Shannon licked her dry lips. “What did he do with it?”

  He ignored her, though, and just kept up with his tuneless tapping. She tried to clamp down on the fear that was racing through her at the moment, but her heart felt like it might jump out her throat. The facts seemed to be simple: Calvin wanted something from Karen, presumably the deed, and he was willing to do anything in order to make that hap
pen.

  "Ah, the family homestead," Calvin said at last, pulling into a turn so sharply that Shannon hit her door hard. She grasped her shoulder. The cabin they pulled up to was dilapidated to say the least. The pine needle littered roof sagged dangerously, and the logs that made up the outside appeared warped and blistered. She turned to him confused.

  "Family homestead?"

  Calvin made a disappointed ticking sound with his tongue. "I thought you had it all worked out. Well, I'll fill you in on this part of the story. Let's go on inside first."

  "No! I mean, tell me here. It--it's such a pretty view." She held her breath as she waited to see if he'd take the bait.

  He did. After putting the car in park, he said, "It goes like this. After little Eleanor and Julia found that rock, the Martin family stole all title for themselves. Their patriarch went ahead and staked his claim before my great-great-great grandfather ever had a chance. The Masons never had a shot, and ended up in poverty. It took generations to undo the dire circumstances they found themselves in." He paused and looked out the window. "While Karen's grandfather was growing up in that house down the hill, this is where my granddad grew up. That bitch never even knew how good she had it. When I met her in college I was disgusted with how little she knew about our history." He spit the words out like they tasted bitter. "When we heard about the deed being found, we knew we had to get it back. They stole it from us, so it was our right."

  Shannon swallowed hard again as she watched Calvin caress the gun with one hand. She could see his anger radiating off of him in waves. How could this be the same guy she had thought she could fall for just an hour ago? How was this the same man who had taken her on a spontaneous ride on a Christmas train?

  The reality smacked her in the face so fast that she actually sat back in her seat. It had all been planned. When he couldn't get close to Karen because of the family drama that had overwhelmed her, he'd moved on to the best friend who had nothing better to do than blab about all the things going on. Each meeting had been carefully choreographed. How had she been so blind to that before this moment? She was no better than the heroines that she created who always overlooked one key element until the end of the book. The conflicting emotions that roared through her made her sink back further into her seat. She decided in a split second that she couldn't let him see her weakness. He already thought she was the weak link, his in to get the deed away from Karen and her family. She had to show that she could hold her own. That was her only chance of survival. She was sure of that now.