“And people are just now signing petitions?” I asked, one eyebrow quirked. “Seems a little too late.”
“I’m not sure I quite understand the problem,” Hayward interjected. “Why are people so upset? A bed-and-breakfast sounds like just the thing this town needs!”
“I think so, too. The Lilac House was made to be a B&B!” Gwen agreed with an enthusiastic nod. “I saw the plans. It’s going to be beautiful! Then again, anything would be better than the eyesore it’s been for the last two decades. I mean honestly, it looks like a giant, house-sized Easter egg! According to my research—”
I stifled a laugh. That’s what Gwen called her gossip hunting: research.
Gwen shot me a withering glance and then continued, “According to my research, people in town think the house is haunted. That’s why no one has lived there for so long; all the previous tenants have run screaming for the hills and no one has dared move in since.”
I perked up at this. “Haunted?”
“Is it?” Hayward asked.
Gwen shrugged. “I’ve never met a ghost who lives there, but then again, I don’t tend to go poking around uninvited.”
I snorted into the flowers and hurried to take them to the walk-in cooler. I set down the vase on one of the metal shelves built into the far back wall and then started gathering handfuls of fresh flowers from the buckets scattered on the floor. By the time I exited, hands full of blooms and greenery, my teeth were chattering. Voices floated to me and a quick sidelong glance showed that the first ghosts had arrived a few minutes ahead of the hour. Gwen was entertaining them for the time being, so I moved to my work table to deposit the flowers from the cooler.
Hayward drifted closer. “Before the meeting gets started, I wanted to apologize for this morning’s antics, Lady Scarlet.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I stifled a smile and flapped a hand at him. “Believe me, I’m sure it was mostly Flapjack’s doing in the first place.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Scarlet,” a cool tone interjected from behind me.
I cringed and then pivoted on the toes of my ballet flats to see Flapjack, tail twitching, sitting on the floor beside the display case.
“Oh, come now, Flapjack,” Hayward said. “You have to admit she has a valid point.”
Flapjack scowled at Hayward, who he quickly turned his attention to Gwen, clearly not wanting to tangle with the pint-sized walking attitude problem.
“What are you even doing down here?” I asked Flapjack, stubbornly refusing to apologize, mostly because what I’d said was true. “You hate support group nights.”
Flapjack cast a disdainful look toward the front of the shop where the ghosts were gathered, speaking in excited tones. “Oh, believe me, I’m not staying here for the freak parade.” He trotted away and leapt over the counter as though he were a thoroughbred show horse instead of a fluffy, eleven-pound cat. At least, in life he’d been around that mark. Ghosts don’t exactly have weight in the same way living beings do.
With a heavy sigh after him, I fussed with the flowers on the work table before starting work on a new creation. The rest of the ghosts filtered in over the next ten minutes, and by the top of the hour, we had a full house. Gwen spearheaded the meetings and was responsible for ferrying in new ghosts who might be aimlessly wandering through town. In some ways, I was just a body. If a ghost needed something specific done—something that required hands or an audible voice—they’d loop me into the conversation and make their request. Otherwise, I was pretty much free to half-way listen in as I worked.
I quickly lost myself in a new design and the ghost’s chattering became white noise in the background. Gwen directed a question my way and I glanced up, smiling, ready to answer her, when a wave of dizziness nearly drove me to my knees. The smile slid from my lips as my hands wavered. The handful of roses slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor.
“Scarlet?” Gwen called out, swooping closer.
I splayed my hands on the cool surface of the counter to keep them from shaking. Something was way wrong. A rush, almost like the sound of the ocean, roared in my ears and made me light-headed and unbalanced. My squared-off nails raked across the counter as I struggled to stay upright.
Bam!
The front door burst open and slammed into the wall, the metal stopper snapping like it was a toothpick, and the glass panels shattered. I ducked behind the counter as glittering shards exploded inward from the impact. When I dared to peek over the edge, a striking ghost hovered midair, her long raven hair flying out behind her like a superhero cape. The air around her crackled and popped as her fierce eyes flashed with sheer rage. They locked on mine and the hair on my arms and the back of my neck stood up.
“You!” She bellowed, one finger raised, pointing imperiously at me. “Are you the ghost whisperer?”
I’m pretty sure the question wasn’t rhetorical and if her grand entrance was any indication, things were about to get ugly.
Chapter 2
“Answer me!” The ghost hissed.
“Ye—yes,” I managed, my legs trembling.
The ghost surged forward with a rush, blowing papers off my counter. The other spirits in the room, being the wise souls that they are, backed away to give her room. With her face so near to mine that I would have been able to smell her breath if she had any, she narrowed her eyes and commanded, “You’re going to help me.”
“Excuse me, young lady!” Hayward appeared at my side, his lined face tight. “Just who do you think you are?”
The ghost didn’t acknowledge Hayward or his question for a few moments, then turned and rushed toward them as she had me. “Get out!” she bellowed loud enough that the entire neighborhood would have heard her if she weren’t a ghost.
Not that it would have made much of a difference, because everyone within a three-block radius was likely already on alert thanks to the explosion of my front door. The impact had sounded like a nasty car crash; I was half-expecting police sirens to begin wailing through the night.
My crew shrank back a bit, but stood firm. I had to hand it to them; they were loyal.
“Okay, okay.” She turned back toward me and I held my hands out in surrender, but the anger on her face didn’t diminish. “Let’s take one step back here. I—I’m Scarlet Sanderson,” I told her, hating that I couldn’t keep my voice from trembling. “Who are you?”
The other ghosts in the shop were all fixated on the newcomer, awaiting her answer, and none of them exhibited even a flicker of recognition. Was she new in town? There was no way she was new to being a ghost. Going full poltergeist like that was a rare thing. It took most ghosts years to harness their emotions into physical reactions and clearly she had it mastered.
“Those monsters are destroying my home!” she howled, ignoring my question. “They’ve taken a sledge hammer to everything. The walls! The kitchen!” A strange, strangled sound bubbled from her lips and they started to tremble. She grasped at her hair. “Oh, the kitchen.”
“You used to live at the Lilac House?” Gwen asked, swooping forward to flank my other side.
The angry expression surged back onto the woman’s shimmering face. Her eyes narrowed to thin slits as she shifted them toward Gwen. “I still live there,” she hissed.
Comprehension dawned on the faces around me.
“Okay.” I lowered my hands slowly back down to the counter. “Listen, I’m sure this whole thing is upsetting. I know that a lot of people around town are upset about the project.” I glanced over at my destroyed front door and cringed. What else was this ghost capable of? I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out, so I kept my voice soothing and tried to avoid any quick movements.
“I’ve gotten rid of everyone else who has dared to move into my house,” the woman crossed her arms. She stared down her nose at me, as though daring me to contradict her.
I cocked a brow; I guess that explained the haunted-house rumors.
“They’re not trying to tear th
e house down. They’re turning the house into a bed and breakfast,” I explained, bracing myself for another wave of angry energy.
The woman shook her head, sending a ripple through the ghostly waves of her hair. “Oh, no they’re not. Not as long as I’m there!”
I looked to Gwen, silently calling out for help. She either missed the cue or was playing dumb. The other ghosts in the room had gone eerily silent, all of them backed away, clinging to the walls of the shop.
“Tell you what, there’s a petition being passed around—”
“Yes! There’s a committee trying to get the house turned into a historical landmark,” Gwen interrupted, a hopeful lilt to her voice.
I nodded. “Right. I’ll—I’ll sign my name to one and try to get some other folks to do the same.”
It was a weak attempt at placating her, but it was the best offer I could come up with on the fly.
She snorted. “I’m afraid that’s not good enough. I want them gone. Now!”
I frowned, irritation breaking through the initial fear. “Listen, I don’t know who you are, but you can’t just expect me to walk onto a construction site, snap my fingers, and send them all packing!”
“Fine.” The ghost shrugged, unconcerned, then rushed back into my face, practically nose-to-nose. The rush of cool air as she did so gave me goosebumps. “You have a week to get them out, otherwise people will start getting hurt.”
Icy fingers raked down my back. She meant it. I took a deep breath, knowing that I needed to keep her calm.
“That won’t solve anything.” I shook my head. “No one needs to get hurt. We can figure something—”
“A week,” she repeated, cutting me off with another frosty stare.
“Now, see here!” Hayward said, charging forward.
It was too late. With a loud crack the ghost vanished. A chill swept through the room, as though she’d somehow sucked all the heat from the space as she left.
Everyone stared at the spot she’d vacated, then turned back to the pile of shattered glass scattered over the floral welcome mat. Gwen broke the silence with a scoff. “Well, that was dramatic,” she said, tossing her sheet of permanently sun-bleached blonde hair behind her shoulders.
“Stars above. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Hayward said, still agog.
Whispers spread through the room and then all at once, everyone mumbled excuses and vanished, leaving me alone with Gwen and Hayward.
I stayed frozen in place, my eyes fixed on the jagged lines of glass that remained along the edges of the door’s metal panels. “What are we going to do?”
Gwen shook her head. “Honey, I’d start by getting a broom.”
The police did a drive-by to make sure everything was all right a little while after the incident. One of the younger officers on the force, Jason Keith, put his squad car in park and marched up to the front door where I was stooped over, sweeping up the shards of glass. We’d met at the coffee shop a few days after I’d arrived in town and he’d stopped in not too long after my grand opening to order a bouquet for his mother. At least, that’s who he’d said they were for.
“Hello, Officer Keith,” Gwen purred, twirling one of her feather earrings as he approached the door.
I ignored her and glanced up from my sweeping. “Evening, Officer.”
“Evening.” He arched one thick brow as he surveyed the broken glass. “We got a call from one of the neighbors. They said there was some kind of ruckus going on down here.”
He didn’t know the half of it, and unless I wanted to find myself under a twenty-four-hour involuntary psych hold, he wasn’t going to.
I’m pretty sure that ‘raging poltergeist’ probably wouldn’t fly on an official police report.
I crossed the room and dumped the shards I’d collected into the large trash can beside the front counter. “It’s not a big deal,” I told him. “Someone threw the door open a little too hard, that’s all.”
He shifted his skeptical glance in my direction. “That’s all?”
I sighed and waved a hand at the busted door. “The stopper must have been rusted or something. It’s not a big deal. My insurance will cover the damages. I’ve already left a message with my landlord.”
“Uh huh.” He took one long glance around the room. Gwen shimmered with excitement as the officer’s eyes roved over her—granted, unknowingly. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
Did he think I was speaking in code or something?
I tried offering a smile and nodded. “I’m fine. Promise. Feel free to look around if you want.”
Without waiting for his reply, I went back to sweeping up the remaining fragments of glass.
“You two would make a cute couple,” Gwen chimed in, floating between the two of us.
I flung my hand out as though swatting away a mosquito.
Jason Keith was in his mid-thirties and had the kind of build that pretty much guaranteed he’d been a member of the wrestling team in high school. He was at least a few inches taller than my five-six frame; if I had to guess, I’d peg him right at six foot. He had dark hair that swooped up in the front with the help of a little hair gel and his thick, jet-black eyebrows arched over a pair of kind, hazel eyes. The faint lines at the edges suggested that he smiled a lot.
When we’d met at Siren’s Song, the local coffee shop, he’d been out of uniform, wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. I hadn’t realized he was an officer until he’d introduced himself as “Officer Keith,” then promptly apologized for being formal. Habit, he’d said with a chuckle. I’d laughed it off, only to wonder later that afternoon if he hadn’t let his job title slip on purpose to impress me. After all, handsome, single, employed men were a dying breed, at least according to my single friends.
“Do you want to file charges?” he asked me as he assessed the damaged door frame. I’d knocked out the remnants of glass, leaving only the bare metal frame and the little jingle bell I’d attached to the handle.
“Charges? No. No, I don’t think that will be necessary. Thank you, though.”
He turned to face me. “Fair enough. I’ll make a record of my stop, of course, so if you change your mind … “ he let his words hang and I gave him a polite nod. “How’s business been going?”
“A little slow,” I confessed.
He smiled and flicked his wrist. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll pick up. My mom loved the bouquet I bought for her birthday.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad she liked it.”
He shifted from one foot to the other. After a few moments of awkward silence, he cleared his throat and touched the brim of his shiny black police hat, then started through the door. “Have a good night, Scarlet. You know where to find me if you need anything else.”
“Thank you, Officer.”
He started to correct me but then shrugged it off and left the shop, the little jingle bell chiming as he went.
I released a long sigh, allowing myself a moment of wallowing. “What am I going to do now?” I asked no one in particular.
“If I were you, I’d be chasing that fine man down the sidewalk and asking for a ride in his squad car!” Gwen was still staring at him through the fragmented remains of my door as he made his way down the sidewalk.
I rolled my eyes at her suggestion. “Pretty sure that wouldn’t fix my front door or keep that horrible woman from wreaking havoc on the set of the TV show.”
Gwen laughed. “Cheer up, honey. I’m sure we can figure out a way to keep her under control. After all, there’s more of us than there are of her.”
“I’m not sure that’s how ghost fights work,” I told her. “I don’t think it’s a numbers game.”
Gwen shrugged.
“I’m not going to be able to shut down the production of the TV show and I’m certainly not going to be able to keep them from turning it into a B&B.” I tapped my nails on the counter. “What do you think she meant when she said she’s kept other people from moving into the house?�
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“Who knows?” Gwen tossed her hair as she peered out the front window, watching Officer Keith drive away. She pivoted back to face me. “If you ask me, she’s all talk.”
I gave a pointed glance at the broken door. “Seems to me she’s got at least a little firepower behind her words.”
“As far as I know, ghosts can’t hurt anyone. What’s the worst she could do?”
It was a fair question and one that I didn’t have the answer to. I’d been able to see ghosts for most of my life, but there were still had a lot of holes in my understanding of how the spirit world operated. At times, it felt that the rules were fluid, ever-changing. Ghosts had varying levels of power; most of the time it related to age and experience, but not always. I’d met some ghosts, dead for decades, who were as helpless as a pile of newborn kittens. Then there were others, new ghosts, who channeled their energy as easily as someone flipping a light switch on or off.
“Can’t you just banish her from the house?” Gwen asked calmly.
My mouth dropped open. “Gwen!”
“What?” She floated up, an indignant look on her face. “That would work, wouldn’t it?”
“As a ghost, you should know that spirit work like that is highly dangerous and could permanently damage her. I would never do that.”
Gwen folded her arms and drifted back to the ground. “I’m pretty sure you threaten Flapjack with banishment on a weekly basis.”
I frowned. “That’s different.”
She gave me a long look but didn’t add anything.
“In the meantime, I have to make a grocery run.” I looked at the door. Technically it still locked. That just didn’t go very far when it was reduced to a two-inch-thick metal frame. Even a fairly large person could duck down and crawl right through the lower panel. In hindsight, I regretted sending Officer Keith away so soon. He could have watched the place for me while I ran to the grocery store.
The Ghost Hunter Next Door: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 1) Page 2
