by Tegan Maher
"Really? Like from real chickens?"
Justin rolled his eyes as they pushed out the screen door. "Of course, from real chickens. It's easy, though. I'll show you. You just gotta be less scared of them than they are of you, which ain't always easy."
The girls and I waited for the door to close before we laughed. "Well," Emma said, "he's got a point. Some of those hens are downright hateful."
Shelby snorted. "How would you feel if you were just curled up on the couch, takin' a nap, and somebody came in and shoved their hand under your butt, diggin' around for couch change or something?"
Emma dipped her head. "That's fair enough, I guess. When you say it like that, it's a wonder I don't come out with more pecks than I do."
I tipped up one corner of my mouth. "If you're getting pecked, you're moving too slow."
Hunter grinned and reached for the last piece of bacon. "It'll give him good experience when it's time to deal with women. Try not to be scared, and don't put your hands anywhere they don't want you to or you'll get pecked. Sounds about right."
I rose to set the dishes in the sink and while I was refilling my coffee, my phone rang. It was a local number, but not one I recognized.
"Hello?" I said, holding the phone between my cheek and shoulder while I added cream and sugar to my coffee.
"Hello. Is this Noelle Flynn?"
I held the phone out and looked at the number again, then answered. "May I ask who's calling?"
"This is Bob Stokes, from over in Eagle Gap. You were at my estate sale the other day, and you bid on a miscellaneous lot that included a door, a couple mirrors, an old tea cart and some other odds and ends."
Oh yeah. I remembered that. Some guy ran the bid up to like four hundred bucks and I wasn't paying that no matter how much I liked the cart or wanted to know what was in a big box that was included in the lot.
"Yeah, Bob. This is Noelle. I wouldn't have minded picking those up, but they went too rich for my blood."
"Well, if you still want 'em, they're yours. I believe your final bid two seventy-five?"
"Two fifty, but I'll go two seventy-five since you took the time to call me with a second-chance offer. I appreciate that. When do you need me to come and get 'em? Will tomorrow work?"
He paused. "That's the thing—I really need them gone today. We're closin' up shop and heading back to Tennessee tonight. I noticed you eyeballin' some other pieces, too. A lot of it didn't sell, so if you have something to haul furniture in, I'm willin' to deal because I want it gone."
"Oh, you're leaving tonight," I said, so Hunter and the girls could follow the conversation.
Shelby mouthed go and motioned with her hands.
"Hang on just a second, please Bob." I pulled my phone away from my face. "Justin's here all day with his friend."
"Okay," she said, raising her brows and shrugging. "We promise not to get 'em wet or feed 'em after midnight."
"Very funny." I pulled the phone back to my face. "Bob? It's gonna take me and hour or so to get there. Will that work?"
He agreed that it did, and I ended the call, then glanced at Hunter. "Change of plans. Up for a ride to Eagle Gap?"
He shrugged. "You lead, I'll follow."
I cocked a brow at him. "I bet you wouldn't have said that an hour ago before I had coffee and fed you bacon."
Smirking, he said, "I wouldn't have said anything an hour ago before you had coffee."
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I TEXTED GABI, WHO was working a breakfast shift, to ask if I could use her trailer again and to let her know we were cooking out that night, then rushed upstairs to get dressed. It only took me a few minutes to pull on some jeans and stuff my hair under a ball cap, and we were on our way. Shelby and Emma were gonna keep the boys, and Gabi said it was fine to use her trailer, so we were hitched up and pulling out in less than twenty minutes.
I squinted against the sun and slipped on my sunglasses as we pulled out of the drive and onto the main road.
"So what did you find out from Sam Keith? Is he our guy?"
Hunter took a deep breath and released it. "I don't know. He's a big guy, but I didn't notice a limp. I even tried to draw out something by mentioning my old football injury was acting up, but he didn't offer any commiseration at all."
"Maybe he'd just tripped or something, or Marcus got in a couple good kicks. After all, we don't know whether Max saw him before or after Marcus died." I swerved a little to miss a squirrel that darted across the road.
Hunter gripped his arm rest and I quirked a brow at him.
"You want me to drive?" he asked.
I gave him my best are you out of your mind look. "No! You'd have hit the squirrel."
He scoffed. "No I wouldn't have."
"Okay," I said, waving him off. "It's a moot point. The squirrel lived and I'm driving. What did your gut tell you about the guy?"
Shifting in his seat and trying not to look uncomfortable, he replied, "I don't know. He's shady. And cocky. He's also surprisingly intelligent. The truck's throwing me off, though. He loans somebody he knows is a bad gambler twenty grand, and wears five hundred dollar boots, but drives a beat-up Chevy truck with a cracked windshield? As Addy says, that dog don't hunt."
"Maybe it was his daddy's or something and he keeps it for sentimental reasons. The windshield could be a recent thing he just hasn't fixed yet." I said as I flicked on my blinker to turn onto the road to Eagle Gap.
He shook his head. "I could understand that, but it's beat to crap and has had zero maintenance. I looked inside. He starts it with a screwdriver and the tires are so bald the wires are showing. If it was just sentimental, it should be in good shape with the money he has."
I turned that over in my mind. He had a valid point.
"Is the truck registered to him?"
"Sheriff Custer ran the tags and says it's in his name only, and he's owned it for eight years. The guy verified."
Things just weren't making sense. My bullshit meter was tingling, but I couldn't figure out what was setting it off.
The road to Bob's place was treacherous even in the truck. Honestly, I'd been surprised to see any cars at all at the auction. Then I realized my GPS had messed with me and brought me in through the shortest route, not the best one. Surprise, surprise. This time, I went the easy way.
When the graceful old Victorian loomed in front of us, Hunter whistled. The house was impressive; that is, what you could see of it through the weeds and vines that threatened to reclaim it to nature.
The massive wraparound porch just begged for rocking chairs and a chess board, and the lonely porch swing swaying in the breeze would be a great spot to curl up with a glass of tea and a book. Or it would be after you trimmed down the grass and weeds so the bugs wouldn't eat you alive.
"What's the deal with this place?" he asked.
I lifted a shoulder. "From what I gathered, it's his family estate. He was a little squirrelly when I asked for details. All he said was that nobody in the family wants to live there. It seemed like their goal was to take the money and run."
I pulled in front of a giant old barn with peeling red paint and Bob, a fiftyish bear of a man with mutton chops and a Navy tattoo, sauntered out to greet us, grinning ear to ear. I introduced him to Hunter and he motioned us into the barn.
"I didn't sell as much as I wanted to, even though we paid a fortune for advertising. I tried to auction the house, too, but nobody was particularly interested because we didn't open it up to walk-throughs. Didn't want to risk a lawsuit. The highest bid we got was fifty grand."
"Why didn't you want to open it up?" Hunter asked. I was wondering the same thing, because it didn't look structurally unsound to me. Termite damage was common, so maybe that was it.
"We just didn't think it was worth the risk," he said again, then changed the subject.
He motioned toward the auction leftovers. "Take a look, and if you see anything you like, make me a fair offer."
Addy and Belle poppe
d in, nosing through the array of furniture and miscellaneous household goods still arranged at the end of the barn where the auction had taken place.
"Ooh," Belle said, peering into a box of Precious Moments knick-knacks. Coralee would love these. Make him an offer and I'll make sure she pays you back."
I walked over and looked in the box. Scratching my nose, I crinkled my brow. Coralee didn't seem like a Precious Moments type of gal. "Are you sure?"
"Course I'm sure," Belle said, disgruntled that I'd dare question her. "Her sister just started collecting 'em, though I have no idea why."
"Okay," I said, figuring if nothing else, Anna Mae could put them in her store.
The more I poked through, the more I found. Unfortunately, Addy and Belle were happy to spend my money, too. There was a whole section full of horse stuff, ranging from saddles to grooming equipment. I was more interested in the antique harnesses and farm equipment, but I picked through and set a couple saddles aside along with a box of gate hinges, latches, and hooks. With Mayhem, you could never have too many.
As I collected, I stacked what I could on an oak-plank kitchen table that, underneath the scratches and grime, was solid. I'd strip it down and refinish it as a house-warming gift for TJ.
I was poking through a box of costume jewelry when a schoolmarm-looking ghost in popped in, wearing a Little House on the Prairie-style dress and glaring down her nose at me through her wire spectacles. If I had to guess, I'd have put her in her late fifties. She started flapping her arms, moaning and making the most ridiculous, stereotypical ghost noises.
Great. At least I knew why Bob was so eager to get out from under the place.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I COCKED A BROW AT her. "You're kidding me, right?"
"I'm the ghost of Janey Stokes," she moaned in a poor imitation of a B-rated horror flick. "And I order you to GET OUT!" The last was said Amityville-style.
It was all I could do to keep from laughing, but Hunter didn't have that much self-control; he snickered. Addy and Belle had swooped over, glowering.
"For the love of God, you pretentious old bat. Knock that crap off. You're humiliating yourself," Belle said.
"And if you're shooting for scary," I said, "You're missing the mark by miles."
Ms. Stokes puckered her lips. "You're not scared?"
I shook my head. "Nope. A little embarrassed for you, maybe."
Addy crossed her arms. "What's your problem anyway?"
The woman was taken aback and opened and closed her mouth several times, at a loss for words.
"You do an even worse imitation of a trout than you do a paranormal entity," Belle told her, putting the last two words in air quotes.
The woman scowled and pointed to the box of jewelry. "That's mine," she said, sounding like a petulant five-year-old. "For that matter, so's the rest of this stuff."
"Really?" Addy asked. "And what, pray tell, do you plan to do with it? It's on the mortal plane."
"Yeah," Belle said. "And in case you haven't noticed, you're not."
"But my mama and my husband got me a lot of that."
Addy tilted her head and examined her. "How long you been dead?"
"Almost a hundred years," she said, deflated.
"And have you ever been away from here?" Belle asked.
Ms. Stokes—excuse me, Mrs. Stokes—shook her head. "I can do that?"
"Oh, you poor woman," Bell said. "You mean you haven't so much as been to the beauty parlor since you bit the big one?"
"For heaven's sake, Belle," Addy said, then turned to Ms. Stokes. "First things first. Have you tried picturing yourself wearing any of that jewelry?"
The matronly woman looked confused. "No, why?"
Belle sighed. "I suppose that means you've been wearin' that same dress for a hundred years?"
"Well ... yes. It's what they buried me in."
Addy and Belle looked at each other, cringing.
"That's a damned shame," Addy said, shaking her head.
"What's a shame," Belle said, wrinkling her nose. "is that she ain't changed clothes in a century."
Ms. Stokes's hand fluttered to her chest. "That's just rude. I'm dead, as you so eloquently pointed out. All of my clothing is in that box over there."
She pointed to a closed box stuffed in the back corner. I'd missed it, but if it was full of period clothing, Anna Mae would love it. I hoped it wasn't full of moths and silverfish.
Belle sighed. "Close your eyes and imagine yourself wearing your favorite outfit."
She did, and I watched as her dress faded—without showing any of her naughty bits, in case you were wondering—and transformed into a split riding skirt and loose blouse.
She opened her eyes and looked down at herself in wonder.
"Now picture yourself wearin' some of that jewelry you were caterwaulin' about a minute ago," Addy said.
Mrs. Stokes peered into the box, rubbing her chin as she considered. She glanced up at me. "Would you mind poking through it for me dear? It's been so long, I forget what all I have."
I did as she asked, and a couple of rings appeared on her fingers, follow by a cameo at her throat.
"Oh, dear," she said, shrugging her shoulders and pulling the blouse away from her chest a few times. "You have no idea how much better I feel. I despised that dress, and my hateful sister knew it. It's why she buried me in it. It's been chokin' and bindin' me for a century."
"Okay," I said. "Now that you know you can wear whatever you want, and that you don't need any of the physical stuff, do you feel better about me taking any of it?"
She waved a hand. "Of course, dear. Now that I know I can wear it whenever I want, help yourself."
"Good," Hunter said, speaking for the first time. "May I assume you're the reason Bob here can't sell the house, or even live in it for that matter?"
She hung her head. "I am." But she looked back up. "You don't understand, though. My high-falutin' sister Rose moved in and her horrid children wrote all over the walls and scratched up the furniture with their shoes, and had no manners whatsoever. Then Rose wanted to tear down the barn my Henry built for me. That was the last straw."
"Wouldn't you like to see the grounds and barn cleaned up again? Put to use, rather than falling down around itself?" Hunter asked.
She chewed on her lip, considering. "I reckon I would. As long as they were mannerly and respected it. Henry and I worked hard to build this house. I helped him lay those floors myself."
"How bout I introduce you to Bob out there?" I said. "He seems like a nice guy. Maybe you can come to an arrangement. He is, afterall, your kin, I assume. Wouldn't you like to keep it in the family?"
Janey—I felt better calling her by her first name now that she didn't look like somebody who was about to rap my on the knuckles with a ruler—dipped her head. "I would. He's my several-greats grandson. Looks a lot like my Henry."
"Hey Bob," I called. When he turned toward me, I waved him back. "Could you come back here for a minute? It's important."
He trotted the length of the barn and stopped, his eyes stopping on the box of jewelry. "If you found something that looks valuable in there, don't worry about it. It's probably paste. The last woman who lived in the house—my great-great-whatever-grandmother Rose sold most of the stones because her husband ran off."
"Doesn't surprised me, the way she hen-pecked him all the time," Janey muttered.
"Actually," I said, choosing my words carefully, "I did find something valuable, but not in the way you think. Are you selling because the place is haunted?"
His eyes shot to mine. "Course not! Ain't no such thing as ghosts."
"You don't have a heart condition do you?" Hunter asked.
"No, why?"
I took a deep breath, then looked askance at Addy and Belle. Outing a ghost was poor etiquette, and would likely earn you a straight-jacket if you were too adamant and the ghost didn't want to be outed.
They nodded. "Go ahead," Belle said.
Janey looked to Belle and Addy, then to Bob, and I saw her concentrate on making herself visible. Bob's eyes about popped out of his head and he stumbled backwards.
"Calm down," Hunter said. "You're getting a smoother introduction to it than I did. She's just another person. Well, except she's been in post-life retirement for a hundred years."
Bob looked at him like he'd lost his mind, but at least he was listening.
"Yeah," I said. "She changed planes in ..." I looked to her for a date.
"1908," she supplied."
"1908. And she's been stuck here ever since."
Belled cleared her throat.
"Oh," I said, "And this is my Aunt Adelaide Flynn—Addy for short—and her friend Belle." They popped into sight, but this time, he only shifted his weight back. He no longer looked like he was ready to bolt.
Bob narrowed his eyes. "Are you the one who's been makin' such a racket in there for so long?"
Janey had the good grace to blush. "I am. But about that—"
I cleared my throat. "Bob, do you really wanna get rid of this place?"
He shook his head. "No. My wife adores it, and I reckon I do, too. It's just, nobody's been able to stay a night in the place due to the yowling and carryin' on."
"Well, I think y'all should parlay and work out some kinda arrangement," I said. "For now, though, I've chosen what I want, but you may want to keep at least some of it if you're staying."
Janey swooped over and looked at what I'd gathered.
Besides the stuff I already mentioned, I also had my eye on another settee, two old chests, a few headboards, and a several boxes of odds and ends. Plus, the stuff I'd come for to begin with.
She poked her nose in each box and examined the furniture. "Please take that table. The things I saw my sister do on it—"
I held up my hand. "I'm gonna strip it clear to the wood, so all that'll be gone."
"That's a good idea. The varnish won't be the first thing that's been stripped on it, I can tell you that."
