Ghostly Camping (A Harper Harlow Mystery Book 16)

by Lily Harper Hart

  Jared pictured the over-the-top entrepreneur and shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s likely he did it himself. He seems like too much of a dandy for that. Can I see him hiring someone to do it? I just don’t know. He’s really desperate to make a go of this place.”

  “He is but ... he can’t run the campground from prison. He’s never going to get what he wants if he’s locked up.”

  “That is a point. Maybe he thinks it’s worth the risk, though.”

  “Maybe.” Harper wasn’t convinced.

  “There is one other possibility, too,” Jared added, almost as an afterthought. “It could be someone else entirely. I mean ... we could have a predator up here.”

  Harper was taken aback. “You don’t really think it was a crime of opportunity, do you? I mean ... what would be the motive?”

  “Motives can often seem murky. Do I think it’s likely we have some random serial killer up here? No. An individual who snapped for no reason? No as well. It could be something else, though. Maybe Leslie saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

  “Like what?”

  “I have no idea. It’s just something to think about.”

  “Yeah.” Harper closed her eyes again. “I’m really tired. I think I’m going to work through it in my dreams.”

  “That sounds like a plan.” He snuggled her close. “Just one thing before you drift off, though. I need to know if you want to leave.”

  Harper jolted at the suggestion. “Why would I want to leave?”

  “Because a woman is dead.”

  “Yeah, and if she was murdered, we might be the only ones who can figure out who did it. There’s no way I’m leaving now. I’m in this.”

  She was so determined, Jared could do nothing but chuckle. “Somehow I knew you would say that.”

  “I’m nothing if not predictable,” she agreed, closing her eyes again.

  “No, Heart, you’re the opposite of predictable. That’s only one of the reasons I’m going to love you forever.”

  “Right back at you.”

  HARPER SLID INTO SLEEP, JARED’S WARMTH serving as a form of protection. Dreams chased her, though, and she wasn’t surprised when she opened her eyes to find she was lost in a dark forest.

  She looked around, her heart rate picking up a notch, and searched for a reason she would be called to this specific spot in her dreams. There were no landmarks, no odd-looking trees. The only light offered was thanks to an unnaturally bright moon, which was the first hint that things were about to get interesting.

  “Hello?” She wasn’t calling out to anyone in particular. Her dreams over the years had turned into investigative tools, especially of late. She manifested the ability to speak to ghosts at a young age. If she had to guess, she’d always been able to see them. The first time she knew what was happening, though, her grandfather visited her right after his death.

  Before anyone had found out, prior to her parents getting the call, Harper had a talk with her favorite grandparent that left her bereft ... and confused. When she explained to her parents that her grandfather had passed, they’d been confused. They’d awoken her to tell her the news, and yet she already knew.

  They didn’t believe her, of course. They assumed she’d somehow heard them receive the call and figured out what was happening. Given her young age, that should’ve seemed impossible. The truth, though, was harder for them to swallow.

  For years, Gloria and Phil told Harper she was imagining things when she claimed to see a person who wasn’t really there. They’d considered getting her help, hiring a therapist for her to talk to, but eventually her gift started leading to the lost, including individuals who had been in a car accident ... and others, still, who had died with no one to look for them. It was only then that the Harlows realized their only child was special ... and they weren’t exactly thrilled with the news.

  They told her to keep it quiet, hide who she was. It wasn’t out of meanness as much as fear. They knew if others found out what she could do that she would likely become a target. They tried to protect her to the best of their ability, although it wasn’t always possible.

  As an adult, Harper opted to embrace her gift. She wanted to help people, lead lost souls to a better place. She honed her skills, learned what she could, developed her own dreamcatcher to serve as a conduit between worlds and allowed her mystique to grow. By the time she and Jared met, she was comfortable in her own skin. He was the one who had to adjust, although it didn’t take long.

  Oh, the first time she’d admitted what she could do to him, he thought she was a quack. He was convinced she might be the most beautiful quack he’d ever met, but a quack all the same. It didn’t take him long to realize she was telling the truth, though, and they’d been practically inseparable ever since.

  “Hello?” Her voice echoed through the dreamscape. As far as she could tell, she was completely alone, and yet she sensed another presence closing in. Slowly, she turned and studied the ethereal woman detaching from the tree line. She recognized her, cringed at the sadness permeating her face, and then sighed as she wrapped her head around what was happening. “Hello, Leslie.”

  The woman nodded in greeting, her expression wan. “I know you.”

  “You do.” Harper forced a smile she didn’t really feel. In truth, this interlude could’ve been nothing more than a dream. It also could’ve been real. She’d talked to legitimate spirits in dreams before, and this interaction somehow felt similar. “We met recently: yesterday, in fact. It was at the campground in the UP, the one for the murder-mystery event.”

  “Right.” She didn’t crack a smile, which was unlike the woman Harper had been introduced to. She seemed listless and afraid more than anything else. “Do you know what I’m doing here?”

  Harper hesitated and then nodded. “I think I might. I have a question for you, though. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  Leslie held out her hands. “I don’t know. This? I think this is the last thing that happened to me. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, though.”

  “This didn’t happen to you. Not in the real world at least. This is ... a meeting of the minds, so to speak. It’s not technically real.”

  “So, you’re saying we’re not in the middle of the woods talking to each other as if we’re old friends despite the darkness, huh?” Her eyes flicked to the moon. “I guess I kind of figured that out myself.”

  “It’s … hard to explain.”

  “Yeah.” Leslie was silent for a beat. “It just … this doesn’t feel real.”

  Harper had to bite back a sigh. She didn’t want the ghost becoming lost on a loop. “It’s ... a manifestation.” Explaining what was happening seemed like an uphill battle to Harper. Leslie was clearly confused by her current situation, which meant that it was possible her ghost was loitering around ... somewhere. She simply had to find it. “Do you remember being at the campground?”

  Slowly, Leslie nodded. “I do. It was supposed to be a lot of fun. I’ve always liked stuff like this, horror stuff. I love camping, too. Sam hates both. I don’t even know why he came.”

  Harper nodded in sympathy. “He seems ... cold.”

  “He’s a jerk.” For the first time since entering the dreamscape, Leslie unveiled an actual expression. It was a scowl — a dark one at that — but it loosened some of the dread gripping Harper’s heart. “I don’t know what I ever saw in him.”

  “Yes, well, that makes two of us.” Harper dragged a hand through her hair, considering. “I don’t want to keep pushing you to think about something you might not want to remember, but it’s important you tell me what you did last night ... or even this morning.”

  Leslie’s forehead wrinkled in concentration. “I don’t know. None of this makes any sense.” She glanced around, sincere bafflement twisting her features. “Is this a dream? It feels like a dream.”

  “This is ... not a dream. Well, it kind of is. It’s not the sort of dream you’re talking about, thoug
h. In fact ... .” Harper trailed off, a hint of movement catching her attention out of the corner of her eye. When she looked in the direction where she’d seen the shadow, though, there was nothing there. “Did you see that?”

  “I can’t really see anything.” Leslie’s attention was fixed on the moon. “It’s weird, but I feel as if I’ve been somehow detached from my life. Maybe I’m drunk.”

  “You’re not drunk.” Harper edged closer to the spot in the woods where she’d seen the shadow. She didn’t feel anything malevolent emanating from the location, but she also couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. “Hello? Is somebody out there?”

  “I’m right here,” Leslie called out in the dreamy tone Harper recognized as disassociation. Leslie wasn’t ready to be helped … at least not yet. It would happen eventually, though. She was much more interested in the second entity.

  “If you need help, I’m here,” Harper offered softly, tilting her head in an effort to pick up noise of any sort. “Just tell me who you are.”

  There was no response, not that she necessarily expected one. Instead, the wind merely picked up, and Leslie continued to float in the middle of the clearing as she stared at the moon.

  “This isn’t right,” the ghost said finally. “This is wrong.”

  Harper nodded in agreement. “It’s totally wrong. We’ll figure it out, though. Go back to trying to remember where you were before you popped up here. It’s important.”

  “Okay. I’ll try.”

  9

  Nine

  Harper had to drag herself to consciousness the next morning. It was like slogging through quicksand, and she almost gave up and let weariness drag her back under, but then she remembered what the day would likely hold, and with resignation, her eyes popped open.

  Next to her, his arm around her back cradling her into his side, Jared stirred. “Good morning.”

  She made the usual joke because it seemed warranted. “There’s nothing good about a morning.”

  He chuckled and pressed a kiss to her forehead before stretching. “Did you sleep?”

  She nodded, the “dream” from the previous evening coming back with a vengeance. “I did, although ... I had a weird dream. I’m not sure it was even a dream.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Do I want to know?”

  “Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” She launched into the tale. It didn’t take long. She explained about sitting around with Leslie for an extended period of time trying to get the ghost to remember. “Eventually she just disappeared.”

  Jared rubbed his jaw, considering. He wanted to know everything he could about Harper’s abilities, but he also feared saying the wrong thing. The last thing he wanted was to inadvertently insult her. “It could’ve just been a regular dream, right?”

  “It could have. I mean ... I’m not an expert. I know they’re my dreams, but it’s not as if they came with an instruction manual.”

  He waited a beat, but she didn’t expand. “You don’t think that, though, do you?”

  She shook her head. “I think it was real. I don’t know if my abilities are expanding or what, but it feels real. Maybe I was always capable of doing this.”

  “I think you’re capable of doing whatever you set your mind to.” His fingers were gentle as they brushed the hair away from her forehead. “How do you want to handle this?”

  It was an interesting question. She didn’t have an answer. “I need to think on it. I’m not sure. I hope that’s okay.”

  He chuckled, the sound low and throaty. “It’s okay. You can’t force yourself to know what to do in a case like this.” Even though he knew exactly how the next suggestion would go over, he barreled forward anyway. “We can go home. We don’t have to stay here.”

  “No.” She immediately started shaking her head. “You know as well as I do that we’ll both be haunted by this if we do nothing. Besides, there was something else in the dream that threw me off.”

  “Leslie didn’t try to get freaky, did she?” He was going for levity, but it fell flat.

  “No. She was more confused than anything else. The thing is—” She broke off and chewed on her bottom lip.

  “Don’t leave me hanging,” he prodded. “You’ve come this far. Tell me the rest of it.”

  In halting terms, she did just that. “There was a moment when I was talking to her where I felt like someone else was watching us, someone hiding in the woods.”

  That piqued his interest. “Do you think it was the killer?”

  “No. I didn’t feel danger or anything. It was more like someone was curious ... and afraid.”

  “How would someone else get in your dream? That seems impossible to me.”

  “Ivy can share dreams with Jack,” she countered, referring to her friend from Northern Lower Michigan, a woman she’d met months before. “She can see and talk to ghosts and she and Jack dream walk. They share it together.”

  Jared had listened to Ivy explain the phenomenon to Harper on more than one occasion. He had no reason to doubt the pink-haired witch, but it seemed fantastical on the face of things. He also wasn’t certain he understood the explanation Ivy laid out when it came to sharing dreams. “Is it possible you’ve somehow joined with someone else?” The question made him distinctly uncomfortable, but he asked it anyway.

  As if reading his mind, Harper tilted her chin so she could study his strong profile. “Are you asking me if I’m dream cheating on you?”

  He balked. “No. I know it doesn’t work like that. I mean ... wait ... it doesn’t work like that, does it?”

  She chuckled, amused despite herself. “Not that I’m aware of. Ivy said Jack was mentally tortured by dreams and he called to her somehow. She supplied the magic, and they worked through things together. It was their bond that made it happen.

  “This was different,” she continued. “I didn’t sense evil in the woods, so I don’t think it was the killer. I didn’t sense anything romantic either, so you can push that worry out of your head.”

  “Who said I was worried?”

  She giggled, genuinely amused at the way his eyes flashed. He was full of bravado, but she sensed an undercurrent of weakness. “You shouldn’t worry. I’ll never love anyone like I love you. It’s impossible.”

  She was so earnest, all he could do was sigh. “I’ll never love anyone like I love you either. You don’t have to reassure me. I was just feeling ... grumpy. It is the morning after all.”

  “It is.” She linked her fingers with his and lifted their joined hands so she could study them for a beat. “It almost felt like another ghost.”

  That was enough to jolt Jared. “Really?”

  “Yeah. That’s how it felt to me. It happened so quickly, though. The presence was there and then gone.”

  “Do you think it’s possible that another ghost somehow joined your meeting with Leslie?”

  “Normally I would say no, but what about this is normal?” Her smile was rueful. “My life has been a whirlwind from the start. I bet you didn’t realize what you were getting yourself into when you asked me out for that first date.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. I knew you were going to change my life. Believe it or not, the entire thing excited me. I’m still excited when I wake up next to you every morning.”

  “Even when I have camping hair?”

  “Even when.” He leaned in and gave her a soft kiss before sobering. “Do you think the second ghost is another victim we haven’t found? Is it possible Leslie isn’t the only one out there?”

  Harper hesitated and then shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. The entire thing is ... so weird. I don’t know how to explain any of it.”

  “But you’re sure you want to stay, right?”

  She pinned him with a dirty look. “I’m totally sure. I’m not leaving until we figure this out. I can’t.”

  “I know.” His lips curved as he rubbed his cheek against her soft skin. “I can’t leave either. I had to ask.
”

  “What if I’d said yes?”

  “Then I would’ve done what was necessary to make you feel safe. That’s my biggest concern.”

  Because she knew it was true, Harper felt comfortable letting loose with him … even if only for a short amount of time. “I feel pretty safe right now. In fact, I feel so safe, I might be willing to look the other way if some lumberjack who loves camping decided to take advantage of me.”

  That earned a full-fledged chuckle. “Is that a fact?”

  “It’s just a stray thought I had.”

  “Well, I love it when you have stray thoughts.” He lowered his lips to hers. “Let’s see where the morning takes us, shall we?”

  AN HOUR LATER, FRESHLY SHOWERED AND bright-eyed, Harper and Jared made their way to the pavilion. Shawn and Zander were already seated and looked to be deep in conversation. Harper and Jared grabbed food and moved to join them before something caught Jared’s attention and he veered to the left.

  “Where are you going?” Harper queried, confused. Then her gaze fell on Sam, who sat at one of the far tables staring at his breakfast, alone. “Oh.” She didn’t offer up a word of complaint before following him. She was mildly interested if a night of sleep had adjusted Sam’s attitude.

  “I’m not in the mood for any crap,” Sam said by way of greeting.

  Apparently Sam’s attitude was just as surly as the night before, Harper internally mused. However, she followed Jared’s lead and sat next to him, almost directly across from Sam, rather than comment.

  “Who says we’re here to give you any crap?” Jared countered, unwrapping his plasticware and placing the napkin on his lap. “Perhaps we’re just here to make sure you’re not alone for the first meal after ... well, after.”

  “You mean after my wife ended up dead in the woods,” Sam spat, his eyes filling with fire. “I know what you’re up to.”