I couldn’t see Gwen or Sturgeon but knew they had a much better chance of finding Rosie in the dark than I did. Besides that, the idea of chasing ghosts in the dark freaked me out. Especially this one. There was something unstable about her energy; it had an unpredictable quality that felt dangerous and edgy. She swung effortlessly between rational thought one second and vengeful spite the next without batting an eyelash.
I jumped at the sound of a van door sliding open and when Lucas swooped out and landed on the driveway, my heart raced even faster. “You looking to get tackled again?”
I tried to laugh but it caught in my throat. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
He shut the door and sauntered closer, hands in the pockets of his jeans. The movement triggered one of the flood lights along the side of the hedges lining the driveway, sending a flood of bright light over the carefully laid pavers. Lucas looked exhausted, his face lined even as he offered a smile. “Been pulling all-nighters until we figure this thing out.”
“You’re all by yourself?”
He gave me a meaningful glance. “Well not anymore,” he teased.
I groaned. “Clever.”
“You’ve got a little something … ” Lucas trailed off, using a gesture to finish his thought, wiping at a patch under his own eye.
I slapped my fingers to my face and scrubbed away the patch of face mask I’d missed. “Part-time ghost whisperer, part-time swamp monster,” I mumbled under my breath.
“Do swamp monsters generally wear flip flops and run around in a bathrobe?” Lucas asked, a maddening twinkle in his eyes.
“I also breathe fire,” I warned, narrowing my eyes.
Lucas chuckled. “Now I’m even more glad you’re on my side.”
I tried to frown but my smile won out. “Just promise not to turn me into a side show when this is all said and done.”
“Promise,” he replied with an easy grin. He took a step closer and my heart skittered to a stop before charging forward at a hundred beats a minute.
I took half a step backward. “I uh—I found the ghost who’s responsible for this whole mess.”
Lucas lifted his eyebrows, expectant. “And?”
“She’s not leaving the house anytime soon and I’m afraid that the farther the renovations go, the more angry she’s going to become.”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over a face dusted with a layer of dark scruff, much darker than the head on his hair. I wondered if he’d been a towheaded baby and his hair just naturally bleached out in the sun.
“She told me that she was killed at the house.”
“What? When?”
“Twenty-four years ago. She says her fiancé pushed her down the stairs. She cracked her head and died.”
“Her fiancé?”
“Calvin something or other.”
“Calvin? Wait … wait one second.” Lucas held up a hand, his brow pinched. “The previous owner of the house was named Calvin Harrison. We just had him on the show. Yesterday morning, actually. That was part of what made the tech issues so frustrating.”
Understanding clicked into place. “That’s what set her off. Did the window happen after that?”
Lucas nodded and then swore under his breath.
“What do you know about him?”
“Not much. He was the owner of the house before the production team bought it from him. He wasn’t living here. Hadn’t for quite some time, from my understanding. He had a property management company renting it out for him up until about six months ago. Before the network purchased it for the show, it was sitting vacant. I spoke with one of the real estate agent when they came to give us the keys, as Mr. Harrison was on the other side of the country. The agent seemed relieved that the house was being taken off his company’s roster. Apparently, there are some unfortunate rumors floating around from the years it was leased out by the local property management company. There were always issues. Reports of weird things happening in the house.”
“Sounds familiar.” Wayward ghosts could really do a number on the resale value of a place.
“No one used the term haunted of course, but after talking to you … ” Lucas trailed off, leaving his conclusion hanging in mid-air. “Honestly, I don’t know why he hung onto it as long as he did. With no tenants, the whole place is a money pit.”
“Rosie—that’s the ghost—said they declared her death as an accident. She went to her own funeral.”
“Yikes.” Lucas winced. “That’s gotta be weird.”
“In my experience, when someone was murdered and the case goes cold or the wrong person goes to prison, it leaves behind an unruly, restless energy. That would explain why Rosie’s so powerful. She’s angry. Very angry.”
“What can we do to convince her to move on? If she keeps this up, someone is going to get hurt.”
I worried at my lower lip with my teeth. Ideas were pinging around my head but I wasn’t sure which one I should chase down first.
“Hellllo, handsome!”
I winced at Gwen’s voice.
Lucas frowned. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Ghost.”
“It’s such a shame you can’t properly introduce us,” Gwen said with a dreamy sigh. “He’s the stuff dreams are made of!”
I rolled my eyes.
Lucas gave a tentative smile. “What are they saying?”
“Gwen, she’s a long time Beechwood resident. She’s got a ghost crush on you.”
“Scarlet!” Gwen yelped.
Lucas chuckled nervously. “It takes a bit to knock me speechless, but I’m really not sure what to say to that.”
I laughed and enjoyed the brief levity of the moment. “Did you find Rosie?” I asked Gwen, turning my head toward her.
Gwen’s expression changed.
“Uh oh. What now?”
“She broke some of the pottery on the back porch.”
I groaned. “Great.”
“What happened?” Lucas asked.
“Come on,” I said, jerking my hand for him to follow me as I followed Gwen.
Rosie was still on the back porch, channeling her energy into smashing yet another terracotta pot. Lucas cursed under his breath as he watched the pot fly across the yard and break into pieces.
“Rosie! Stop this!” I barked.
The woman stopped and spun around. Sturgeon was fighting her, his face set in concentration, but whatever he was attempting wasn’t working. She effortlessly lifted another pot and held it mid-air. “Where should I send this one? Through the kitchen window? They just put that in yesterday, you know. They took out the stained-glass window that’d been there for nearly a century!”
I folded my arms. “You told me that I had a week!” I reminded her, using the sternest voice I could muster. “What’s with the Wreck it Ralph routine?”
Rosie scowled. “I said you had a week until people would start getting hurt. A flower pot through the window won’t hurt anyone.”
I huffed and threw my hands up in the air. “Look, Rosie, you’re pissed off. I get it. We all get it. But you have to stop this madness. I can’t help you if you refuse to cooperate with me.”
Ignoring me, Rosie chucked the flower pot at the side of the house. It didn’t go through the window, but exploded against the wall and fell to join the other pottery shards on the back deck.
“Rosie!” I barked.
She hoisted up another pot. There wasn’t even a hint of strain on her face. How deep was her well of power? Could she do this infinitely? Most ghosts had a reserve, some kind of limit, but Rosie was fueled by pure anger and I had a creeping suspicion we hadn’t even seen the half of it.
“Scarlet, we should get out of here. You could get hurt.” Lucas fidgeted beside me, waves of anger rolling off him as he stared at the large flower pot hovering in the air. His fists were balled tightly and if he ground his teeth any harder, he was going to have quite the dental bill. It was clear that he wasn’t the type to stand by when thing
s were going wrong.
I set a hand on his forearm, feeling the corded muscles under my fingertips. “We leave now and there’s no telling what she’ll do.”
“Your safety is more important,” Lucas said evenly.
I ignored him. “Rosie, put that pot down and we’ll make a deal.”
“What kind of deal? What do you have that I want?”
It was a good question, one that set me back on my heels for a moment. I didn’t want to hurt her. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I tried to banish her—a nicer way of saying exorcise. I’d participated in the exercise one other time, after meeting a fellow ghost whisperer in my travels through Central America. A ghost was wreaking havoc on a small community in the mountains of Honduras and finally a ghost whisperer came to their aid. I just happened to be there, on my way through a long trek touring the Mayan ruins. I’d aided them in the ceremony and was confident I could do it again, but it was the last resort of last resorts. I didn’t want to do that to Rosie. I’d rather help her find peace. Preferably before she went full-blown homicidal maniac.
“Justice,” I finally said.
Rosie paused and the ceramic pot lowered to the ground.
I rushed forward, both hands held out and open. “I’ll help prove that your death wasn’t an accident. I’ll get to the bottom of it and expose the truth to the whole world.”
“I already know who killed me,” she said, her voice cold. “He was supposed to love me. Our wedding was two weeks away. If he didn’t want to go through with it, then why didn’t he break it off? Take back the ring? Move to a new town? Why kill me?”
“I don’t know, Rosie.” I moved closer, with measured steps. “But I’ll find out. I swear.”
Rosie lifted her dark eyes to mine and the dim porch light reflected off of a lone tear that leaked from the corner of her eye and ran down her cheek.
“I need something from you though. A promise.” I swallowed hard. “I need you to promise that you won’t interfere with the renovations anymore. I need to know that no one will get hurt.”
Slowly, Rosie nodded and the pot landed softly back in its place on the deck.
“And no more manifesting!” I hurried to add.
“All right.” Rosie moved closer and I noticed the energy shift. The crackling tension that had swirled around her was gone and I was starting to feel the cold nip in the night air against my legs. “I’ll leave these monsters alone while they destroy my house.”
I inclined my head. “Thank you, Rosie.”
The edges of her silhouette shimmered and then she vanished.
Lucas held up a hand. “Thank you,” he said, as though talking to someone hard of hearing.
I suppressed a grin. “She’s already gone.”
“Oh.” He pocketed his hand.
“That was wonderful, Scarlet!” Gwen said, sailing back across the yard. She inserted herself between Lucas and me.
I sighed. “Yeah, what better way to handle the situation than to throw myself into a twenty-year-old murder investigation?”
Chapter 9
When my alarm clock went off the following morning, it was all I could do not to chuck it out the window. The now-screaming clock had read 2:34 when my head finally hit the pillow. I’d fallen right to sleep, despite my busy mind, but still, four and a half hours of sleep wasn’t nearly enough. Unfortunately, the funeral flowers needed to be completed and delivered to a church across town before I opened for the day, so hitting the snooze button half a dozen times wasn’t in the cards.
The shop was surprisingly quiet for once and I managed to complete the arrangements and load them into the back of my van without ghostly interference. It was a nice change of pace from my usual referee multi-tasking efforts. Even without them around, I was thinking about the events of the night before, sifting through the entire mess with the half of my brain that the three cups of coffee had jump-started into action. I was still waiting for the other half to catch up.
Even hours later, with two more cups of coffee under my belt, I was still struggling to come up with a solid plan of action. Promising Rosie justice for her murder was a noble sentiment, but the more I twisted and turned the facts, the more overwhelmed I became at the prospect.
When Gwen swung by that afternoon, she had an idea.
“I’m just saying that as a deputy, Officer Keith has access to the records of that night. He’s your best shot at getting solid information. And trust me, if you’d seen the way he was looking at you as you walked away—”
“Stop!” I frowned at her, holding up a hand. “I don’t want to hear this right now. Correction—ever. I am not interested in knowing how he feels about my derriere, all right?”
Gwen shrugged. “I’m just saying, he’d probably be willing to help anyway, and with the right shade of lipstick, you could probably have him tripping over himself to get you whatever files you want!”
I rolled my eyes and went back to working on the spray of roses a customer had ordered via phone that morning. “I’m not going to flirt my way into getting the information. But you have a point that he might be a good resource, now that I’ve managed to make myself some kind of junior detective.”
I was still trying to wrap my brain around that one.
Gwen considered me over the arrangement-in-progress.
“What?” I finally asked with an exasperated sigh. “I said I’d go talk to him. What more do you want from me?”
“Are you going to wear a skirt? That floral one you have would look great.”
“I’m wearing jeans,” I told her, my tone leaving no room for argument.
She gave a disappointed sigh but didn’t say anything else about it.
After I closed up for the day, I went upstairs to my apartment and changed out of my work clothes. I considered the floral skirt Gwen had references but skipped past it as I cycled through my closet. In the end, Gwen’s voice rattling around in the back of my head got to me and I settled on a navy blue top that had a Grecian flair to it and paired it with a pair of dark-wash jeans instead of my normal faded blue jeans. A pair of sling-back heels and silver hoop earrings completed the look and had me feeling a little fancy as I passed the full-length mirror on my way out the door.
Gwen was waiting downstairs when I headed out to my car. She smiled, silently approving my choice of dress even if it wasn’t entirely what she’d envisioned.
“All right. I better get going.” I swallowed hard. “I doubt this is even going to help. If Rosie’s death was ruled an accident, I don’t think there will be much of a file. Besides that, it was twenty-four years ago; it’s not like he was on the scene and could give me firsthand information. He was probably about twelve years old at the time!”
“It’s worth a try,” Gwen said. “In the meantime, Hayward and I will keep an eye on Rosie. There are a few other ghosts that live in the area. We’ve recruited them to help us keep tabs on her.”
I nodded. “Good thinking. Also, see if anyone knows anything. Maybe some of the ghosts are older and know what was going on in the house. See if there were issues between Rosie and Calvin beyond just the one incident. It didn’t sound like it, but maybe she blocked them out or doesn’t want to tell us the whole painful story.”
Gwen gave a sage nod. “Will do.”
“Thanks, Gwen,” I said on my way out the front door.
The police station was within walking distance, even tottering in my heels, and I shoved through the heavy glass door a little after ten a.m. An elderly gentleman sat at the front desk and glanced up at my arrival. “Hello, Miss. How can I help you?”
I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, wishing I’d tied it back. Instead, it hung in a heavy sheet halfway down my back.
“Hello. Um, I was hoping I could speak with Officer Keith.”
The man nodded. “Sure thing. Can I tell him who’s here?”
“Scarlet Sanderson.”
“One moment.” The man picked up a phone and within minutes, Offic
er Keith joined me in the small lobby. He ushered me back to his desk, one of six that sat in a cluster of workspaces. Along the way, we’d passed Chief Lincoln’s office and another private office marked for the town’s detective. It was a fairly bare-bones force, but that’s all that a small town like Beechwood Harbor needed.
He offered me his chair and then went to snag one of his co-worker’s chairs for himself. “I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you,” he said, settling into his seat. “You seemed pretty dead-set against filing an official report on what happened at your shop the other night. What changed your mind?”
“Oh! Oh, no. This isn’t about that.”
He raised an eyebrow, then smiled. “Well, then what can I do for you?”
I shifted to the edge of the chair. “I came here to ask about an investigation. The death was ruled an accident but I’m hoping to see the notes, or at least ask some questions in regards to the death.”
He looked surprised. “Oh, okay. I’m not sure how much help I can be, but go ahead and ask away. I’ll do what I can.”
“It would be a cold case,” I started. “Twenty-four years ago, a woman named Rosie March died after falling down the stairs in her home. Her fiancé and one of her friends were there when she fell. She was taken to the hospital and died a few days later. It was ruled an accidental death, but I’m wondering what kind of detective work would go into something like that.”
He tilted his head. “It depends. They would obviously take statements from the witnesses, but assuming their reports lined up with what the doctors said, as well as the evidence at the scene, there’s not much more that would need to be done.”
“What if they had suspicions of foul play?”
“What’s this about, Scarlet?”
I offered a sweet smile. “I just told you.”
His lips twitched. “I mean what’s really going on? Where are all these questions coming from? When someone goes poking around in a closed investigation, not to mention one that’s two decades old, there’s a reason. What’s yours?”
The Ghost Hunter Next Door: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 1) Page 8