The Ghost Hunter Next Door: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 1)

by Danielle Garrett

  I tried on an answer and quickly discarded it. There was already one too many people in town who knew about the supernatural company I keep.

  “Rosie died at the Lilac House, you know—the one that TV show is renovating.”

  “So?”

  I leaned in conspiratorially. “Well you know what people say about that house, don’t you?”

  Officer Keith laughed. “Oh, come on, Scarlet. Tell me you’re not one of these ghost chasers looking for a spooky story to tell around a campfire.”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “Call it a guilty pleasure.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. My heart lurched, ready to combat his dismissal, but after he considered me for another long moment, he dropped his hands to his keyboard. “All right. Let me see what I can find.”

  “Thank you!”

  He didn’t speak as his fingers flew over the keys. I fidgeted in my seat as other officers wandered in and out of the bullpen. After a few minutes, the printer at the end of the row of desks fired up and spit out three pages in rapid succession. He rose from his seat and I followed. “Now, technically, I shouldn’t even be giving this to you. But since it’s a closed case and given the age of the file, I’m willing to make an exception.”

  A flicker of excitement flared within me. “Thank you so much! You have no—”

  “On one condition,” he interjected.

  My smile fell as he sauntered to the printer and retrieved the pages from the tray. He made a show of gathering the three pages and stacking them together.

  “What’s the condition?” I asked, suspicious.

  “First, you need to start calling me Jason.” He smiled and held out the pages. “Second, you have dinner with me. Friday night after you close up.”

  “Thank you, Jason,” I said, snatching the pages from his hands. Without waiting, I pivoted on my heel and gave a wave as I started back the way we’d come.

  “What time should I pick you up for dinner?” he called after me.

  “I don’t think Friday will work for me,” I replied.

  He folded his arms, still smiling. “What about our deal?”

  “You only said one condition, Jason.”

  His smile widened as he realized I’d tricked him. “Stay out of trouble, Scarlet.”

  After leaving the police station, I went to Siren’s Song and ordered myself a huge latte and a few cookies. Cassie Frank, the manager, was working the register and thanked me profusely for the bouquet of flowers I’d made for her a week ago to give to her father’s caretaker on her birthday. Holly Boldt, one of my more recent acquaintances, presented me with my latte, smiling. It was a secret, but Holly was part of the underground community of supernatural beings in the sleepy town. Most people, Cassie included, had no idea that witches, shifters, and vampires existed, let alone worked and lived alongside them. I was fully human, but straddled the line between the mortal and supernatural worlds. I didn’t have the gift of oblivion. With random ghosts popping in and out of my daily life, it was impossible to put on my blinders so I’d learned to embrace it.

  “Read any good books lately?” Holly asked me with a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile.

  I shifted a quick glance at Cassie, but she was busy chatting up the next customer in line. Cassie was a ball of sunshine, radiating joy and good will to everyone she encountered. It made her a wonderful member of the small, tight-knit community, and especially suited for her role as the manager of one of the town’s most frequented watering holes.

  “I’ve been a little … distracted,” I replied before taking a long sip of the piping hot beverage.

  Holly inclined her head. “Anything I can help with?”

  For a moment I considered asking for her help. We’d met under strange circumstances and she knew all about my gift. She was also convinced that the reason I was able to see and speak with ghosts had something to do with being a yet-undetermined member of the supernatural world. I wasn’t so sure. A few weeks ago, she’d presented me with a large, leather-bound book filled with basic potion instructions. I’d taken it without a fuss but hadn’t done more than look at the carved marks on the front cover.

  “I think I’ll be all right,” I told her with a polite smile. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  “Anytime. Got a late night planned?”

  I took a long sip of the latte. “Nothing too terrible. But a little pick-me-up never hurts.”

  Holly smiled. “Pretty soon, you’ll be so busy you’ll need to hire a couple of part-timers.”

  “I hope you’re right! A delivery driver is at the top of my list,” I told her, thinking to my crack-of-dawn wake-up call. “Hayward and Flapjack certainly aren’t going to lend a hand anytime soon. That’s the problem with ghosts: all talk, no action.”

  Holly laughed, the sound light and musical.

  Cassie joined us and handed over a turquoise bakery bag, embossed with a silver siren—the shop’s mascot and namesake.

  “Bless you,” I said, inhaling the sugary scent wafting up from the cookies inside.

  Coffee in hand and bakery bag tucked under one arm, I shouldered open the door and slipped outside. I was eager to get back to the shop and look over the police notes. My only hope was that reading the detailed account would spark a plan of action, because as it was, I had nothing but a lot of big fat question marks.

  Lost in thought, I ended up taking the route that led me past the mouth of Lilac street. The Lilac House sat at the beginning of the neighborhood, dwarfing the other, smaller houses. I glanced across the street as I passed by and saw three white vans parked on the street in addition to the one Lucas used as his office. The front of the house was getting a face lift. A crew of men were on the porch, tearing into the floorboards with pry bars and hammers while a trio of people in bright green t-shirts bearing the branding for a local landscape company were hacking through the foliage in the sloped front yard. Bushes had been torn out and several wagons bearing fresh, still-potted plants were rolled up to the top of the driveway, waiting to be planted in the beds that one man was preparing with bags of dark potting soil.

  Hopefully, Gwen and her posse were keeping Rosie in check—or, at the very least, distracted. I didn’t trust her promise to keep away from the house, and there was no way she’d sit back and watch the crew uproot half of the landscaping without causing a scene.

  “Hey! Scarlet!”

  I jolted and sloshed a little bit of my coffee when Lucas shouted my name. He’d raised his voice to be heard over the construction sounds, only for things to go quiet half a second before.

  He was jogging to close the handful of yards between us, raising a hand and flashing that devastating smile.

  Easy, Scar. No need to get all fluttery. He’s just a guy.

  I returned his smile. “You scared me!”

  “Sorry about that,” he said, gesturing at the work crew. “It’s a little chaotic over here, as you can see. Racing to beat the sunset.”

  “Aha.”

  “You look nice,” Lucas said with a lingering glance.

  I scoffed but couldn’t avoid the flash of heat that surged through me and flushed my cheeks. I took a deep drink from my travel coffee mug but the still-scorching coffee did nothing to cool me off.

  Lucas chuckled. “Come on; take a compliment.”

  “I closed a little early and went to see Officer Keith over at the station. He gave me a few pages on the investigation of Rosie’s death. Hopefully, that will give us a little insight.”

  “Worth a shot,” he agreed.

  “Were you able to find Calvin Harrison? Rosie’s ex?”

  “You’re in luck,” he said, reaching into the front pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a business card that had something scrawled on the back in black ink and held it out to me. “Production put him up in a hotel one town over. He’ll be there through the week. I think he flies out on Friday night.”

  I reached out with my free hand, whip fast, and snatched the card.

  W
hile I wasn’t paying attention, Lucas stole the bakery bag I’d tucked under my arm that held the coffee cup. “Hey!” I argued as he smirked at me and peeled open the paper bag.

  “Mmm. Chocolate chip, my favorite. How’d ya know?”

  “You’re impossible.”

  He shrugged one shoulder, plucked out a cookie, and took a huge bite. “Dang!” he said with his mouth full. “These are really good.” He polished off the rest of the cookie in two bites.

  I ignored him and dropped my glance back down to the card pinched between my thumb and index finger. Someone had written 332 on the back of the card; I assumed it was the room number.

  He handed back the bag, leaving my second cookie untouched. I clutched it in the hand with the business card. “Thanks for getting me Calvin’s info.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I stalked down the sidewalk but paused when I reached the curb. I looked back over my shoulder and flashed him a smile. “You still owe me a cookie.”

  Chapter 10

  As expected, when I got back to Lily Pond and filled Gwen in on the events of the evening, she was far more interested in talking about Jason’s dinner invitation than the paperwork he’d given me. “I just don’t understand why you won’t say yes! Two men are chasing you all over town and you’re ignoring both of them. Most women would kill for that kind of attention,” she complained as I poured over the case notes.

  I glanced up at her. “Can we stay on topic here?”

  Gwen looked to Hayward, who was admiring her from the other side of the room. “Has she always been like this?”

  “Allergic to love?” Flapjack asked, popping into view from behind one of the larger potted ferns I’d arranged in the front window.

  I scoffed at him. “I swear, you’re worse than the Cheshire cat.”

  “And just as irritating,” Hayward added under his breath. “As to your question, Lady Gwen, Scarlet’s not participated in any courtships, at least none that I’ve been privy to.”

  I could feel Gwen’s eyes on me, her next question brewing in her mind. “Can we drop this, please? I’m sure you all have ample time to discuss my love life when I’m not here, all right?”

  Gwen joined me at the counter. “But Scarlet—”

  I frowned down at the papers, refusing to meet her eyes, which were likely puppy-dog-huge and full of pleading. I held up a hand. “Gwen, please?”

  She hovered for a moment and then backed off. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief, grateful to be out from under the love microscope.

  “Everything matches up with what Rosie told us. Her fiancé, Calvin, said she came home unexpectedly from work in the middle of the day. She wasn’t feeling well. He said she was sweating and looked pale. He was at the house packing her a bag for a surprise last-minute weekend getaway. Wendy, the roommate, was helping him pack.” I paused and looked up at Gwen. “Rosie thought they were having an affair, right? That’s what she said?”

  Gwen nodded. “Right. She was upset because she found them together at the house when she was normally gone at work.”

  “You know what doesn’t make sense?” I squinted at the pages, trying to play the sequence out in my mind. “If Wendy and Calvin were really just looking for a place to … ” I glanced at Hayward, who would be mortified by the word sex. He’d ghosted his way around the world for nearly a century, but he stayed close to his well-bred roots. “If they wanted to be together, why wouldn’t they have been in Wendy’s room? It doesn’t make sense that they’d be in the master bedroom when Wendy had her own room.”

  “Good point.” Gwen cocked her head and looked at the papers I’d spread across the counter. “Maybe he was telling the truth.”

  “So, Rosie’s in a bad state of mind. She’s sick and miserable, probably stressed. In my experience, weddings have a way of making even the most level-headed women go a little nuts.”

  “Here, here,” Hayward chimed in. “When my Mary and I were betrothed, we got into quite the discussion about the color of the linens for the tables. I told her to do as she saw fit and she went into hysterics over my apparent apathy.”

  “Sounds about right.” Gwen giggled. “We want the man to care but not to the point of forcing his own opinion.”

  “Enough to drive a man to drink, if you ask me!” Hayward replied.

  I smiled at Gwen. “And you wonder why I’m not racing to the altar?”

  Gwen pursed her lips but didn’t argue. “What does Wendy’s statement say about the whole thing? Does she back up Calvin’s version of the events?”

  I read through it once more. “Yep. Pretty much the same thing as Calvin’s: She was helping him pack a bag for Rosie and Rosie came in, burst into tears, and started screaming at them. She threatened to leave and call off the wedding as she stormed from the bedroom. Calvin went after her. Wendy followed, but it was too late. She stepped into the hall just as Rosie was tumbling head-over-heels down the stairs.”

  “So she didn’t actually see what happened?” Gwen asked.

  After another read-through, I shook my head. “I guess not.”

  Gwen tapped a finger against her lips. “Interesting.”

  I just can’t figure it out,” I said to no one in particular. “If they were a couple of weeks away from their wedding, they should have been happy, right?”

  Hayward swept forward and joined us at the counter. “You said it yourself, Lady Scarlet—weddings can make people go loopy!”

  “Maybe, but if he was having second thoughts about the marriage, he could have called the thing off. Why go to such an extreme?”

  “Maybe he didn’t mean to push her so hard?” Gwen offered. “They were arguing. Maybe he reached for her and she twisted away and lost her balance. That couldn’t be considered a murder, could it?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe that would be manslaughter?”

  “But the police didn’t pursue it?” Hayward asked.

  “No. It’s just like Officer Keith said, they spoke with Wendy and Calvin, and it looks like they also spoke with Rosie’s mother at the hospital. That was it. Case closed.”

  “I wonder why Rosie is so convinced it was intentional,” Gwen said. “Could her memory be skewed?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve met ghosts who couldn’t even remember how they died. Maybe her memories of the whole incident are slightly fuzzy. She put together the pieces that she remembered and came up with her version of the events. From the sounds of it, she’s lived in isolation for over two decades. That’s a long time spent stewing. If she’s been reliving it over and over again, she might not even know what the truth is anymore.”

  I gathered the pages together and slipped a paperclip over the top corner. “Either way, I think it’s time to hear what Calvin has to say after all this time.”

  “How are you going to find him?” Gwen asked.

  “He’s in town because they had him on the TV show. Lucas just gave me his hotel information.”

  I glanced up and caught Gwen and Hayward exchange a dark look. “What?” I asked them.

  “Lady Scarlet, do you think it’s wise to go poking around? What if this man is dangerous?”

  “I have to, Hayward. It’s the only way to keep Rosie under control. Besides that, I think she deserves to know the truth, whatever it ends up being. It might be the key to her finding peace and moving on.”

  Hayward wrung his hands and looked to Gwen. She gave me a cautious smile. “We just don’t want you to get in over your head, honey.”

  I sighed. “I know. And I appreciate that, believe me. It’s been a while since I’ve had people who worried about me.”

  Gwen frowned. “What do you mean, Scarlet? Surely your parents worry about you.”

  An ironic laugh slipped from my lips. “Only to the extent of how much money I’ll need to fund my next excursion.” I sighed heavily, immediately regretting the harsh words. “Never mind. Forget I said that.”

  I turned away and went to my small office, where I
tucked the police report into the top drawer and then closed the door.

  The following morning, my first customer of the day was a giant, cellophane-wrapped bouquet of cookies. Well, technically Lucas was carrying it, but he was entirely obscured behind the enormous basket. “Think this makes us even?” he teased, setting it down on the counter.

  I tried not to gawk at the display. Two dozen cookies, each attached to a white stick with some kind of hard frosting and decorated in a myriad of colors, were arranged to look like flowers. I had no idea where he’d gotten the idea, let alone the actual basket. For all I knew, he’s swiped it from the craft services table on the set.

  “You’re insane,” I told him, shaking my head.

  Gwen, who’d arrived bright and early as I’d been making my first cup of coffee, swooped in closer to peek over my shoulder.

  Hayward came nearer too, giving me a case of ghost-induced claustrophobia. “This chap certainly has a creative streak. I’ll give him that.”

  “It’s so romantic,” Gwen swooned.

  I snapped a glower in their direction. “Will you two knock it off?”

  Lucas stepped back and looked around. “Who’s here?”

  I sighed and shifted my gaze back to him, ignoring Gwen and Hayward as they continued to discuss the silly gift. “Gwen and Hayward.”

  Lucas smiled at the space past my shoulder. “Tell me about them.”

  “Gwen is a local ghost. She died in the 70s. Tragic stage-diving incident at an outdoor music festival.”

  Lucas winced. “Ouch!”

  “Aww, he’s so sweet too,” Gwen said with a tilt of her chin. Her delicate face showed none of the effects of the accident, but I had to imagine it had been a royal mess at the time of her death.

  “As for Hayward, he’s more properly known as Hayward Kensington III. He passed away after attending a performance at the Vienna Opera House. We met when I was living in the UK for a few months, during a study-abroad program. I took the London underground ghost tour and met him. He’d always wanted to see the States and decided I would make a fun tour guide. He’s been tagging along with me ever since.”