“Listen,” I silently continued, “since I have one murder case under my belt, maybe I can take on another—yours. We worked so well together—”
You listen to me, doll. You were good, but you were lucky. Getting yourself out of trouble with detective work is one thing. Getting yourself into it for no good reason is something different.
“It’s not no good reason. You could be trapped here because of it.”
The men who murdered me weren’t playing. And I won’t have you getting anywhere near that case. As far as detective work goes, you’re still a rank amateur. I can solve the mystery of my own demise solo.
“But in your current condition, don’t you think there might be a distinct advantage to having a partner who’s actually alive? One who can leave the building?”
Jack was quiet for so long I wondered if he finally did leave the building.
“Come on, Jack,” I mentally pleaded, “don’t give me the brush. I’m on the level here. With your brains and my—”
Legs, sweetheart. What you’ve got and I don’t is legs.
“Okay, with your brains and my . . . gams, I think we can go far.”
The silence felt long and empty as I waited for his reply.
All right, he said at last. But only because you ain’t hard to look at, and you’re learning the lingo, too. But get wise to one thing, kid—you’re working the charm school stuff. Leave the hard thinking to me.
My smile was so wide even Brainert noticed.
“Pen, whatever are you grinning about?” he asked.
“Nothing really,” I answered with a shrug. “The ghost of a thought . . .”
JACK NEVER DID like crowds, or blowhard scribblers, so with one last tantalizing breeze around Penelope’s perfumed skin and copper curls, he rose up through the first-floor ceiling and into the second-floor air.
Near the window in Penelope’s bedroom, the night wind brought him the scent of salt. He could almost see the gale whipping up waves, lashing boats and rocks. The sweet summer air was gone, replaced with the stink of dying leaves, the acrid smell of fires burning all over town.
Life, then death, thought Jack. Death, then life. And the wheel keeps turning.
Laughter and applause leaked up from downstairs. Jack was surprised to find he could actually take some pleasure from it—only because he knew Penelope was part of it, too. Yeah, thought Jack, maybe this cornball town wasn’t so bad after all.
“I’ll see you in your dreams, baby,” whispered the ghost. Then he faded temporarily away, back into the old fieldstone wall that had become his tomb.
Don’t miss the second charming mystery in the Haunted Bookshop series.
Coming in December 2004!
Rule number one: don’t haunt the customers. Buy the Book’s owner Penelope Thornton-McClure has laid down the law for her resident ghost—a hard-boiled private eye named Jack Shepard, who was shot dead in her store fifty years ago. “Don’t scare away the customers!” But Jack’s not resting in peace when a parade of angst-ridden teens in cut-off t-shirts and baggy jeans flock to Pen’s store to meet their latest poster child for Prozac. Angel Stark had been best friends with a young murdered heiress, and she’s written an instant book billed as “true crime.” Her story recounts the night debutante Bethany Banks disappeared from a charity ball, full of well-heeled young people, and never returned. Bethany’s body was found, strangled to death, the next morning—and the police have yet to catch her murderer. Though more than a bit self-indulgent, Angel’s true crime tale, All My Pretty Friends, is full of the sort of juicy details that incriminate a number of young men. So when Angel herself ends up strangled in the same manner as her murdered friend, Pen is on the case—which means Jack is, too, whether he likes it or not. Rule number two: a ghost detective never sleeps!
FB2 document info
Document ID: 428bb2b4-b33c-4af1-b669-7afb6b69cce7
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 23.6.2012
Created using: calibre 0.8.56, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Alice Kimberly
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