Walt unhooked his seatbelt. “I’ll be fine.” He glanced out the side window toward the gravesites yet made no attempt to open the car door.
“Are you sure?” she asked gently.
“I have to admit, it feels a little odd. Seeing Angela after all these years. In my head I always knew what I’d tell her if I ever saw her again, but now…the only thing I really care about discussing with her is what Katherine might have told her.”
“Once you see her again, maybe you’ll feel different,” she suggested.
Walt glanced to Danielle. “How so?”
She shrugged. “You once loved her. Maybe you have some unresolved feelings you aren’t even aware of.”
Walt studied Danielle a moment, his expression blank. And then to Danielle’s surprise he broke into a wide smile and said, “I don’t think so,” before leaning over and giving her a quick kiss on the lips. “This shouldn’t take long.”
Danielle couldn’t help but smile. She leaned back against the inside of her car door and watched as Walt exited the vehicle. He slammed the door shut and then opened the back door, pulling his crutches off the backseat. After shutting that door, he gave Danielle a brief salute and then turned and made his way toward Angela’s headstone.
Walt didn’t bother tucking the crutches under his arms. It was too uncomfortable with the recent gunshot injury. He didn’t need the crutches in the traditional sense and used them instead more like walking sticks as he made his way down the cemetery path. He had dressed today in a pair of loose-fitting tan slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt, its left arm tight over his recent bandage.
He wondered if he would have difficulty finding Angela. After all, he had never gone ghost hunting before. The moment he turned the corner to her headstone, his question was answered. There was his dead wife, perched like an animated statue atop the elaborate headstone in all her ethereal glory. She hadn’t seen him yet, so he stopped a moment and just looked.
He found it interesting she was dressed in the same outfit she had worn for their wedding portrait. According to Danielle, Angela often dressed as a flapper. She was undeniably beautiful, with her golden curls and delicate features. He understood how a naive young man—one unaware of the true value of a woman of substance and character—might be taken in by such window dressing. She held no appeal for the man he was now.
“Walt!” she shrieked, jumping off the headstone. She had seen him.
Instead of meeting her halfway, he made his way to a nearby bench and sat down, waiting for her to join him.
“You came, you finally came!” Angela gushed when she reached him.
“I understand we need to talk.”
Angela nodded and then quickly took a seat beside him. “You look wonderful. How have you been?”
“Dead mostly.” Walt leaned his crutches against the bench.
“I am so sorry for that. Will you please forgive me?” she begged.
“I already have.”
“Then why am I still stuck in this horrid place,” Angela asked with a pout.
“That’s why I’m here so we can finally put our past to rest and you can move on.”
“Oh, Walt, thank you!” She tried to hug him, but her arms went through his body. With a frown, she sat back on the bench. “How exactly do we put our past to rest?”
“I have some questions I’d like to ask you,” he began.
“Certainly.” She fidgeted nervously with her hands on her lap.
“You told Danielle you never discussed anything with Katherine about her death.”
“Yes.” She continued to fidget.
“Tell me the truth. Did Katherine ever tell you what happened on her wedding day?”
Angela groaned and slumped back on the bench. “Yes. I didn’t tell Danielle because…well…because I didn’t want to. But I suppose if I want to move on, I can’t be keeping all these secrets.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes, she told me about it. Oh, good lord…did she tell me! As if she felt it was some way my fault what had happened!”
“You did help mastermind my murder, which left her my estate, and then got her killed.”
Angela shrugged. “I suppose that’s true. So what do you want to know?”
“First, do you know who Luiy was?” he asked.
“Luiy who?” She frowned.
“Danielle said she spelled it l-u-i-y, but I suspect Katherine got the spelling wrong.”
“I was always surprised the woman even knew how to read and write,” she scoffed.
“So Katherine never mentioned him?”
Angela shook her head. “No. Who was he supposed to be?”
“I was hoping to find out his last name, and wondered if he had family in Frederickport. According to Katherine’s ledger we found, he regularly harassed and threatened her after she inherited my estate. Threatened to have her daughter taken away from her for immoral behavior. She mentioned others in the Klan who harassed her, but he seemed to be the ringleader.”
“The only one I remember her mentioning like that was Quiz.”
“Quiz?”
“Remember, that lawyer friend of Roger’s. Lived over the drugstore.”
“Yes…I know who Quiz was.” Walt frowned.
“She used to talk a lot about how Quiz and his friends had harassed her—and how it had all been my brother’s plan so she’d marry him.”
“We figured that out, but why did she shoot him? What happened that day after they were married?”
Angela let out a sigh. “When they were signing their marriage license, he had her sign a paper giving him clear authority to manage her accounts. I suppose he might have been able to do it without that paper—after all, he was her husband. But they had discussed it before the wedding, and he told her he would rather they put it in writing so she would be protected.”
Walt chuckled. “He was trying to protect her?”
“That’s what he told her.”
“Go on.”
“Roger had closed up his Portland house and rented one in Frederickport when he started pursuing Katherine. That’s where they exchanged their wedding vows. After the minister and the few who attended left, Katherine went upstairs.”
“You said minister, didn’t Katherine get married in the Catholic church?”
Angela shook her head. “No. Her priest was against the wedding. I suppose she should have listened to him.”
“Then what happened?”
“On one of the tables upstairs Roger had foolishly left some papers out. I don’t believe he realized Katherine knew how to read. I see no other reason for him being so careless. They were payments Roger had made with Katherine’s money, to the men who had threatened her.”
“I’ve seen those,” Walt said.
“She was outraged. She realized what he had done. How he had tricked her into marrying him. She tore up the paper she had signed earlier that day, giving him the right to manage her estate. It got nasty. He reminded her she was his wife now, and if he wanted to, he could have her committed and then send her daughter away and she would never see her again. My foolish brother always kept a gun in the drawer of that table, and Katherine got ahold of it.”
“I know she shot him, but how did she fall down the stairs?”
“Katherine wasn’t trying to shoot him as much as she was trying to get away from him. She yelled at her daughter to come with her. I guess Roger didn’t feel she would actually shoot him, so he followed her and kept telling her to give him the gun. When they got to the top of the stairs, Roger pushed her, and as she fell, the gun went off, fatally shooting him.”
“We have all the pieces now,” Danielle said after Walt told her what he had learned from Angela. They were in the car headed back to Marlow House. “We still don’t know who Luiy was, or if he has family here.”
“I’m not sure about that. When we get home, I’d like to look at Katherine’s ledger. I’ve never really looked at it myself.”
&nb
sp; “Why?”
“I’ll explain later,” Walt told her.
They were quiet a few minutes when Danielle asked, “So how was it? I mean, saying goodbye to Angela? Did she really move on?”
“I think so. It was very similar to how it looked when Cheryl moved on. I remember watching through the kitchen window.”
“Did it get…well, emotional? After all, you once cared about each other.”
“Are you asking if we teared up, exchanged some sentimental parting words?”
Danielle shrugged. “I suppose.”
Walt smiled. “No. It was actually quite unsentimental. Angela told me what she knew about Katherine’s wedding day. She then asked if I had any more questions or wanted to say anything else. I told her no, that I didn’t need anything else from her, and I wished her well. And she left.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Rather anticlimactic,” Danielle noted.
Walt reached over and patted Danielle’s right knee. “In the big scheme of things, the only part Angela played in my life was to help end it.”
After they returned to Marlow House, they went to the parlor, where Danielle retrieved Katherine’s ledger. She gave it to Walt and watched as he flipped through its pages. Finally, he stopped and then began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“I suppose some people wouldn’t find it funny. But Katherine didn’t write Luiy. It’s Quiz”
“No it’s not.” Danielle snatched back the ledger and looked at the page. She pointed to the name in question. “Are you saying that is a Q not an L?”
Walt nodded. “Exactly.” He pointed to the last letter of the name. “And that’s a Z, not a Y.”
Danielle stared at the word. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“My cursive must be rusty,” Danielle grumbled. “If it’s Quiz, that means it’s Ben’s father.”
“Yes, without a doubt.”
“I wonder if Ben knows.”
“Why wouldn’t he?” Walt asked. “I assume he’s seen this already.”
“It’s possible Ben didn’t know his father’s nickname. If so, then he may not realize he’s the one Katherine is referencing in the ledger,” Danielle suggested.
“True. He obviously knows his father was involved in some questionable business deals—and that he was a Klansman.”
“Walt, I can understand how they wanted to keep all their family skeletons in the closet. I suspect Ben’s father just took your Packard, but aside from the news clipping about your missing car, there is no way to prove he stole it, and I’m not even sure what Ben knows at this point. Once, I would have insisted he knew nothing about what his father had done, but considering he was hell-bent on destroying what was in those boxes, who knows? As for the Seahorse Motel, if Katherine signed those papers, I sort of think the transaction—although unethical—was probably legal. I suppose if something like that happened today, it would be possible to fight it in court.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I’d like to give Ruby a call and tell her not to sweat it. I’ve no interest in digging up all that. It’s been years, and she wasn’t even born when it all went down. As for the rest of them, I’ll get my boxes, listen to the apologies I know are coming, and try not to make this into more than it needs to be.”
Absently twisting the ends of her freshly shampooed hair, Danielle gazed out her bedroom window into the moonlit night and yawned. She was both physically and emotionally exhausted.
The light was off in her bedroom, yet moonlight lit the space. Before her bath she had taken a quick tour of the house, making sure all the doors and windows were firmly locked. Perhaps they had arrested Beverly’s attacker, yet Marlow House was a big and sometimes spooky place. Ironically, she had felt safer when a ghost regularly roamed its halls.
Turning from the window en route to bed, she glanced over to her closet and thought of the hidden staircase. She wondered if it was simply a whimsical gesture of Frederick Marlow’s or if it held some secret. She was too tired to give it much thought tonight, so she continued on to bed. Instead of climbing in, she stared at it a moment. It looked lonely. She missed her nightly chats with Walt before falling asleep. Danielle stood there a moment and then said, “Oh, this is silly!”
She grabbed one of her pillows off the bed and then marched out of her room and headed downstairs.
Reading by the glow of the lamp on his nightstand, Walt looked up from the book in his hands. He could hear someone coming down the staircase. Assuming it was Danielle going to the kitchen for something to drink, he looked back to his book and continued to read.
A moment later he looked up again, hearing footsteps coming to his open doorway. It was dark in the hallway, but the moonlight spilling in his window broke some of the darkness.
“Hi, Walt,” Danielle whispered. She stood inside the open doorway, wearing pink plaid pajama bottoms and a pink T-shirt, while clutching a pillow.
Walt closed his book and studied Danielle. “Having problems sleeping?”
She walked farther into the room. “It’s lonely upstairs, and Max is sleeping in the parlor.”
Walt set the book on his nightstand and then lifted the top edge of his blanket with his right hand. “You want to chat?”
Danielle nodded and raced to the right side of his bed. Dropping her pillow to the floor, she climbed in, mindful of the injuries on the other side of his body.
“I suppose I should stay on top of the covers like you used to do,” she said as she moved under the blankets.
“It’s too cold. Don’t worry, considering my current shape, your honor is safe.”
Danielle snuggled up beside him, soaking up his warmth as he tucked the blanket around her. They lay side by side on the bed, sharing the covers.
“I’ve missed this,” Danielle said with a sigh as she leaned against his right side.
“I don’t recall it was quite like this before,” Walt mused, pulling her closer.
Danielle yawned. “It was in my imagination.” She snuggled tighter to his side.
“We need to talk, Danielle,” Walt said in a serious tone, his right arm wrapped around her.
“Umm…hmm?” Danielle asked with a yawn.
“I think I should officially declare my intentions.”
Danielle opened one eye and peeked at him. “Your intentions?”
“I’d like to court you, Ms. Boatman,” he declared.
“I think we’re way past that.” Danielle yawned and wrapped her arm around his waist.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“We’re already in bed together,” Danielle whispered, right before falling asleep.
The Ghost of Christmas Secrets
Return to Marlow House in
The Ghost of Christmas Secrets
Haunting Danielle, Book 19
It’s hard to know who to trust when you’re worth billions. Christmas brings uninvited family members to Marlow House, vying for Chris Glandon’s favor. One of them may have already killed for it.
* * *
In the midst of the mystery Lily is distracted with one question—what isn't Danielle telling her?
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Haunting Danielle Series
by Bobbi Holmes
The Ghost of Marlow House, Book 1
The Ghost Who Loved Diamonds, Book 2
The Ghost Who Wasn’t, Book 3
The Ghost Who Wanted Revenge, Book 4
The Ghost of Halloween Past, Book 5
The Ghost Who Came for Christmas, Book 6
The Ghost of Valentine Past, Book 7
The Ghost from the Sea, Book 8
The Ghost and the Mystery Writer, Book 9
The Ghost and the Muse, Book 10
The Ghost Who Stayed Home, Book 11
/> The Ghost and the Leprechaun, Book 12
The Ghost Who Lied, Book 13
The Ghost and the Bride, Book 14
The Ghost and Little Marie, Book 15
The Ghost and the Doppelganger, Book 16
The Ghost of Second Chances, Book 17
The Ghost Who Dream Hopped, Book 18
The Ghost of Christmas Secrets, Book 19
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Books 1 - 10 available in audiobook.
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Also known as Anna J. McIntyre
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Sundered Hearts
After Sundown
While Snowbound
Sugar Rush
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The Coulson Series
by Anna J. McIntyre
Coulson’s Wife
Coulson’s Crucible
Coulson’s Lessons
Coulson’s Secret
Coulson’s Reckoning
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Also by Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes
Havasu Palms, A Hostile Takeover
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The Ghost Who Dream Hopped Page 26