by Rose Pressey
Haunted Girl Walking
A Haunted Tour Guide Cozy Mystery
By Rose Pressey
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents, places, and brands are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Index
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
I liked to think that I was doing a good job since I’d returned to Devil’s Moon and become head librarian. Sure, there had been some ups and downs, the occasional murder and demon, but I thought things were on track as of right now.
When the blonde woman stepped into the library, I noticed her right away. She wasn’t one of our regular customers. I’d never seen her before. As she strolled across the library, she made eye contact with me. She abruptly stopped in the middle of the room, looking confused. After a couple more seconds, she continued my way. A perplexed look remained on her face.
Her stylish attire made me feel as if she’d just stepped out from the pages of one of the Cosmo magazines in our periodical section: a black pencil skirt, a fitted long-sleeved white blouse, and expensive-looking black high heels. Her makeup looked perfect too—black winged eyeliner and precisely lined ruby-red lips. Life wasn’t typically glamorous in Devil’s Moon, Kentucky.
“May I help you?” I asked when she stepped up to the counter.
“How did you do that?” she asked with a perfectly sculpted raised eyebrow.
“What do you mean?”
“How did you move so fast?” Her brow pinched together.
I had no idea what she was talking about. If she knew me, she’d know that I wasn’t exactly lightning fast at anything. I’d placed last in pretty much every race I’d ever entered.
“Were you just standing outside on the sidewalk just now?” She motioned over her shoulder.
Now I was confused. “No, I’ve been in here for several hours.”
“That’s not possible,” she said around a nervous laugh.
“Well, I’m certain that I’ve been in here the whole time,” I said.
She laughed even louder this time. “Oh, I get it now. You have a twin.”
“I’m an only child,” I said.
Her sky-blue eyes widened. “Really? I must be losing it.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Just now I saw a woman standing on the sidewalk and I thought for sure it was you.” She shrugged. “I guess it was just someone who looked like you.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” I said.
She must have confused me with someone else, but I’d seen no one in the library today who I thought resembled me at all.
The woman adjusted the purse strap on her shoulder. “Sorry if I bothered you with my crazy ideas.”
“It’s no problem. Can I help you find anything?” I asked.
“Oh, I was just coming in to look for a few good books.” She peered around the library.
“Well, you came to the right place. What type of books are your favorites? I can point you in the right direction.”
“I’m probably a mystery girl.”
“Our mystery section is right over there,” I said, pointing. “We have a lot of great new releases too.”
“I’m sure I’ll find some good ones, thank you,” she said.
“Are you new in town?” I asked.
It seemed as if she’d never been in the library before by the way she was looking around. I had to be polite and ask a few friendly questions, right?
“Yes, I just moved here so I’ll need a library card,” she said.
“Fantastic. I’ll take your information and have a card ready for you in no time.” I typed on the computer. “What’s your name?”
“Abigail Potter,” she said after some hesitation.
“Nice to meet you, Abigail. My name is Ripley Van Raden. I’m the head librarian here at Bilson Library. Welcome to town, by the way.”
I couldn’t help but wonder what had brought her to Devil’s Moon, Kentucky. Would it be rude of me to ask? I would probably sound like a typical small-town resident wanting to know why she was here and everything about her life. In my defense, I was curious. As I typed away at the keyboard, I decided that this would be more like small talk. After all, she’d just given me her address and I realized that it was only one street over from where I lived.
“It looks like we’re neighbors,” I said with a smile. “I live on Elm Street.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said with a smile.
Maybe she was just tired, but it sounded like she wasn’t that enthused about our neighbor status.
“What brings you to Devil’s Moon? Do you have family here?” I asked.
“No family,” she said.
“Do you have a job here in town?” I pressed.
More and more I reminded myself of my mother. She would ask questions in the sweetest voice as if that would make the person she was interrogating feel better. She was quite good at it actually. As a teenager, I’d confessed to sneaking out of the house after curfew just about every time I’d tried that move. All my mother had to do was stare at me for a few seconds and ask a couple questions.
“I work from home, so I can travel anywhere I want,” Abigail said.
All right, now I was extremely curious. And the more questions I asked the more it seemed as if she didn’t want to answer. Now I was running out of queries to ask in order to get the answers I wanted.
In the meantime, while I was trying to think of something else to ask, she motioned toward the door. “I saw on the bulletin board out there that there’s a book club that meets here every month. I would love to join.”
My eyes widened. “You would? That would be fantastic. I’ll give you the number of the woman in charge of the club. You can give her a call and find out all the details.”
Anytime someone showed interest in books I was happy.
“It’s here at the library?” she asked, pointing toward the floor.
“Yes, once a month in the meeting room upstairs. They meet on Tuesdays.” I jotted down the number and handed her the slip of paper. “Dana owns the coffee shop in town. If you haven’t been there yet you should definitely stop by. She has the most delectable coffee and pastry.”
“Thank you, Ms. Van Raden, I think it’ll be a great way for me to meet people in town.”
“Please call me Ripley,” I said.
Abigail couldn’t be too unfriendly if she wanted to meet friends. She was probably just shy.
“Sure, Ripley,” she said with a smile.
I handed her the newly made library card. “Here you go, Abigail. Again, it was nice meeting you. And if you need any help w
ith books I’d be happy to lend a hand.”
Capturing my attention, someone walked through the library doors. Brannon Landon headed my way, which made my stomach dance. Not only was Brannon a detective with the Devil’s Moon Police Department, and a paranormal investigator part-time, he was also my fabulous boyfriend.
He wore navy slacks and a pale blue shirt that I’d bought him a few weeks ago. His dark blue tie had red stripes. The clothing fit his athletic physique perfectly. With short dark hair, striking blue eyes, and chiseled features, Brannon was unmistakably handsome. At least that was my opinion. I hadn’t expected to see him until this evening, so his visit was a pleasant surprise. Abigail must’ve noticed me looking that way because she checked over her shoulder.
Brannon stepped up to the reference desk and flashed his gorgeous smile. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Abigail’s stare was fixed on Brannon. How could I not notice? She was totally drinking in his entire appearance with her eyes. She wasn’t so shy anymore.
Abigail shoved her hand toward Brannon. “My name is Abigail Potter.”
He smiled, of course, being the nice guy that he was. Did he have to look so gorgeous when he did that? I loved it when he smiled at me, but now I was feeling a wee bit jealous of the beautiful stranger.
“Nice to meet you, Abigail. I’m Brannon Landon.”
She eyed the gun holstered at his waist and the badge attached to his belt. “Oh, are you with the police department?”
As if she didn’t know.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
“I’m new in town,” she said, batting her long eyelashes.
He hadn’t even asked her for that information, but she was willingly giving him all the details of her life. Okay, I needed to calm down. Was there a way I could let her know that Brannon was my boyfriend? Yet be subtle about it? I supposed leaning over the counter and giving him a big kiss would be inappropriate.
“Abigail is thinking of joining our book club. I think she’ll like it,” I said.
Brannon shook his head. “She’ll love it. So what brings you to town, Abigail?”
Thank goodness he mentioned that she was new in town again. Maybe now I would get more details.
“I just thought it seemed like a great place to live and I decided to go for it.” She flashed another big smile.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“I’m from Nashville. I just wanted to move to a smaller town.”
“Interesting,” I said.
Brannon probably knew by the tone of my voice that I was suspicious. I didn’t care. I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“There were quite a few interesting things posted on the board out there.” She motioned over her shoulder. “Like the haunted tour. That seems interesting.”
Brannon laughed.
Abigail frowned. “What’s so funny?”
“I’m the tour guide for the haunted tour.” I held my hand up.
“Oh.” She smiled. “I didn’t realize. Well, that’s fantastic. I’ll definitely have to take the tour. When is the next one?”
“Actually, it’s tonight,” I said.
“Tonight? This must be my lucky day. How do I do it?” she asked.
“Well, tickets are for sale at the tavern down the street. I can give you the address. Then you just show up at the graveyard down the alleyway next door at seven o’clock and we’ll get started.”
“Great, I’m excited about it.” She looked at Brannon as she talked to me.
I wanted to wave my arms and say, Hello, I’m over here. She was practically batting her eyelashes at him. I had no idea if Brannon picked up on it, but I definitely saw it. If she didn’t realize soon I’d have to make it clear tonight during the tour that he was my boyfriend. I guessed a little harmless flirting was fine as long as she didn’t get any ideas.
Abigail stuck her hand out to Brannon. “It was nice meeting you.”
He shook her hand. “Nice meeting you too.”
“I hope to see you around sometime.” She didn’t take her eyes off him.
However, I rolled mine. She turned and sashayed out of the library without even looking in the mystery section. Also, she left her library card on the counter.
I picked it up. “I think she likes you.”
Brannon laughed. “Well, I suppose that she’ll just have to realize that I’m taken.”
“Yes, I guess she’ll have to realize that,” I said with a slight smirk.
I placed her card behind the counter for when she finally realized she didn’t have it.
“What brings you by?” I asked.
“Just seeing if we’re still on for after the tour?”
And why couldn’t he have said that before she left?
Nevertheless, I said, “Yeah, I can’t wait. I’m excited.”
Before we could continue the conversation, Brannon received a call. “Oh, I need to take this. I’ll be right back.”
He walked away from the counter and I went back to work. Even though he’d moved a few steps away from the counter, I still overheard part of his conversation. It seemed like something was wrong in town. After just a couple minutes, he came back over.
“I’m sorry, Rip, I have to take off. I’ll call you soon.” He leaned over and gave me a quick kiss and then raced out the door.
My best friend since high school and library assistant Tammy White walked up beside me. “Well, that seemed kind of urgent. Is everything okay?”
After college, I’d taken a librarian position in California. Apparently, I’d thought the grass was greener somewhere other than spooky Devil’s Moon. Now I realized home was where I always wanted to be. Even when I’d moved away from Devil’s Moon Tammy and I had remained friends—through thick and thin. As soon as I had returned home it was as if I’d never left with shopping, lunches, and plenty of laughter. Not to mention Tammy had been fuming mad when my fiancé had cheated on me. His unfaithfulness had been one of the reasons I’d come home. Now that was all behind me and I felt fortunate that I’d dumped that loser. Oh, one other thing about Tammy: she always put up with all my paranormal shenanigans.
Tammy wore a royal blue-colored sweater and beige pants. On her feet were her favorite brown high-heeled lace-up boots. I told her I wished some of her fashion sense would rub off on me. She looked too fashionable for this small town. This week, Tammy’s shoulder-length hair was back to a pretty amber color. Since Tammy worked part-time in a salon, she was always changing her look. Strands of hair swept against her heart-shaped face.
“I’m not sure. He didn’t say what was wrong, but he took off fast. I heard some of the conversation, and it sounded like the person told Brannon that there was a body.”
Tammy’s eyes widened. “Someone died? Where?”
“It was actually over at the antique shop.”
The words actually hurt as they came out of my mouth.
She gasped. “Oh, no, not Mr. Byrd.”
“Let’s not panic yet. We don’t know what happened.”
It felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. I loved Mr. Byrd and I didn’t want anything to happen to him.
“I sure wish we could close early and go check it out,” Tammy said.
I wouldn’t say that Tammy was nosy, but Tammy was nosy. That was the main reason Tammy worked her third part time job at the tavern so that she could hear all the gossip in town. Who was I to talk though? I wanted to know what was going on too.
“It is almost time to close,” Tammy continued.
“I don’t think that we can close the library because we want to find out what’s going on in town. Maybe the library board would frown upon that.”
Tammy sighed. “I guess you’re right.”
“But we can walk over there after we close,” I said.
“Everything will be all settled by then,” she said, waving her hand as she held a book.
“It’s better than nothing though, right?” I said.
�
��I suppose,” she said as she looked at her watch. “Twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes,” I said.
Maybe I would hear from Brannon before time to close. The last thing he needed was a text from me while he was busy with a possible death investigation, so I kept quiet. However, I couldn’t help worrying about Mr. Byrd.
“What about after work if we haven’t heard from Brannon?” Tammy asked.
“I guess we have to wait and see what happens.”
“How can we hang around here when we know something like that’s going on? I want the scoop immediately.” Tammy slammed a book on the counter harder than she’d intended. “Oops.”
“Well, with any luck, it’s nothing bad and just a false alarm,” I said.
Tammy folded her arms in front of her. “Unfortunately, that’s not usually the case here in Devil’s Moon.”
She could say that again. I kind of thought maybe that I had brought a black cloud over the city when I’d returned. My mother warned me not to talk such nonsense and that I’d had nothing to do with any of the murders and spirit activity that were now so prevalent around town. I couldn’t help but feel that way though. Another murder was the last thing we needed.
My phone alerted me to a text message. I had a feeling I knew who this was from. Sure enough, the message was from the ghost who haunted Bilson Library.
What’s going on? Is it something bad? Has someone been murdered again?
Even Annie knew that things like this were all too common lately.
“I don’t know, Annie, we hope not.” I looked back and saw that she was standing behind me.