Haunting Danielle 27 The Ghost and the Mountain Man by Bobbi Holmes (great novels to read TXT) 📕

and Connor on the beach behind Lily’s house. The two women sat in beach chairs, each clad in leggings, with Lily wearing a lightweight hoody over her shirt, and Danielle wearing an extra-long sweater blouse. Evan and Connor sat on a blanket nearby, playing in the sand with trucks, shovels and buckets. Inside the house, Walt visited with Ian.

Danielle’s cat, Max, sat in the middle of the blanket with the boys, watching their every move, his black tail swishing back and forth. Sadie crouched nearby on the beach, her eye on a neglected tennis ball at the blanket’s edge, waiting for one of the boys to discover it and give it a toss.

Lily watched as Evan helped Connor fill a bucket with sand. With a sigh she said, “I can’t believe he’s going to be a year next month.”

“And before we know it, Evan will be a teenager,” Danielle said.

“Or as my mom called it, a stinking teenager.” Lily snickered. “I feel so cliche saying how fast they grow up. But it’s true.”

“That’s why it’s a cliche,” Danielle reminded her.

Lily let out another sigh. “According to all the baby books, Connor should start talking any time now, and I’m just hoping his first word isn’t Marie.”

Danielle laughed. “If it is, I want to be there when you explain that to Kelly. But I hate to be the one to tell you, it won’t be Marie. More likely Grandma Marie.”

Lily frowned at Danielle. “Why do you say that?”

“That’s what I’ve heard Marie call herself to Connor.”

Lily groaned.

“If you’re lucky, it will be just Grandma. That’ll be easier to explain. You can always say you taught him that for when he sees his grandparents again,” Danielle suggested.

“Perhaps.” Lily shrugged.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the boys. Finally, Lily asked, “The ghost this morning, you say he was looking for Walt’s parents?”

“That’s what it sounded like. Walt’s dad was Alexander, and his mother was Anna. The ghost was looking for Alex and Anna and insisted they lived at Marlow House. It has to be who he meant.”

“Do you have any idea why the ghost is angry with Walt’s dad? And what did he need to tell Walt’s mom?” Lily asked.

Danielle shrugged. “I don’t know; neither does Walt. He doesn’t really talk about his parents, but it’s probably because he doesn’t remember much about them. From what I understand, his grandparents rarely discussed them. Walt thinks because it was too painful.”

“Maybe, but dang, that seems so wrong. But it happens. I had a friend who was about Evan’s age when his father died. His mother remarried a few years later. And she never discussed his father. She never talked about what kind of person he was, what he liked to do, nothing. I can’t imagine doing that if—God forbid—something happened to Ian.” Lily shivered at the thought.

“I suppose everyone handles grief differently.”

“How did his parents die?” Lily asked.

“A house fire, Walt was five years old,” Danielle told her.

“House fire? So they weren’t living at Marlow House at the time? I assumed they all lived at Marlow House.”

“You were right, they were living at Marlow House,” Danielle said. “That’s where Walt was born.”

With a frown Lily asked, “Where was the fire? How did it happen?”

“It was at a friend’s house. In fact, the friend died too, the wife, anyway. The husband wasn’t home. A heater exploded. Sounded horrific,” Danielle said.

“That’s awful! Walt wasn’t there, was he?”

“No. He was at Marlow House when it happened.” As Danielle explained, Sadie gave up waiting for someone to throw the ball. She walked over to Lily and Danielle, sitting between them in the sand.

“And this ghost, you said Walt thinks he might be the same one from the mountains?” Lily asked.

Danielle reached out and absently stroked Sadie’s back while saying, “When we described him to Walt, he sounded like the same ghost. But after we discussed it a little more, Walt’s convinced it’s a coincidence and not the same one.”

“Why does he think that?” Lily asked.

“The ghost in the mountains had a rifle. The one Evan and I saw wasn’t armed. Plus, it seems a little farfetched that the ghost they ran into would show up just days later at Marlow House, looking for Walt’s parents.”

“The fact your husband used to be a ghost is a little farfetched too.” Lily snickered.

Before heading outside to work in her yard, Pearl Huckabee traded her favorite cloche hat for a white sailor’s cap, its brim turned down. It seemed more sensible considering it had been raining earlier. Unfortunately, she had gotten little work done, distracted by the police car she’d seen driving down the street, slowing in front of her neighbor Heather Donovan’s house, and then racing off again.

From what she had read in the newspaper several days earlier, someone had kidnapped Heather and Pearl’s other neighbor, Walt Marlow, along with Officer Brian Henderson. They had been left up in the mountains to die. The article made little sense. It said something about witches being responsible. Witches? Pearl couldn’t fathom such a thing.

Yet, considering Donovan’s appearance, Pearl did not doubt the young woman had gotten involved in some cultish witches’ coven and had brought the trouble on herself. Donovan seemed just the type to go exploring in the Devil’s playground. Perhaps poor Officer Henderson had been investigating Heather’s shenanigans, and it almost got him killed. She hadn’t figured out Walt Marlow’s involvement, nor had the newspaper article adequately explained what had happened and why.

By the way the police car slowed down in front of Heather’s house, she wondered if her neighbor was under surveillance because of the incident. While pondering the possibilities, she glanced to the rear of her yard and spied the same police car moving down the alley, passing Marlow House and then hers.

Pearl dropped the rake she had been holding and scurried toward the back of the yard to have a closer look. When she neared the bushes along the fence separating her property