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

same way if I thought some wacko was watching my nephew. Well… if I had a nephew. But since I don’t, I would feel that way if they were watching Connor.”

Kelly’s eyes widened. “Did Lily tell you?”

“Lily? Um, no.”

“Ian told you?” Kelly gasped.

Heather cringed. Actually, Marie had told her. “No, they didn’t tell me. But, well, you know how things get around.”

“Oh, I know. Lily told Danielle, and Danielle told you,” Kelly grumbled.

“It doesn’t really matter. I just wanted you to know Connor is safe with me. I would never hurt him.”

Kelly stared at Heather, withholding comment.

“And I would never hurt your friend Ginny,” Heather added.

“You threw things at her,” Kelly accused.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Are you saying Ginny is lying about it?” Kelly asked.

“I’m saying Ginny is confused about what happened. But ask her this. Ask her if she actually saw me throw anything.”

“I don’t understand.” Kelly frowned.

“It’s a fairly simple question. Ask her if she actually saw me pick up anything and throw it at her.”

“She saw things flying at her, but I assume she was trying to get away from you, so I don’t imagine she stood around and watched you pick stuff up.”

“And nothing hit her?” Heather asked.

“I guess it was lucky for Ginny that you don’t have good aim.”

Heather arched her brows. “I don’t have good aim?”

Before Kelly answered, Heather snatched a small bag of rice from a shelf and called out to a teenage boy who was just coming down the aisle.

“Hey, kid, heads up!” Heather called out.

For a moment Kelly thought Heather was going to hit her with the bag of rice, but then it sailed down the aisle, over Kelly’s head, landing in the teenage boy’s hands.

“Wow,” the boy muttered, looking down at the bag of rice in his hands. “Good throw!”

“Excuse me, I need to get my rice,” Heather said and then added under her breath, “Poor aim, my butt.”

Thirty-Two

Backing out of her driveway, Ginny Thomas glanced up at her house and didn’t notice the two women standing on her rooftop under the quarter moon, watching her. One, an elderly-looking woman wearing a floral print dress and straw hat, the other a beautiful younger woman dressed in a long gown with her hair pulled into an elegant chignon. They had arrived just moments earlier and had intended to enter the house immediately but stopped when they heard the garage door opening. They waited for her to drive away.

It had been Eva who suggested they wait a few minutes to see if Ginny was leaving. If so, Eva reminded Marie the situation would be better handled without a non-medium lingering by, should Caitlin decide to throw things again.

“I suppose you’re right,” Marie agreed. “Caitlin was such a troubled girl when alive. It doesn’t appear she’s improved in death. She sounds worse. I don’t recall her having violent outbursts when alive.”

“She’s obviously confused. But we can help her,” Eva said.

They watched Ginny drive her car down the street and out of sight.

“Shall we go in now?” Eva asked.

A few minutes later, the two spirits stood in Ginny’s living room.

“Caitlin!” Eva called out. “We’ve come to talk to you—to help you. Please show yourself!”

Silence.

When Caitlin did not respond, Eva and Marie moved through the house, looking for the troubled spirit. They searched every room, every closet, the basement and attic, and even went through the walls, but she was not at the house.

Overhead, the moon cast golden light along the water’s surface. Together Caitlin and Cory sat on the end of the pier, their bare feet dangling over its side, while watching the seawater bounce and splash in a steady rhythm against the wooden pillars below.

Caitlin’s long blond hair fell straight past her shoulders, wispy and as lifeless as herself. The plain shift she wore was the same one she’d been wearing when Cory had found her unconscious in her bedroom just minutes before her spirit had stepped from her mortal body.

Cory’s disheveled yet clean dull brown hair spiked in random directions, the result of going to bed right after stepping from the shower. He wore just boxers, no shirt, but he wasn’t cold.

Music played in the background, not blaring like he and Caitlin had liked to play their music, but faint and distant, as if coming from another world in a far-off place.

Cory had just finished telling Caitlin what Carla had told them at Pier Café.

“They found Uncle Bud’s treasure,” Caitlin said.

“It sounds like it,” Cory agreed.

“And they haven’t brought any down from the mountains yet?” Caitlin asked.

“No, at least not by what Carla overheard. She said they’re going back for some on Sunday.”

“It’s our treasure!” Caitlin said. “This isn’t fair. All those times we looked for it, and they find it?”

“I thought you would want to know,” Cory said.

“You need to follow them up there,” Caitlin said. “Which should be fairly easy since you know what day they’re going.”

“I don’t know when they’re going on Sunday,” Cory pointed out.

Caitlin looked at Cory and narrowed her eyes. “Please don’t make me do everything. You always do that.”

“What do you mean?” Cory frowned.

“You know they’re going up there on Sunday. I have to assume they’ll want to get an early start to give them time to get up there, get what they can, and then return. So obviously, you need to camp out over by Marlow House early on Sunday morning. When they head up to the mountains, follow them. They’ll lead us to the treasure.”

“Then what?” Cory asked.

“I’ll take over from there,” Caitlin said.

Cory frowned. “I don’t understand?”

“You don’t have to understand, Cory. Just do as I say. Follow them up to the mountains.”

“What are you going to do when we get there?” Cory asked.

“That treasure is rightfully mine.” She paused a moment and then smiled at Cory and added, “Some of it is yours if you continue to help me like you always have. But they have no right to it.”

“I don’t understand what you plan to