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

took off, and another car pulled up. He considered driving around to the front, but then the guy who had parked next door to the old lady’s house came back outside, this time with two other people.

“Oh crap,” Cory muttered, recognizing one of the people. It was Officer Brian Henderson. He slumped down in his car seat, hoping no one would notice him. The three walked over to the gate leading into the Marlows’ backyard. He watched them go through the gate; it closed behind them.

Nervous someone might come back into the alley and see him parked along the bushes, he started his engine and decided to move his car somewhere less conspicuous.

Chris had offered to drive them all to the mountains on Sunday morning in the Glandon Foundation’s van. He had intended to pull in behind Marlow House, but when he noticed Brian’s car over at Heather’s, he thought he would stop over and let them know he was there and to be ready to leave. Instead of driving over to Marlow House, he just left the car behind Heather’s, and the three of them walked over to get Walt and Danielle.

When they got into the van later that morning, preparing to drive up to the mountains, Chris asked Brian to sit up front in the passenger seat next to him. “Walt can sit in the back with Danielle, where they can get all mushy. Heather can chaperon,” Chris said as he got into the van.

“Mushy, do we get mushy, Walt?” Danielle asked as she climbed into the vehicle.

“Chris is just jealous,” Walt said as he waited for Heather to get into the van. He flashed her a smile and glanced up to Brian, who seemed reluctant to sit up front.

Twenty minutes later, the van moved down the highway heading to the mountains, Chris driving the vehicle while Brian sat in the passenger seat next to him. With the radio on, and the van size, those in the back seat could not easily hear the conversation in the front of the vehicle, and vice versa.

“Heather tells me you have accepted all this,” Chris said, glancing at Brian and then back down the highway.

“What else did she tell you?” Brian asked.

“What else is there?” Chris asked.

Brian turned to Chris. “Remember when you first moved to Frederickport?”

Chris chuckled. “And you thought I murdered Trudy.”

Brian frowned. “Trudy?”

“You knew her as Anna,” Chris said.

“And she was a ghost.”

“I didn’t make her a ghost,” Chris added.

“You know, the chief told us she went into witness protection,” Brian said.

Chris grinned, his eyes still focused on the highway. “Yeah, I know. That was when I invited everyone to go to the dude ranch, and Joe wasn’t thrilled spending a vacation with a killer.”

“Joe might have been better off if the chief had let him believe you were a killer,” Brian teased.

“No kidding,” Chris scoffed. “Absolutely worst vacation ever.”

“Like our trip to the mountains,” Brian said. “Although we hadn’t planned to go camping, and when I think about it, I would probably do it again.”

“I certainly would not want to go through our kidnapping.” Chris glanced briefly at Brian and then looked back down the highway. “Wow, we’ve both been kidnapped during our lives. Who else can say that?”

“I don’t think most people would want to,” Brian said.

“True, but you just said you’d do it over,” Chris reminded him.

Brian leaned back in his seat, attempting to stretch out his legs while he looked out the side window and watched the scenery move by. “I never would have learned the truth about Walt—and everything else. I always knew there was something going on, but I never could pin it down.”

“Yeah, witnessing things and not knowing can be confusing. But sometimes it’s worse when you know, but those around you don’t. Like with what happened between Heather and Ginny. I feel sorry for both of them,” Chris said as he glanced up in the rearview mirror. He saw Heather’s face staring at him, her expression unreadable.

They didn’t notice the car following them since leaving Frederickport. It followed behind at a discreet distance, speeding up and slowing down when necessary. And since Cory, the driver of the car, knew the general direction they headed, he didn’t feel it necessary to get too close behind the vehicle.

When the van finally reached the mountains and grew close to its ultimate destination, it made a right turn onto a dirt road. Instead of turning down the dirt road when he reached it, Cory pulled along the side of the highway and parked. Unsure what to do, Cory sat there a moment.

I can’t just pull up behind them, Cory told himself. He waited a few more minutes, trying to decide what to do.

“What are you doing just sitting here?” Caitlin asked from the passenger seat of Cory’s car. “Come on, follow them!”

Cory took a deep breath and put his car in gear. He stepped on the gas and pulled back onto the road, heading for the dirt road the van had taken. After driving for a few minutes, he came to a fork in the road.

“Should I keep straight or go right?” Cory said aloud.

“Go right,” Caitlin insisted.

Cory turned right, driving slowly down the road. He came to another turnoff, but then noticed the van had pulled off the dirt road just around the next curve. He could see a section of the van through the brush. Instead of continuing on, he turned at the fork in the road and parked his car under the limbs of the trees, obscuring it from view.

“Why did you park here?” Caitlin asked.

Cory glanced briefly Caitlin’s way and then turned off his ignition and got out of the car.

Annoyed, Caitlin followed Cory, but when he refused to talk to her, she muttered, “I hate when you get like this!”

Instead of walking with Cory, Caitlin made her way to where she had seen the van parked. Hiding in the bushes, she watched as the van’s