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

you ask me. The old guy was sickly, ready to go any minute. I suspected Teddy planned to leave Maddie once the old man died and the inheritance was his. But if she left him before he died—and she left him because he was seeing someone else, it was a good possibility August would change his will and leave it all to Maddie. After all, Teddy was not his blood nephew. Teddy’s mother was his wife’s sister,” Bud explained.

“And if Maddie were to die first?” Walt asked.

Bud looked at Walt. “Then I guess Ted would have hit the jackpot.”

Danielle started to say something when Bud said, “No more questions. I told you everything. Please do what I asked.” He stepped back from his grave. “Keep your bargain.”

“I’ll keep my bargain,” Walt said solemnly. “Let’s see if you’re here.”

Brian felt as if he were listening to one side of a phone conversation, where you did not know what the person on the other side of the line was saying. Yet in this case, there were no phones involved, just a ghost. He remembered Lily recently telling him how one-sided conversations were one of the more annoying aspects of being a non-medium in the know. Brian now understood what she had been talking about.

Both Walt and Danielle had asked a series of questions, and Brian hoped Heather would remember enough of the conversation to fill him in on the missing parts. Brian wondered if Walt got the answers he sought. But that would have to wait.

They had arrived at what supposedly was Bud’s gravesite. Brian silently watched as Walt focused his energy, moving large boulders, reminding him of their time up here, when Walt had cleaned up the campfires without getting his hands dirty.

Boulder-size rocks shifted and slid, leaving grooves in the ground as they moved away from the mountain’s wall, revealing the gravesite. After clearing the area, dirt and smaller rocks floated up, drifting off to one side before falling to the ground, gradually forming a pile. A hole emerged where the boulders had been. Fascinated by the sight, they all stepped closer and watched the hole deepen, revealing its secrets.

“Is that a skull?” Heather asked.

“I think that’s Bud,” Chris said.

“Maybe we should stop now,” Brian said when more dirt moved from the hole.

They all looked to Brian, and Bud said, “No, he can’t stop now.”

“Why?” Heather asked Brian, since he couldn’t hear Bud’s plea.

“I suspect Brian is suggesting we need to call someone up here. Someone more official,” Walt said.

“This is a crime scene,” Brian reminded them.

“An old crime scene,” Danielle muttered.

“And there are no statutes of limitations on murder,” Chris reminded them.

“True, but considering the age of this case, I doubt they will put much time into investigating it,” Heather said.

Brian pulled out his cellphone. While he made his phone call, Bud demanded to know why Walt had stopped digging up his grave.

“As Brian said, this is a crime scene. Brian is a police officer, so it’s understandable he would prefer to go through proper channels,” Danielle explained.

“I want to be buried in the Frederickport Cemetery,” Bud said. “That’s why I wanted you to handle this!”

“Seriously?” Heather looked at Bud and rolled her eyes. “What did you expect, Walt would dig up your bones, shove them in a gunny sack, and then bury them himself at the cemetery in the dead of night?”

Bud frowned at Heather.

“Ahh, Heather, that’s a little cold,” Chris said.

“I’m sorry. But lately I just don’t have patience for ghost demands,” Heather huffed.

“You never have patience,” Chris countered.

“Oh, shut up,” Heather snapped.

“See!” Chris said.

“I don’t understand. Does this mean I won’t be buried with my sister? Did you lie to me?” Bud demanded of Walt.

“No, I didn’t lie,” Walt insisted, shooting Heather an admonishing glare, to which she responded with a shrug.

“Bud, we will bury you at Frederickport cemetery even if we have to pay for the burial. I promise you. But we have to do this legally,” Danielle told him.

Cory crouched behind the pine tree, looking out at the five people he had been following. It seemed he had been hiding behind bushes and trees ever since he got to the mountains, moving from one place to the next to keep up with the five.

They stood along the base of a hill, their backs facing him, but he couldn’t see what they were doing, nor could he hear what they were saying. Some words he could make out, but none of it made sense.

“They’re digging up the treasure,” Caitlin announced. “We need to move now before they take it.”

Cory pulled his phone from his back pocket and looked at the time. He then cringed when he realized he had forgotten to turn off the phone’s ringer. Hastily he turned off the ringer, grateful he had received no calls.

“Cory, are you just going to sit there playing with your phone? They are digging up the treasure!”

He shoved the phone back in the pocket and muttered, “What am I going to do?”

Frustrated, Caitlin gave Cory a shove. He stumbled from behind the tree out into the clearing, landing on the trail, backside first. The five people he had been tracking turned around abruptly and saw him sprawled on the ground.

Cory regained his composure and got to his feet. “I believe you have something that belongs to Caitlin,” he announced.

Thirty-Seven

Brian Henderson had just finished his phone call to report the discovery of a grave when Cory Jones came rolling out of the trees and into the clearing.

“What are you doing here, Cory?” Brian demanded while stuffing his cellphone back into his pocket.

“We’ve come to claim what’s ours!” came a shout from Caitlin, who stepped out from behind the trees and took her place next to Cory.

“Oh, terrific, that crazy teen ghost again,” Heather muttered.

Confused, Bud stared at Caitlin and Cory. The mediums looked from ghost to ghost, while Brian, who hadn’t heard Heather’s comment, didn’t realize Cory had company.

“If