Daisy's Chain: A Cozy Ghost Mystery (Storage Ghost Mysteries Book 5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“I was too hurt. I told her she was dead to us and to never contact us
again. I stormed away and ordered June to do the same.”
    “You can’t have
left it like that? She’s your daughter, she needed your help.” Grace’s voice was
beginning to rise.
    “I returned her
letters. I put the phone down on her. I forced June to do the same. After a
while she stopped trying to contact us. But there was one final letter.” He
stopped talking and blinked a few times. “June read the letter, it said we had
a grandson. Daisy said she was sorry for upsetting us and causing us shame. She
wanted to return something to me.” His voice broke as he said, “It was the
necklace.”
    Grace started
crying. It was too sad, too much to bear, that poor girl.
     

Chapter 13
     
    No one spoke for
a while. Grace was lost in her own thoughts, she presumed Mr Manville was too.
    Finally, she
said, “There must be something we can do. You mentioned your wife when we first
met, you said she had to make a decision. Can you remember what it is? Has it
something to do with Daisy?”
    Mr Manville
looked towards the window. “I can remember now but you won’t want to hear it. I
don’t even want to say it, not now that I know what happened to Daisy.”
    “If I’m going to
help you have to tell me everything, no matter how painful.”
    He brought his
attention back to Grace. “Okay, but try to bear in mind how angry I was. I felt
that Daisy had betrayed me and my anger overtook me, it made me unreasonable, I
wouldn’t listen to anyone. I told you that Daisy tried to contact us several
times. I wouldn’t allow June to talk to her. June was heartbroken but I didn’t
care. I told June that if she spoke to Daisy that would mean that she was
betraying me too. I was awful to her but being the lovely woman that she is she
listened to me and did as I asked, well, ordered.”
    “You sound an
awful man,” Grace said with a small smile.
    “I was awful, I
am awful. I can’t remember how and when I died, and I don’t know how long I was
in that locker. All I know is that I felt overwhelming rage that I was no
longer alive to control June. I knew that she’d weaken when I’d gone, I knew
that she would contact Daisy. I had this feeling that Daisy had sent a letter
to June recently, maybe after my death. June hadn’t replied yet, she was torn
about what to do. That was the decision she was trying to make.”
    “And you wanted
me to find June and convince her not to contact Daisy? You wanted me to became
part of your hate campaign?” Grace’s voice rose again. She knew there was
something untrustworthy about this man.
    Mr Manville
looked down at the table. In a quiet voice he said, “I’m more ashamed than
you’d ever know. You can’t hate me more than I hate myself. I allowed anger to
take over me, to cloud my judgment. Haven’t you ever been so overcome with
emotion that you do things out of character?”
    He looked up at
her. Grace was tempted to say no just to make him feel worse. But she couldn’t.
She said, “When my parents died I was overcome with grief, I wouldn’t talk to
anyone, not even my brother. I was ready to give up on life, I was ready to
die.”
    “See, we all do
things that we regret. Mine is much, much worse than yours, I admit that. But
can’t you help me, Grace? Can’t you try to make things right between Daisy and
June? You could go and talk to June.”
    “Is that what you
want? Truthfully? I don’t want to get there and you use force to make me do something
I don’t want to.”
    “I promise. I want
to make amends. Can we go now? I want everything to be sorted out as quickly as
possible.”
    Grace stood up.
She thought about Daisy in the nightclub. “I’ll do all that I can. Does June
live far away?”
    Mr Manville stood
up. He had a hopeful smile on his face. “It’s only a short bus ride away. Oh!
To think that June and Daisy could meet up again! June could be a proper
grandma, and Daisy could come