Ghost Killer Read Online Free PDF Page B

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     of various woods fanning out on the front around a small half-circle that had always
     seemed like the sun and rays to Clare.
    Enzo pointed his paw at the chest. His eyes appeared to be more liquid . . . and he
     hadn’t been as much of a cheerleader this morning.
    He seemed to have recognized the danger and mixed in a too-real determination with
     his optimism. That was
so
not a good sign. He’d always been a happy dog, even when she’d been going insane . . .
     even when she’d been dying because she refused her gift.
    After drawing a big breath in through her nose, she went to the chest. Once she opened
     it, incense would waft from the box and more grief would come at the sight of the
     colorful cut-velvet scarves and caftans of her dead great-aunt.
    She lifted the top, saw the richest of Sandra’s “working” clothes, smelled incense
     and the spicy perfume that both Sandra and Clare herself loved, and tears backed behind
     her eyes.
    Sandra had been a ghost seer like Clare. Unlike her, Sandra had had a psychic medium
     business. The portion of the fortune Sandra had inherited from the previous ghost
     seer, and the riches she’d made herself from her work, the gifts of the universe after
     a successful closed case—transitioned ghost—and investments, had gone to Clare, along
     with the family psychic gift.
    On the whole, Clare would rather have remained a midlevel certified public accountant
     in a solid Denver firm.
    Clare had packed up a closetful of such clothes and sent them to her sister-in-law
     in Williamsburg, Virginia, for costumes, until told to quit. Now Clare lifted the
     folded garments, feeling the soft brush of velvet against her palms, and she swallowed
     the tears. Her childhood had been so drama-ridden and crazy and always-on-the-road-to-
somewhere-else
with her parents, that when she’d set up her normal life, she hadn’t visited “weird”
     Great-Aunt Sandra. Clare deeply regretted that.
    Especially now that she’d be facing something that could eat her spirit and she had
     less than sixteen days of training. Carefully she stacked the clothes aside; these
     were heavier, beaded, more embroidered, better for blocking the unearthly cold generated
     by phantoms.
    Snuffles came and she turned to see Enzo pawing at the clothes, sticking his whole
     head into them, and disturbing nothing. Clearing her throat, she stared at the pale
     wood of the bottom of the box and said, “The knife’s in here?”
    Enzo sat back and nodded, a slight excitement in his eyes.
It’s hidden. Like a puzzle box, Clare. You know about puzzle boxes.
    She nodded. She’d liked them once, before her first ghost seer case. She knelt before
     the hope chest, leaned over, and swept her hands over the wood bottom, then the sides,
     but saw and felt nothing. No ghostly vibrations or emanations.
    Sinking back on her heels, she stared at the front’s fancy wood inlay, the carving
     around the lip, and at all four elegant corners of the chest. “Hmm.”
    A frigid nose ran up and down her arm, along with a smear of ice. Enzo. She glanced
     at him from the side of her eyes. His shadows had solidified a bit, settled into the
     multi-gray aspects of ghost Labrador instead of a flat gray. Maybe he was coming out
     of his funk, which would be great, because his humor really helped her since she had
     a naturally serious personality.
I could give you maybe a little hint.
    She raised her brows and smiled. “Maybe.” Her hands went to the front of the chest
     first, the fan of many woods from the small light wood half-circle at the center of
     the bottom. Nothing except the slight feel of the seams. She pressed the “sun.” Nothing.
    Enzo sat beside her, radiating pleasure, his muzzle slightly open. Good. Letting her
     vision go slightly out of focus, she checked the bottom carving, found a slightly
     worn spot and worked her fingers around it, under it, pulled, and heard a click. Looking
     into the chest, she