Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

you come home with me for dinner?” We arrived at the lobby and the elevator doors slid open to reveal Gabe doing some sort of Tai-Chi.
    “Hell of a thing,” he mumbled. “Poor Chantelle. Did you see her?”
    I nodded and asked him to retrieve my car, not wanting to engage further in this discussion.
    I turned back to Landon. “Give yourself a chance to relax, have a drink and a good meal. I can scare up an extra toothbrush for tonight, and take you back to the hotel.”
    “I appreciate the offer, Ms., uh . . .”
    “Turner. Call me Mel.”
    “Mel, I certainly mean no offense when I say I’m . . . I’m not really in the mood for a romantic dinner.”
    I burst out laughing as a discomfited Gabe ran to retrieve my Scion.
    “No worries. It’s not a
date
, professor. I’m inviting you to dinner with my dad, in our house in Oakland. Dad’s making his special lasagna.”
    “Lasagna?”
    “You know—big flat noodles, tomato sauce, lots of cheese bubbling up, special herbs. Dad serves it with a big salad and sourdough garlic bread. . . .” My stomach growled so loud I thought he might hear it. “Don’t you have lasagna in England?”
    His eyes slewed over to me again. “Are you Italian?”
    “Sure—that’s why my family name is Turner. Seriously, no, I’m a hodgepodge of lots of things, but Italian isn’t one of them. But remember, you’re in the good ol’ U.S. of A. We enjoy all sorts of cuisines: Italian, Ethiopian, Thai, Vietnamese, French, Indian. It’s a veritable smorgasbord.”
    “You’ll have to forgive me—I fear I’m a wee bit jet-lagged.”
    He swayed again.
    “When’s the last time you ate?”
    He paused as if to consider. “It’s been a good while,I’m afraid. When the flight from London landed in New York there was a long wait to get through customs, and I had to run to catch my connection. There was no time to eat.”
    “You’re gonna love my dad’s lasagna,” I said. “He’s quite a cook.”
    “Really, I’d hate to trouble you. Why don’t you just take me to the hotel, if you would be so kind? I think I need to be alone for a while.”
    “Suit yourself,” I said. “But if you change your mind on the way over sing out.”
    Gabe screeched up to the curb and handed me my keys, and Landon and I climbed into the Scion. I had just started driving when my cell phone rang, so I put it on speakerphone. It was my foreman, Raul, wanting to discuss some rebar reinforcement at the retreat center in Marin.
    Landon was looking at me funny as I finished up the call.
    “Everything okay?” I asked as we headed for the Oakland Bay Bridge.
    He nodded and checked his cell phone. A map on the phone’s screen suggested he was following our route.
    “You’ve had quite a shock,” I said. “I’m so sorry about your sister. Have you ever seen a dead body before?”
    He gave a humorless laugh and blew a long breath. His gaze shifted from the phone to the panoramic view: the Golden Gate Bridge over our shoulder, Alcatraz Island and Treasure Island on our left, the East Bay and Oakland hills ahead of us. “Nothing like this. It’s all so very . . . unexpected.”
    “I understand. Are you British?”
    “Pardon?”
    “Your inflections are British, but you don’t have an accent.” I was trying to fit all this together with the factthat he was Chantelle’s brother. “And your name’s Demetrius—that sounds Greek?”
    “Greek on my father’s side, but I was born in Britain, then brought to upstate New York when I was still an infant. But I left the States many years ago. Perhaps British culture has had an effect I’m not aware of.”
    “I see. What do you teach?”
    “Maths.”
    “We say math, here. Singular.”
    “Right-o.”
    I started to laugh. “You can’t help it, can you?”
    Landon seemed to relax a bit. “I guess not.”
    “I’m surprised to hear your specialty is math. I would have guessed English literature, or perhaps history.”
    “While I rather