Haunted Read Online Free PDF Page B

Saturday nights, to give a “Legends of Melody House” tour, during which she liked to go on and on about various stories involving the house, and how it was rumored to be haunted by different characters, including historical figures.
    He had adamantly refused to let her call it a ghost tour. But since she did attract dozens and dozens of paying tourists, people staying as diversely far away as Williamsburg, Richmond, Harpers Ferry, and even D.C., he had to allow the endeavor. She served cider, tea, cookies, and pastries in the middle of the tour, and he knew that she was right—they paid a whole lot of bills thanks to those tours. He still didn’t like them, or anything that suggested that Melody House was really haunted. However, he tolerated it all, for the sake of the house.
    â€œGo on, Matt—we’ll keep them entertained for you,” Clint told him laconically. Matt arched a brow. Clint could be openly lascivious. He had surely enjoyed the spectacle of the bride, wrapped in the antique quilt and nothing more.
    â€œThanks,” Matt said dryly, and left them all to their arguments on whether there was or wasn’t a ghost.
    An hour later, he was moved back into his room at the main house, and he and Penny and Roger had packed up the newlyweds, who were now happily settled in the caretaker’s cottage. Penny returned to her apartment over the stables.
    Matt had barely gotten back to sleep before he heard a ringing sound. He fumbled around to turn off his alarm, but it was the phone instead. One of his officers was on the other end, anxiously urging him to get moving; they had a domestic violence situation threatening to turn explosive.
    Matt hurriedly dressed, his thoughts half on the night gone by, and half on the day to come. There it was—the truth again. As his dad had once told him, when he had shiveredat the sight of an old cemetery, the dead were the safest people around.
    It was the living you had to watch out for.
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    That day was hell for Matt. He was so tired most of it, he could have toppled over. It began with the situation at the Creek-more house, old Harry threatening to kill his wife and kids, accusing her of sleeping around, claiming he didn’t even know if the kids were really his or not. Thayer had kept the situation under control until he got there. Matt had managed first to get Harry to let him in, then pretended to share most of a bottle of whiskey with him, convince him he could do DNA testing on his kids, finally get the shotgun, and haul Harry off to jail.
    Somehow, he endured the rest of the week, staying in the main house, hearing the honeymooners in the pool at all hours, day and night.
    Jeannie came to thank him personally for not throwing them out. Her honeymoon, between the pool and the horses and the incredible Jacuzzi in the caretaker’s house, was bliss.
    She had forgotten about the ghost. She admitted that she’d had a lot to drink.
    Penny kept insisting that there was a ghost, and he was being a blind fool to ignore it. Either something bad was going to happen, or—on the bright side!—were they to prove that a ghost existed, they could get so rich they’d never have to worry about the upkeep of the place again.
    Finally the honeymooners departed and everything went back to normal. Then, Penny started at him again. She wanted to have a seance.
    He said no.
    She persisted.
    He begged her to leave him alone. He had too much work on his plate at the moment.
    At last, Penny backed off and contented herself with her tours. Matt thought that life was pleasantly back to routine.
    Until she came to him with the letter from Adam Harrison, Harrison Investigations.
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    It was a month later that Clara Issy, one of the five daytime housekeepers, stopped dead in her tracks.
    It was a sunny morning. The beautiful old bedroom in Melody House was as it always was. The bed she had just made with its shiny four-poster and quilted cover sat