Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts Read Online Free PDF Page B

needed to vent to someone, and telling my mother about Steven’s return was not high on my to-do list. Luckily, Steven had taken Melissa to the boardwalk in Seaside Heights in his latest attempt to convince her that he was the good parent out of the two, so I had a good few hours (between the randomly scheduled spook shows, today to include a hideous substance—rubber cement, which rubs off easily—slithering down the walls) to do my venting.
    “He didn’t say those words exactly,” I answered. “But he was certainly delivering that message. What do you think I should make of it?”
    “What do I think?” Jeannie replied. “I think you shouldn’t have let him back into the house when he showed up. I think you should boot him out before he gets a chance to hurt you again. I think you should leave him alone in a room with Tony and come back after we’ve had a chance to clean up.”
    As we crossed the street, I saw two men walking away from us into the intersection. They were semitransparent. A car passed through them. This ghost thing was getting to be routine; I barely even started at the sight, and Jeannie didn’t notice my reaction at all. I was getting to be a pro, even though Mom and Melissa insisted I was capable of seeing only about 20 percent of the ghosts floating among us on a daily basis. But I thought they were just being spirit snobs.
    “Let’s keep your husband out of this situation, and out of jail,” I suggested. I had introduced Jeannie to her husband, Tony Mandorisi, after he and I had become friends when I was working at the home-improvement superstore. Tony is a licensed contractor, and helps me out on my more difficult projects around the house. Although we were still working on finding a practical means of access to the attic.
    “I just can’t believe you let him back into your house,” Jeannie said. Jeannie is a wonderful friend who doesn’t know when to quit.
    “Technically speaking, he’d never been in that house before,” I pointed out. I know when to quit, but that doesn’t mean I will when I should.
    “Either way,” Jeannie said. Don’t feel bad; I don’t know what it meant, either.
    We probably would have gone on for a good deal of time, but we walked by the office of the Harbor Haven Chronicle , the local weekly newspaper, and Phyllis Coates, the owner/publisher/editor/entire staff of the paper, opened the door and called to me.
    Phyllis and I have known each other since I was a thirteen-year-old delivery girl for the Chronicle . She seems to think of me as her protégé, and I think of her as a good old friend. Phyllis went into the newspaper business when it still wasn’t quite thought of as respectable for a woman, and has lived it on her own terms. I respect that. Also, she always knows everything that goes on before anybody else. It can get a little unnerving.
    “Alison,” she said now, a cup of steaming coffee in her hand and some unedited copy in the other. “I hear your ex has come back to rekindle the marriage.”
    See what I mean?
    “He’s just here to visit Melissa,” I insisted before Jeannie could offer an opinion. “He’s not staying, and we’re not rekindling anything.”
    “That’s not what I hear.”
    “Maybe you need a hearing aid,” I suggested.
    Phyllis laughed. “More like I have to go back and check my sources,” she said. “Hey, mind if I join you two for a bit? I need to get out of the office for twenty minutes every six hours, or my doctor says I’ll die of stagnation, or something.”
    She fell into step with us as we headed up the street.
    “So what’s going on in town?” Jeannie wanted to know. Jeannie is a dedicated, serious gossip, and admires Phyllis for her ability to get to the truth and her willingness to pass it along.
    “The usual stuff,” Phyllis answered. “Mayoral election coming up in November, so the boards are going nuts. Planning, assessors, schools—you name it. They all find stuff to talk about when the