Spackled and Spooked Read Online Free PDF Page B

certainly didn’t have many years on the “boy,” but I declined to comment. Their relationship was about equal measure easy flirtation—they’d dated a few times when Kate first moved to town, just after Melissa left Derek—and half sisterly indulgence on Kate’s part, half brotherly exasperation on Derek’s. It worked for them, and I wasn’t about to get in the middle of it.
    “He made a run to the hardware store. I knew you were coming, so I stayed behind.”
    “And you weren’t afraid of being here by yourself?” She grinned and made woo-woo gestures with her fingers.
    “I wasn’t. Although something creepy happened just before you knocked.”
    “You’re kidding. What?”
    I told her about the footsteps and watched her eyes widen as she took in the possibilities. “Well, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with your hearing,” she opined after I had finished my story, “or for that matter your sanity, so I guess you didn’t imagine it.”
    I shook my head. I didn’t think I had imagined the footsteps, either.
    “And I don’t see why anyone would want to play tricks on you. Or how anyone could, without a key. Unless it’s Derek, but it doesn’t seem his style, somehow.”
    I shook my head again. “I’m going to ask him when he comes back, just because I want to cover all the bases, but I don’t think he’d do something like this.”
    Kate nodded. “I could see him stringing you along for a minute, and then startling you when he shows up in the doorway, but I agree that he wouldn’t carry it this far. You know what that means, don’t you?”
    I made a face. Did I ever.
    “Ghosts,” Kate said.

3

    There was another knock on the door, and I answered Kate over my shoulder as I went to let Derek in. “I’m sorry but I don’t accept that.”
    “Don’t accept what?” Derek asked, at the same time as Kate said, “What’s not to accept? You’re not crazy. You’re not having weird auditory hallucinations. Nobody else could have gotten in, and we agreed it wasn’t Derek. So what’s left?”
    “What wasn’t Derek?” Derek said, looking from one to the other of us. He was carrying several plastic bags from the hardware store. I ignored him.
    “Not that. There has to be another explanation. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
    “Ghosts?” Derek said. Kate turned to him and explained what had happened while he was gone. He shook his head.
    “Wasn’t me. I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t have done it, anyway. I wasn’t here.”
    “Neither was anyone else,” I muttered. Derek put the bags down on the floor and put an arm around me.
    “You OK?”
    I nodded. I was fine. “Just a little weirded out. But I guess I must have imagined it.”
    Kate snorted but didn’t speak. Derek sent her a look over my head. “I didn’t know you believed in ghosts, Kate. You don’t have any at the B and B, do you?”
    Kate shook her head. “I wish. Not that I can complain about the business I do, but things are slowing down as it gets colder, and a ghost or two would be a big draw during the winter months. People love spending the night in a haunted house. I could do special Halloween packages, candlelight tours, trips through the Waterfield cemetery . . .”
    “You could do all those things anyway,” I said. “Just invent a ghost. Nobody’s going to know the difference. It’s not like anyone’s ever actually seen a ghost in one of those haunted inns.”
    “We-e-ell,” Kate said, drawing the word out. I waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t, I had to ask.
    “Have you seen a ghost?”
    “Well . . . I’m not sure. I think I may have.”
    Derek rolled his eyes, dropped his arm from around my shoulders, and bent to pick up his bags from the floor again. “Talk loudly,” he told her over his shoulder as he headed for the kitchen, “this ought to be good.”
    Kate shrugged a little sheepishly. “I’ll be the first to admit that I’m predisposed, OK? I’d love to