The Silent Ghost Read Online Free PDF

specific…um…challenges.”
    “So your dad bought you this place?” Kelly looked around again. “Very nice. I like it a lot.”
    “I moved in around the first of the year. Dad came to visit me at Thanksgiving and hated the place I was renting. Called it a slum. Next thing I knew, his assistant flew out here to condo shop with me.”
    “His assistant?”
    “Yes, Leroy. He does everything for Dad except wipe his ass.” Tanisha took a drink of coffee. “Who knows, maybe he does that, too. At least Leroy is better than my stepmother flying in on her broom. Not that she would lift a finger to help me with anything.”
    Kelly raised her mug in a salute. “Here’s to stepmothers who ride brooms.”
    “Oh, yeah,” Tanisha said, one corner of her mouth slightly upturned. “I seem to recall your father marrying some low-level actress he knocked up.”
    “Her name’s Carolyn. A real gold digger. Although Oscar, my half brother, is pretty cute.” Kelly let out a deep sigh. “Did your folks go through a messy divorce, too?”
    “Can’t divorce if you never married.” She took another drink of her coffee before explaining. “I’m the love child of an Italian father and a black mother. I grew up being handed back and forth until I was thirteen, when my mother was killed in a car accident.”
    “Tanisha, I’m so sorry.”
    Tanisha shrugged, but her eyes showed the still raw pain. “It was pretty terrible. She was hit by a drunk driver on her way home from Spelman College, where she was a professor. After that, I was shipped off to boarding school.” She cleared her throat. “Dad lives in Chicago. They met while Dad was researching a book. He was married to wife number two at the time. He’s currently on number four. He wanted my mother to be number three, but she was too smart to buy into his bull.”
    “You don’t like your father?”
    Tanisha fixed Kelly with a knowing eye. “Do you like yours?”
    “I love my dad.”
    “I love mine, too, but loving isn’t the same as liking.” Tanisha put her mug down and leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees. It was then Kelly noticed the deep, dark circles underTanisha’s eyes and the nervous twitch of her hands. At first, Kelly thought she had woken Tanisha up. Now she wondered if she’d ever gone to bed.
    “Tell me,” Tanisha continued, “if you weren’t Grant Whitecastle’s daughter, is he someone you’d want to spend time with, removing, of course, his celebrity status?”
    Kelly didn’t answer. She couldn’t because she didn’t know what the answer would be, and anything less than an affirmative seemed like treason.
    “Don’t worry, this won’t go beyond these walls,” Tanisha assured her. “I’m currently off the clock as a writer.”
    Sensing Kelly’s continued discomfort, she amended the question. “Try this instead. If you weren’t Emma Whitecastle’s daughter, is she someone you’d want to spend time with?”
    “Sure,” Kelly answered without a second thought. “Mom’s great, even if she can be overprotective. We hang out a lot when I’m home.”
    “There’s your answer.”
    Before Kelly could say anything else, Tanisha excused herself and disappeared through the open doors by the bed. A few minutes later she returned wearing jeans and a large sweatshirt. On her feet were colorful striped socks. Her hair had been half tamed by a large clip at the back of her head. While she was gone, Kelly again tried to determine if there were any spirits nearby but felt none. Even Granny hadn’t returned.
    Tanisha took her seat again followed by a big gulp of her coffee. “You never did answer my question about how you found me.”
    Kelly didn’t even try to wiggle out of the truth. “Granny showed me. That’s the ghost you saw with me the other day.”
    Tanisha’s face didn’t move a muscle. “Seriously?”
    “Seriously. She led me here. She followed you home from Gabby’s a few days ago.”
    Tanisha slapped the arm of the