Who Invited the Ghost to Dinner: A Ghost Writer Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

I looked up, the woman was gone. Whistling, I went over to Mother for my next assignment. “Thank you for sending your friend to help me,” I said, putting the basket on the table next to her.
    “What friend?”
    “The woman who just helped me set the tables. She never told me her name. I just assumed you sent her in to make sure I did everything right the first time.”
    “Cam, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t send anyone in to help you. The florist left the floral arrangements in the box office building. Would you please put them on the tables?”
    I went outside, grabbed a couple of arrangements, and carried them into the theatre. On my second trip, I saw someone sitting at one of the tables and groaned. “What are you doing here?”
    “Just checking the place out,” Mac said with a grin. “Who’s the dame with the pearls that I saw earlier?”
    Suddenly, I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I sat the flowers down in the middle of the table with a thump, and did the same thing to the next two arrangements. “Go away, Mac,” I growled quietly as I left the room.
    “Where’s the fun in that?” he replied as he popped up beside me in the hallway. “Looks like this is where all the action is, anyway. You having some big shindig or something?”
    “Or something,” I said, picking up three more arrangements.
    “Come on now, don’t be like that,” Mac said, following me like a lost puppy. “I haven’t seen much since I’ve been in this rinky dink little town. The most fun I’ve had is watching your grandmother cleaning up at the poker table. Are you sure she didn’t work in Vegas when she was younger?”
    I started to deny it, then stopped myself. I really didn’t know what my grandmother did before she married my grandfather. “Why do you want to know about the woman?” I said, changing the subject.
    “Because I’m interested, and she looks familiar.”
    “I don’t know who she is.”
    “You mean you don’t know all the ghosts in your own backyard?”
    That sick feeling turned into a giant block of dread. “How do you know she’s a ghost?”
    “I’ve been a ghost for fifty years. Don’t you think I’d be able to recognize another ghost when I see one?”
    I rubbed my hands over my face. Two ghosts. What has happened to my life?
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    “I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this whole dinner theatre thing,” I told Randy an hour later at his bookstore.
    “Why? Because of your ghosts?”
    “They are NOT my ghosts.”
    “Well, you’re the only one who can see them, so that makes them yours,” Randy said.
    “You’re not helping.”
    He grabbed a stack of paperbacks off the counter and headed for the mystery section. “Let’s look at this from a different perspective,” he said, putting the books on a shelf. “The last time you saw a ghost, there was a murder to solve, correct? So maybe you’re seeing these two ghosts for the same reason.”
    “So you think they’re here for me solve their murders? That’s assuming that I want to go through that again, after what happened the last time.”
    “Your Vegas ghost is obviously a victim of a mob hit.”
    “What?”
    “You said yourself he admitted to being connected to the mob.”
    “No, I said he made it sound like he was involved with the mob. I don’t believe he was, regardless of what he says.”
    “That hurts,” Mac said from behind me. I jumped, knocking some books and pens to the floor.
    “What’s the matter?” Randy said. “You look like something just scared you to death.”
    “Leg cramp,” I said, rubbing an imaginary ache on my calf.
    “A leg cramp made you knock all this off the counter?”
    “It caught me off guard,” I replied, bending down to pick up the merchandise.
    “Drink more water, then you won’t have that problem.”
    “You’re exactly right. I’ll do that.”
    Randy looked at her. “All right, what’s really going on?”
    “Nothing.”
    “I