Ghouls Gone Wild (31 page)

So, as a lonely little kid who dearly missed her mother, and who didn’t understand why she couldn’t see her, I would climb that tree and sit on one of the branches next to her window, close my eyes, and pretend I was sitting right next to her, holding her hand. It was the closest I could come to her at the time, and touching the trunk of the oak tree brought a huge wave of melancholy over me, and I began to tear up a little.

“M. J.?” Heath said, and I felt his hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”

I opened my eyes. “I’m fine,” I said, hating that my voice trembled and more tears fell.

Heath’s expression went from concerned to compassionate. “Your mom is hovering right over your shoulder, did you know that?”

I gaped at him. Those words were my undoing and I began to weep in earnest. Heath reached forward and hugged me fiercely. “Hey,” he said gently. “It’s okay, doll. It’s okay.”

But I couldn’t stop crying. I missed my mother so much it physically hurt, and I’d never really gotten over her loss, even though it had been twenty years since she passed. It was the one great irony to my abilities: I could talk to the dead with ease, but never really trusted that the voice coming through to me specifically was my own mother’s and not in my imagination—so after a while, she’d stopped trying to communicate.

But Heath had developed something of a rapport with her, and I knew that when he told me she was around—she really was. “I miss her,” I blubbered.

“She knows,” he said gently.

I took a deep breath and fought to regain some control. It felt really good to be hugged in the shadow of that tree. It even felt right. I leaned back from him and looked up into his handsome face. “Heath,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“There’s something I want to say.”

“I’m listening.”

I took a deep breath, looked up into his eyes, then over his shoulder, and said, “Joseph!”

“I don’t get it,” Heath said, his brow furrowed.

I pointed over his shoulder. Heath turned around and jumped a little. Standing under the very branch we’d found him hanging from was Joseph Hill.

Heath and I both stared at Joseph for several seconds and the poor man looked terribly distraught. “Could you lend me a hand?” he asked, plain as day.

Heath was the first of us to recover from the shock of seeing him in full form. “Of course. What can we do for you, sir?”

“I’m afraid that I’m having a bit of trouble,” Joseph said. “Someone’s broken into me home, and I can’t seem to get the police on the line.”

Thinking fast, I pulled out my phone and pretended to dial. “I’ll call them right now, Mr. Hill.” I then held the phone up to my ear, paused for effect, then asked, “I’ve got the police on the line. What would you like me to tell them exactly?”

“Tell them someone’s in me house!” he snapped impatiently. “And tell them not to dawdle this time like they did the last time! If they don’t come quickly, I’m likely to take matters into me own hands!”

My eyes swiveled sideways to Heath while I pretended to tell the police exactly what Hill had said. He gave me an encouraging nod to keep up the ruse.

“They’d like it if you could give a description of the intruders,” I told Mr. Hill.

He opened his mouth to say something, but paused, then looked confused. “I must not have got a good look at them,” he confessed, scratching his head. “But I thought I had,” he added. “Yes, I thought I had. So why can’t I remember?” he mumbled, and then, without warning, his hands went to his throat and he began making choking sounds. He then began to struggle, and flail his arms, and that’s when we saw what looked like a length of electrical cord appearing out of thin air and held by unseen hands wrap around Joseph’s neck. The scene went on for only a few seconds more before poor Joseph disappeared into thin air.

“Oh . . . my . . .
God
!” I nearly shouted, turning to Heath. He was staring at me with big round eyes.

“It wasn’t the witch!” he gasped, and I nodded vigorously in agreement. “Joseph Hill was—”

“Murdered!” I cut in. “He was murdered in his own house!”

We simultaneously looked up at the branch where Hill had been cut down. “So someone strung him up here to make it look like a suicide, or like the witch had taken over his body and killed him!” Heath guessed.

I had goose bumps running all along my arms and a chill shivered down my back. “Come on,” I said to Heath. “We need to get the heck out of here before someone sees us.”

“And by someone, you mean the murderer,” Heath said softly as he and I both looked around suspiciously.

“Yep,” I said, limping quickly away from the tree.

We reached the van shortly thereafter and both of us shuddered before buckling ourselves in. “We have to tell the police,” I said.

“Tell them what?” Heath asked, starting the van and checking the mirrors before pulling away from the curb.

“About what Joseph said! That someone broke into his home and strangled him!”

“And how would we tell them we know this?” Heath said, looking at me pointedly. “I mean, they’ve treated Gilley and Gopher with such warmth and respect, I’m sure they’ll be
more
than happy to take our word for it.”

I frowned. “Right,” I said, picking up on the sarcasm. “Okay, but we . . . hold on.”

“What?”

“You missed the turn,” I said, pointing at the road. “I think we were supposed to go left back there.”

Heath focused on his driving and glanced at an approaching street sign. “Crap!” he exclaimed, hitting the brakes hard.

“Whoa!” I yelled, putting a hand on the dash and looking over my shoulder. “Heath, be careful! There could have been someone behind us.”

“Did you really want me to turn onto that street?” he snapped as the tension got to both of us.

I leaned forward again and looked at the street sign. It read BRIAR ROAD. My heart thumped hard in my chest. “I’m so sorry,” I said as he tried to do a U-turn in the narrow street hampered as he was by his cast while holding up traffic on both sides of the road.

“It’s okay,” he said, grimacing as several cars honked at us. “I just didn’t want to get stuck there again.”

I shivered for the second time since getting into the van. “I’m with you.”

Heath finally made the turn, punched the accelerator, and got about half a block before I yelled, “Stop!”

Heath stomped on the brakes again while shouting, “What?! What?!”

“There!” I said pointing to his right. “Across the street. Do you see that storefront?”

Cars began honking again, so Heath put on his turn signal and found a space to pull over and park. “You want to follow that lead about the witch’s descendant?” he asked.

“I do,” I said, getting out of the car. “I really do.”

We walked across the street to the small storefront with the words A PAWS SANCTUARY. The sign in the window said the place was open.

Heath held the door open for me and I went in, immediately spotting a pleasant-looking woman with round cheeks, pale blue eyes, and wispy gray hair. “Good morning to you,” she sang as we came forward, her voice competing with the yips and the barks from somewhere in back.

“Hello,” I said pleasantly. “We’re looking for Sarah Summers. Is she in?”

The woman behind the counter beamed at me. “You’ll look no further to find her,” she said. “I’m Sarah.”

I blinked. She looked
nothing
like her sister. “You’re Sarah?” I pressed, wanting to be sure.

“Aye,” she said, her eyes taking me in quizzically.

“And your sister is Katherine McKay?”

“Aye,” she said again, and her face became concerned. “What can I do for you now that I’ve identified myself several times, lass?”

I smiled again. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . we met your sister yesterday, and well, you two look so different.”

Sarah laughed and the sound was light and full of mirth. “Oh, you’re not the first person to wonder about that. I’m afraid that in our family when the good looks were handed out, Katherine got well more than her fair share.”

I blushed and I tried to apologize again for the awkward conversation, “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply—”

But Sarah waved her hand and said, “Now, don’t worry yourself over it. After fifty years of walking in my sister’s shadow, I’m more than a little used to it.”

I had to admit that as suspicious as I wanted to be of this woman, her easy manner, her kind eyes, and the way her brogue turned “it” into “eht” all but charmed me. So I decided not to beat around the bush, and dive right in and introduce us. I thrust my hand forward and said, “I’m M. J. Holliday, and this is my friend, Heath Whitefeather.”

Sarah shook our hands warmly. “Would you two be part of that American film crew that’s here looking for ghosts?”

“We would,” I said.

“Oh, then you’re the one who adopted the wee darlin’ pug from us!” she said, recognition dawning in her eyes. “I’ve got all the paperwork filled out for you. You’ll need it to get him through customs. All it needs is a signature, Miss Holliday, and he can be your little love for good.”

I’d forgotten all about the paperwork, so when Sarah spread it out on the counter for me, I began scribbling my John Hancock on all the dotted lines.

When I was done, I handed the documents back to Sarah, who put them into a neat little folder for me. “There ya are now,” she sang happily. “And thank you for the very generous stipend you’ve committed to, Miss Holliday. You’re helping our cause, you know.”

I smiled and took the folder from her. “It’s my pleasure, Sarah,” I said.

“And I never have to rent out another poor pup to that dreadful ghost tour ever again. Oh, but it tore up me conscience to do that! Though I suppose there was no way around it—we really needed the few quid we got to keep this place going.”

I wanted to ask her about Rigella’s spirit being called up early, but her chatter was making it difficult to get a word in edgewise. I got my lucky break when someone from the back yelled, “Ma!”

Sarah jumped and held up her finger. “Excuse me one moment, would you? My youngest daughter’s in back helping with the pups, and her condition makes it difficult to move the heavier cages.”

Before I could ask her what she meant, Sarah ducked through a door and disappeared. Heath and I were left to stare around the front of the shelter, which was actually a store filled with all sorts of doggy supplies. I took advantage of the lull and started to sort through some of the toys that Wendell might like.

“M. J.!” Heath said in a loud whisper to get my attention. I looked over at him and saw that he was pointing to a framed collage of pictures. At the top of the collage was a nice photo of Sarah, and below that were several photos of young ladies with varying styles of hair that I would have judged ranged from the midseventies to the late eighties.

“What am I looking at?” I asked, crossing the room to him to get a better look.

“I think these are Sarah’s daughters,” Heath said, and even though he was speaking quietly, I could tell he was getting excited.

“Okay,” I said, still not following why this was cause for celebration.

“Count them,” he urged.

I did. There were seven. And the last girl looked really familiar to me. There was a name underneath each photo. The name listed under the last girl read
Roisinn
, which didn’t ring any bells. I was about to comment when the door opened again and Sarah bustled back out. “So sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said. “Rose is due any day now and I keep telling her to go sit and put her feet up, but she’s a restless lass.”

I whirled around, openly gaping at Sarah. “Your daughter’s name is Rose?” I asked.

“Aye,” Sarah said, then seemed to notice we were standing under the framed photograph of her family, and she laughed. “Oh, you’re not looking at that old thing, are you?” And she came over to us. With a sigh she pointed to the first girl. “That’s Marie,” she said. “My oldest and the bright light of my life, if truth be told. She died about two years after that photo was taken.”

I bit my lip. “I’m so sorry.”

Sarah touched the photograph with her fingertips lovingly. “Marie was the reason I started this shelter, in fact,” she confessed. “She had such a love for the animals, and she was always bringing home a stray here and there and finding homes for them. When she died, I felt such terrible sorrow, and I needed a purpose, something to get myself out of bed in the morning, so I opened this wee little shop and took in a few strays and it gave me back my life.”

My heart went out to her. She seemed like such a lovely, kind woman. “And your other daughters?” I asked gently.

Sarah chuckled. “Well now, let’s see,” she said, pointing to the next photo over. “This is Katherine, named after my sister, and the two couldn’t have turned out more alike. My Katie moved to London and she’s an artist now, restoring works for the Victoria and Albert Museum. Next there’s Heather, ah, such a lovely girl. She married an Irishman named Paul and they live just outside Dublin. They’re expecting their second child in a few months’ time. Then there’s Millie, she’s my bright one. She studied law at one of your schools in America and now she’s living in Hong Kong. I hardly hear from her anymore.

“Next up is Beth. She’s more like me, a nurturer at heart. She went off to join the Peace Corps and she just sent me a postcard from Nigeria, where she’s nursing sick children back to health. And second to last is Christina; she’s in school at Cambridge right now. She wants to follow in Millie’s footsteps, and I suspect she’ll do it, because she’s every bit as bright. And last is my darlin’ lamb,” Sarah said with a sigh. “Roisinn.”

“Excuse me?” I gasped. “Did you say Roy-shin?”

Sarah looked a bit startled by my reaction but explained, “Aye. It’s her given name. It’s Celtic for ‘baby rose.’ ”

I wanted to slap my forehead. Roisinn wasn’t a boy’s name. It was a girl’s. I’d totally sent Gilley in the wrong direction both with how to spell the name and what gender to look for.