Invitation to Murder (Book 1 in the Candlemaking Mysteries) (30 page)

I couldn’t hide my smile. “You had the hots
for a guy named Herman?”

“
He was rather dashing, as
I remember him,” Lillian said frostily. “Now, do you want to hear
the rest of this or not?”

“
You’ve got my undivided
attention,” I said.

At least Lillian dropped her plan to circle
the lake. She stood there and continued. “Francis never spoke to me
again, a difficult thing to do in a town this small. She moved away
soon after high school, but came back here to live after her
parents died. They were quite wealthy. The family fortune started
with a gold mine in North Carolina, but they quickly branched out
into acquiring properties all over the South. Then they started
buying up newspapers here and there as a hobby. But the rumors
around town were that they barely left anything to Francis,
choosing a charity in Richmond to receive the bulk of their wealth
instead. The only things Francis inherited was a doorstop and some
other equally worthless things, or so the story goes.”

“
So why is she haunting my
room? How did she die? And why didn’t I ever hear about this?” It
was hard to believe that someone could die in Rebel Forge without
the entire town knowing about it.

“
Francis’s husband was
related to the Dunbars, and the owners of the newspaper weren’t
about to let one whisper of the scandal out. For once, something
happened here that no one else knew about. As for the rest of it,
you’ll have to get the details from your brother.”

Great. Grilling Bradford was the last thing
I wanted to do. “Lillian, you started this story; now finish
it.”

“
Bradford really should be
the one to tell you. After all, he was the one who cut her down
from the rafters. You see, she hanged herself.”

A feeling of dread swept over me. “Please
tell me she didn’t do it in my beautiful living room.”

“
Of course not,” Lillian
said, and I felt instantly better.

Then she added, “There wasn’t any place to
attach the rope there. She used your bathroom.”

So there it was. I was going to be taking a
shower in the middle of a crime scene. How in the world did Lillian
think that would be better than my old apartment? “I never should
have signed the lease,” I said. “At least no one ever died in my
apartment.”

“
Not that you know of,”
Lillian said.

“
Why, what have you
heard?”

She shook her head. “Jennifer, I assure you,
there’s no such thing as ghosts. You’ll be fine, I promise.”

“
If you’re so sure, then
why don’t you move in with me?”

Lillian looked shocked by the suggestion. “I
have my own place, my dear girl. Besides, there’s no room for both
of us there.”

“
Okay, then, I’ll move
into your place and you relocate here. The cats will love romping
around in your big old house.”

Lillian said, “Jennifer, you’re delusional.
I’ll tell you what I will do, though. Spend one week here. If you
absolutely hate it, you have my blessing to move out and I won’t
hold it against you.”

“
Do you honestly expect me
to stay here for a full week?” I looked up at my room and saw the
curtain fluttering in the breeze. There were just two problems with
that: there wasn’t the slightest whisper of wind in the air, and
that window had been closed when I’d left it.

She said, “Oh, pooh, don’t be so dramatic.
Now let’s get back to the card shop. You really shouldn’t leave it
unattended this long.”

I didn’t even know how to respond to that.
While it was true I was eager to leave my apartment, I hadn’t
expected to go someplace worse. Still, Lillian had paid for two
months there; if I could stand it for a week, maybe I could get
used to rooming with a ghost.

Honestly, how bad could it be?