southern ghost hunters 02 - skeleton in the closet (18 page)

She tossed me a dish towel. "Not exactly subtle, are you, sport?" When Ellis chuckled, she glanced back at him. "Neither are you, boy." She shook her head as she turned on the faucet. "You're two peas in a pod."

The sun was fully down now, and it was hard to see anything in the pitch-black yard.

Maisie plunged her fingers into the water. She pulled out a bowl. "Yuck. I was so mad I didn't even prerinse these."

"Here," I said, "let me—" A gunshot shattered the window, spraying glass.  I screamed. Maisie rocked backward. I grabbed Maisie and dragged her to the floor.

Chapter Fifteen

O
H
MY
G
OD
. "Someone shot at us!" 

"Stay down!" Ellis ordered. 

He helped me off Maisie. Heavens, I was crushing the poor woman. Broken glass littered the floor. "Call the police!"

"I am the police." Ellis brushed broken glass from my shoulders and hair. Maisie sat on the floor next to me, stunned, but alive.  

 His warm breath ghosted my cheek. "You're fine." His relief was palpable. He moved into a crouching position behind the counter, just high enough to glimpse out the broken window. 

"What do you see?" I whispered.

"Stay here." He reached for the gun in the holster at the back of his belt. "Lock the door behind me." He headed out into the yard. 

I kept low as I crossed over to the door and threw the bolt. 

Meanwhile, Maisie grabbed her gun and pointed it out the window. She fired, the kickback knocking her into the kitchen table. 

"Maisie!" I rushed to her. "Ellis is out there!"

"Somebody's up on the hill!" She aimed again.

We both ducked as the shooter fired, shattering a bowl on the counter. "Run!" I grabbed her arm and we dashed into the living room as another shot exploded the plate rack on the far wall.

I couldn't leave Ellis out there to handle this all alone. We needed to call 911. My phone was in the kitchen. So was Maisie's wall phone.

"Get down!" Frankie stood with his shoulders to the wall next to the front door, revolver drawn. He peered out the window. "The shooter's coming down. He's moving around the side."

"How can you possibly know that?" I demanded.

"Take this," he said, reaching into his suit coat and tossing me a pistol.

I jumped out of the way of the ghostly weapon and let it skitter across the floor. "I can't touch that." Well, wait. Maybe I could. I'd been able to pick up the paper at the library, and last month I'd held a ghostly locket and brought it into the mortal plane…

"This'd be the time to try something new," he barked, ready to fire.

Maisie took cover behind the furniture grouping at the center of the room. "We can take 'em," she said, cocking her gun and hunkering bunker-style behind the couch.

I went for Frankie's pistol on the floor at the same time gunfire shattered the front window. I changed direction and dived behind the couch. "Take that, ya bastard!" Frankie hollered, standing in front of the window, returning fire. I was glad I hadn't continued toward the gun. Frankie's ghostly bullets didn't do a thing to the remains of the glass window, much less anything else.

Maisie aimed. 

"Don't!" I ordered.
Think.
"Ellis is out there. One wrong move and you could shoot
him
."

"Or we can shoot the sucker that's shooting at him," she snarled, pulling the trigger. Half the buckshot went straight through Frankie and slammed into the wall.

He spun around. "Jesus, woman! Learn to aim!"

Like he could get hurt. 

I turned to Maisie. "I locked the rear door. Tell me you locked the front."

"I don't need locks," she scoffed. "I got my gun."

Another shot hit the house, spraying wood through the broken window. At this rate, a locked door wouldn't make much difference anyway. 

"Here," she said, reaching into the back of her pants and handing me a pistol. 

"What? Is everybody packing?" The gun felt heavy in my hand, but not at all unwelcome. Dang it. These people were corrupting me.

"Hey." She cocked her shotgun. "I guess this proves you right. I think somebody
does
want to kill me." She took aim and fired. "Still don't buy that ghost baloney."

"I
can
see ghosts," I muttered, bracing my gun on the upper edge of the couch, pointing it toward the hole where the window used to be. Was I really going to pull the trigger?

Outside, an engine started up. 

"He's getting away!" Maisie shouted, struggling to her feet. She made a wide-eyed dash for the front door, crunching over shattered glass, passing straight through Frankie.

"Whoa. Hey! Tell your friend to show some respect!" he hollered as she ran out into the driveway. I dodged him and followed, steps behind. 

Ellis's car roared to life and sped off in pursuit, his police lights blazing white and blue against the black of the night. 

"Now we've lost 'em!" Maisie groused.

"Not if Ellis has anything to say about it." I just hoped he'd be okay. "We can't stay here," I told her. I wasn't sure how many shots had gone into the house, but the front porch light hung by its wires, the entire front window was gone, and I'd lost track of the damage in the kitchen. Besides, we didn't know if—or when—the shooter might return. "Pack a bag. You're coming to my house tonight."

"No," she frowned. "Feels like running."

"We're sitting ducks right here. You remember my grandma? She wouldn't want me around if something else happens. And I'm not leaving you."

"Damn it," she groused.

"This'll work out great," I said, while she went to pack a bag. "You'll see." I hurried to the kitchen and found my bag among the shattered glass and pieces of linoleum and wood on the floor. I dug out my phone and texted Ellis:
Maisie is coming home with me
. 

If the police wanted to question us there, then so be it. We weren't sticking around a shot-up house in the woods after dark.

Maisie returned sooner than expected with a half-full plastic shopping bag and a shotgun. Just the essentials, I supposed.

I didn't even argue with her about the gun. In fact, it gave me an idea. I pulled my house key off the ring. "Go ahead of me. Lock yourself in. I have one thing I need to check out."

"I'll help ya," Maisie said, with more energy than I'd seen from her this entire day, and that was saying something.

"No," I said. "It involves the ghostly plane."

She blew out an impatient breath. 

"Yeah, I know I'm crazy," I said, handing her the key. "Mind the skunk. Lucy is a bit skittish around strangers." 

"Don't worry. Little critters adore me," she said, heading for her car. 

I nodded. "I have no doubt." I just hoped the spirit of Jilted Josephine would be happy to see me.

Chapter Sixteen

I
STEPPED
OUT
into the night. It felt chillier than I'd expected, without the lights of other houses to hold off the dark. I watched Maisie pull out of the driveway and breathed a sigh of relief. 

"Frankie?" I called. I knew he was around. 

"That was
great
," he said, appearing next to me, a wide smile on his face. "Almost as good as the shootout at the Kitty Kat Lounge in '34." He gave a fist pump. "I owned that one." 

"So I take it you're feeling better," I said.

He shrugged, his hands down at his sides, one still holding a gun. "Still missing the toes on my left foot, but that fireworks show kind of made up for it. Did you see that second round of shots I got out the window? Classic."

"Something like that. Listen. We need to learn more about what happened. The first shots came from the direction of Josephine's house. I want to ask her if she saw anything."

"You're killing me," Frankie groaned. 

I resisted the urge to remind him he was already dead.

He re-holstered his pistol. "I'm gonna lose my legs again, ain't I?"

"I'm sorry." I realized he'd just gotten them back. "This won't take long," I promised. "You know it's important, or I wouldn't ask."

"Fine," he said, loosening his shoulders, as if he were prepping to play a sport. "I'm doing this for me, not for you," he added. "Last thing I need is you dying before you get me ungrounded."

"That's the spirit," I said, tucking his urn back into my bag.

My skin prickled as I felt the air around me shift. Frankie shivered as a dull light settled over us, casting the forest in an eerie silver glow. "This is it," he muttered. "No more."

Before I could respond, he set off ahead of me, toward the haunted house on the hill. 

He put quite a distance between us, and I hurried across the yard to catch up, digging for my iPhone. When I found it, I hit the flashlight app to illuminate my way.

Frankie passed through a spindly bush and disappeared into the woods. I had a tougher time of it. The underbrush grew thick and I didn't see a clear trail. Frogs croaked and crickets called to each other. I stepped over logs and dodged grasping tree limbs.

The gangster flickered in the distance, and my heart stammered when I glimpsed a presence lingering just beyond the thick trunk on my left. If it were Josephine, she would have approached me. This spirit hid in the dark.

"Frankie?" I called, yanking a branch out of my face and tripping on a root. 

I'd lost sight of him. 

Oh my word. He must be too far away to even hear me. I suddenly felt very vulnerable, especially with this…
entity
so close.

I gathered my wits and my courage. "Hello?" I called. 

The physical presence faded into the autumn woods, but it didn't fool me. I could still feel it watching. 

"Frankie!" I hissed. 

"Shh…" he whispered in my ear, so sudden I gave a little scream.

I splayed a hand over my chest. "Someone's over there."

Frankie slowly came into focus next to me. "He took off."

"How do you know?"

He gave me a long look. "Come on. We're getting close."

"If my heart holds out," I muttered, following him. I didn't like how exposed we were, how anything could be lingering nearby. This time, we both made sure I kept up. The ground underneath my feet grew steep and rocky.

A creaking noise sounded among the trees.

"What
is
that?" It didn't sound like anything in nature.

"Don't look up," Frankie murmured.

I lifted my eyes and saw a thick ghostly noose swinging from an old oak tree. The rope hung heavy and stiff, as if it held a body.

My breath left my lungs. "Oh my." A hard-edged shadow skittered among the high branches and I gave a start, stepping back into a soft, spongy spot of dirt. I felt it move under my feet.

"Steady," Frankie warned. "Josephine's crazy mother is just trying to scare you."

"It's working."

We cleared the rise and saw an old family graveyard surrounded by a silvery fence. The ground moved underneath the headstones, as if the dead struggled to break free. I sincerely hoped they'd stay put. I had enough to deal with counting just the ghosts I wanted to see.

The old Hatcher place sat farther back in the clearing. The rough wooden boards of the two-story staggered under the weight of time and neglect. Darkened windows peered out of the mist, and the front door leaned haphazardly on its hinges. It felt twisted, cold as the poltergeist who controlled it. 

Weeds had long ago taken over the path to the house. They snaked around my ankles and crunched under my feet. And I forgot them in an instant when I saw a candle flicker to life in the upstairs window, in Josephine's room.

"She's here." I gave a small wave.

A chill wound through the air as the ghostly embodiment of Josephine launched out the window and dived straight for me. 

"Watch out!" she hissed as she passed overhead and rose up into the night. "Ma is coming…"

"I ain't scared of no dame," Frankie said, trying to look cool as he scanned the property for any signs of the mad poltergeist.

Yes, he was. Ma Hatcher had run us out of here when we'd first met Josephine. Frankie and I had both gotten quite a rattle that night, but we'd come too far to back down now. 

"Josephine," I called. "I need to talk with you." The spirit of the young woman retreated into a round, glowing orb and shot back toward the house. Her ghostly hound barked like mad and pressed up against one of the lower windows. "We can meet in your room if you'd like."

"Oh, hell no," Frankie said. "I ain't going in that house."

"Afraid of ghosts?" I taunted, trying to work up my own courage. 

But I had a feeling Josephine didn't want me in there, either. She made an arc over the leaning stone chimney and hovered midway between the house and me. 

"She's angry," her voice whispered in my ear.

"Of course she is. There was an intruder on your property tonight," I said. "Did you get a good look at him?"

An unearthly wind whistled through the trees. "He invaded our house. Just the parlor. Ma drove him off. She's resting now, but she won't be for long."

I focused on the glowing orb in the center of the path. "He tried to shoot at me and Maisie through a window." The orb disappeared and for a second, I feared the worst. "Josephine?" I asked, bracing myself for the wrath of her overprotective mother. 

She appeared in full body form on a small outcropping of rocks overlooking the woods. "He stood on this hill." Her voice sounded in my ear, even though her body hovered a good twenty feet away. 

I refused to think about that as I rushed to join her. 

Josephine's skin shone translucent. She appeared almost angelic with her old-fashioned nightgown flowing white around her bare feet. She wore her long hair in a thick braid down her back, baring her neck, which was raw and torn where the rope that had killed her cut into it.

When I joined her on the outcropping, I gasped at the sight laid out before me. I could see straight through the trees, down to Maisie's house, into the lighted window where I'd stood washing dishes. We were about two hundred yards out, a tough shot, but not an impossible one for someone who knew what he was doing.