A Haunted Romance Read Online Free Page B

next to it. “Are you gonna use it? It’s been sittin’ out here ever since your brother came, and it’s got some rust on it. It’d be easy enough to polish though, and less hassle probably than cartin’ something up here from the city. It looks pretty sturdy to me.”
    Chelsea looked at the slats doubtfully and then picked one up. She wrinkled her nose. It was a little damp and smelled like her parent’s basement.
    Trent was next to her and grabbed a slat himself. “The ones on top have been getting’ a bit wet, but the ones beneath it are probably in better shape.” He tapped it against the wall. “Yep. The other ones can be replaced by regular timber. Just a quick cut really. Nothin’ complicated about ’em. Once you get it set, it’ll last you a long time.”
    “It was Aunt Pat’s bed?”
    “I’m guessin, yeah.”
    Chelsea smiled. “I should be able to clean it out here. Once I do, would you help me get it in?”
    Trent grinned. “Sure.”
    Soon they had it set up in the master bedroom, right next to the sleeping bag. “The slats just go across here,” Trent told her. There were two rows for them from the bar in the center to the sides. “Queen-size, looks like. And you’ll want a box spring maybe.” He shrugged. “You can bring the slats in yourself.”
    She nodded. “Thank you.”
    “No problem. Nice painting, by the way. Yours?”
    “Aunt Pat’s, maybe. I found it…” she hesitated. “On the floor, right underneath this hook. It fell down when I entered the house, I think.”
    Trent’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. “Mind if I take a closer look?”
    “No, feel free.”
    “Nice work,” he said at last. “Probably worth a pretty penny too.”
    “Why’s that?”
    Trent shrugged. “You’d probably want to ask an expert to make sure it’s genuine. And Simeon Solomon’s not a major painter, but he was a significant minor one. I had no idea your aunt had somethin’ like this, but I suppose she thought it was better not to display it too openly. Enough gossip went on about her and Joann as it was.”
    “Were they lovers?” Chelsea blurted it out and then felt chagrined at having asked it so suddenly.
    Trent stared at her. “You didn’t know? They didn’t talk about it, I suppose. But yes, everyone knew they were. Nobody too much minded since they kept to their own business. Small towns can be cruel sometimes, but Pat and Joann—well, they may have been queer, but most people figured they were our queers.” He shrugged. “I figure if God made ’em that way, I got no business sayin’ they should be any different. And if there ain’t no God to have made ’em, then He don’t exist to be disapprovin’ either.”
    Chelsea took a moment to digest all that and then nodded.
    Trent was looking under the picture frame. “It fell, you said?”
    “I heard a horrible crash, and it was the only thing that looked like it could have caused it. And the dust was disturbed around it.” It had been kicked up enough now that she really couldn’t show Trent what she meant, so she didn’t try.
    “It would be pretty hard, I think, to even set this up in a way that it would fall from just a little movement in the house. You’d have to catch this wire just on the edge, leave it there—I don’t know, Chelsea, seems funny to me.”
    “Yeah, it’s weird all right. So what’s your explanation? Ghosts?”
    Trent chuckled. “I’m not rulin’ it out, but that’s probably even less likely than the idea that it was balancin’ on the edge.”
    “That’s what I thought.”
    Trent knit his brows in concentration and then shrugged. “Don’t know.”
    Chelsea frowned. “How come you know about this Simoleon—”
    “Solomon. Simeon Solomon.”
    “How do you know about this guy? I’ve never heard of him, and I took an art history class in college.”
    He looked at her for a bit. “Never did go to college,” he said at last, his drawl slower than usual. “Might have