A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) Read Online Free Page A

we do next?”
    She tugged a lock of Meg’s honey gold hair. “We’ve got a name now…Hensley…and a little research should give us an address.”
    A short time later, they had found out that a Walden Hensley had been one of the founding fathers of Merritsville, making his money in lumber and building his huge house in 1875 as a monument to his success. From his picture, he looked stuffy, arrogant and ruthless. His mouth had a cruel twist and his eyes seemed almost malevolent. He held a cane in his right hand like a scepter. He was someone no one would ever want to cross, both sisters thought. His wife, Ruth, was small, unsmiling and nondescript…a little colorless wren who somehow produced four strapping sons, whose parentage could never have been questioned!
    Searching the tax assessor’s online property records under the name ‘Hensley’, Charlie found the address: 3750 West Myrtle Trail. With Meg pressed close beside her, she Goggle mapped the house and brought up its satellite image. The house was enormous and surrounded by a number of outbuildings. The grounds looked wildly overgrown, but when they zoomed in for a closer look, the enlarged pixels made it impossible to see anything at all. “I suppose we should drive over there and check it out now that we know where it is,” Meg told Charlie with a sigh.
    “That would be the sensible thing to do,” Charlie agreed with a sigh of her own.
    “But if we go there, we will probably end up having more doubts than we have now.”
    “Probably.”
    “And then we’ll never do it. I vote we go ahead, as planned, and handle whatever happens,” Meg said brightly.
    Charlie sighed again. Now that Meg had given up the role of ‘devil’s advocate’, she wasn’t entirely sure she liked the change. She needed Meg to keep her grounded, since, quite probably, she wasn’t thinking too clearly just now. But the contest…the house…it all felt so right, how could it be wrong? Memories from the past ‘niggled’ briefly, but she squelched them before they took root. The past was the past and, granted , she had made her share of mistakes, but it was no use second-guessing herself at this point. “So, ‘damn the torpedoes full speed ahead’?” she asked.
    “Yep! But…”
    Here goes, thought Charlie, Meg was beginning to have second thoughts before she’d even finished her first. “But what?” she managed to ask.
    “I’m fed up with men…all men, but you? You aren’t going to get involved or married or something and leave me hanging with all this?” Meg asked anxiously. “You always had a slew of guys asking you out in school, though you did turn most of them down, and you’re still attractive enough, when you don’t frown like that. I’ve always wondered why you never settled down, got married, and had a couple of kids. You’d make a great mother.”
    “Yeah, right. We both had such a great role model,” Charlie said dryly. She knew Meg was talking through her insecurities. Too many people had walked out on her in her young life, but she would never be one of them!
    “Well that takes care of the ‘kids’ part, but why never marry? You must have had your chances?” Meg persisted.
    Charlie’s eyes seemed to find some distant place. “I guess I’ve always been so busy looking after everyone else I didn’t have time. Besides, I wanted someone who would…could look after me. Not that I’d have let him, of course, but he would want to. That’s the point. He’d want to. And then there’s the love thing. I only came close once.” Her voice trailed away.
    “And? Who was he, Charlie?” Meg whispered, hating the pain she saw in her sister’s face.
    “His name was Paul and he’s been dead for more than three years. He was my love…still is,” Charlie said, slipping her arm around her sister’s shoulders. “And that’s a story I’ll never tell anyone.”

CHAPTER THREE

    Rayne swung her long legs into the taxi, gave the driver the address