Give Up the Ghost: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery Read Online Free

Anybody else there?”
    “Yes.” I turned away from the man, who remained beside the body.
    “Friend of yours?”
    “No,” I whispered. “He was in the apartment when I got here.”
    “Are you in danger?”
    “I don’t think so. He called nine-one-one and he seems . . . stoic, but upset.”
    “Listen to me, Mel. I want you to go out in the hallway and wait until help arrives, do you hear me? No heroics.”
    “Don’t worry. I’m not big on heroics.”
    “Allow me to rephrase: nothing stupid, understood?”
    “Okay, good point.”
    “The officers should be there in a few minutes; give me about twenty. Don’t touch anything and stay away from the body.”
    “I know, I know. I’m not
that
stupid.”
    “That’s what they all say.”
    I did as the inspector said and went out to the hallway, but couldn’t help but peer through the open door into the apartment. The man remained balanced on one knee beside Chantelle’s body. The way he held himself reminded me of some of my father’s former Marine buddies, making me wonder if he was in the military. He was handsome, with a trim beard and light brown hair worn long, sweeping his collar, reminding me of photographs of soldiers from long ago.
    Aw, crap,
I thought with a start.
Was he a ghost, too?
    When I’d first learned I could communicate with spirits, I saw them only in my peripheral vision. Recently, I had started to see some of them straight on, as I would anyone else. More than once, in fact, I had assumed a ghost was a living person, as I had with Chantelle a moment ago. Distinguishing between a spirit and a live human can be all the more challenging because ghosts often don’t realize they’re dead. Asking a few questions usually clarified the situation.
    “Soooo,” I said, feeling awkward. “Are you . . . from around here?”
    Lame, Mel. You’re not picking up a man in a bar.
    “Just visiting.”
    Wait a minute
—the man had called 911, I reminded myself. There’s an awful lot I still had to learn about the supernatural world, but one thing I did know: Ghosts don’t carry cell phones. Much less
use
them.
    “Are you a friend of Chantelle’s?”
    “Her brother, Landon Demetrius III,” he said.
    “Oh, I . . . I’m so very sorry for your loss.”
    “Thank you.” His eyes glistened with tears, but his voice showed little emotion. “And might I inquire as to who you are?”
    His formal phrasing piqued my interest. Something about him made me suspect that he might have a mysterious past. Or was he just a theater major a little too committed to Shakespeare’s English?
    “I’m Mel Turner.”
    “How do you do?” Landon said with a nod, then looked toward the sound of distant sirens. “Let us hope those sirens are for us.”
    “Shouldn’t be long now,” I agreed.
    We waited in silence for a few moments as the sirens drew closer.
    “You had an appointment for a reading, then?” Landon asked.
    “No, I was supposed to talk to your sister ab—” I realized with a start that I had not escaped
Mel’s Dreaded Curse
: I had once again encountered a body associated with a haunted house. Chantelle’s ghost wouldn’t be haunting Crosswinds, but . . . could her death be linked to that haunted mansion, somehow?
    “May I ask the nature of your reading?”
    “A twenty-nine-million-dollar haunted house.”
    His elegant eyebrows rose, just a smidgen.
    He was still kneeling, and despite the tragic circumstances I couldn’t help but admire him for it. Last week my friend Luz finally convinced me to give yoga a try, and the balancing-on-the-knee thing just about did me in.
    “Do you know Chantelle well?” he asked. “Any idea what could have happened? Who might have
done
such a thing?”
    “I’m afraid I don’t. We spoke for the first time a couple of hours ago, to make the appointment. We’d never met in person.”
    The elevator pinged and uniformed officers poured out. I automatically raised my hands and stepped away from the