Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) Read Online Free

ghosts?”
    “One, but it’s way out there. My grandmother also told us about her oldest son, one of my uncles. He was a party animal in college. Liked to get drunk four nights out of seven. His grades tanked and he was about to get kicked out of school. One night he stumbled up the stairs to his frat house and the door wouldn’t open. He fished out his key and scraped it on the door until he found the lock, and it still wouldn’t budge. He banged and shouted and suddenly, bam! The door flew wide open, knocking him flat on his back. He looked up and saw his dead father looming over him. His father’s hair was undulating in all directions, his face was chalk-white, and his eyes were sunken, but my uncle could see pupils burning with red flames. The ghost didn’t say anything out loud, but my uncle swore he heard its voice in his head, threatening to make his life a living hell if he didn’t shape up.”
    He took a breath. Sidney stirred in her chair, restlessness in every movement.
    Zane spoke more to Giulia now. “Here’s the thing: Our family moved to America twenty years before this story happened and worked hard to assimilate. My uncle knew maybe a dozen words in Estonian, most of them scatological. He taught them to us when our grandmother wasn’t around. He told us this story when my brothers and sisters and I were between eight and twelve. He swore up and down that his father’s ghost spoke right inside his head in Estonian and he understood every word. He said as soon as the ghost vanished he crawled to the edge of the porch and puked all over the bushes. Later on, when it was just the boys of the family, he confided that he also ruined his boxers, if you get me.”
    “Zane, no offense,” Sidney said, “but that story sounds like something deliberately manufactured to make you kids stay away from alcohol.”
    “We thought so at first. We were cynical little brats. My oldest sister and I researched ghost legends and cornered our uncle a week later with our findings. He vowed on the heads of the gods the story was true. He went through the legends we showed him and described the ways his experience differed.” Zane shrugged. “He didn’t change from a party guy into a monk or anything extreme like that, but he did graduate with a 3.1 GPA and two job offers.”
    “Speaking as devil’s advocate,” Giulia said, “perhaps your grandmother planned it to get her son back on track and convinced one of her other sons to play ghost?”
    “We thought of that too. My uncle said his father’s ghost hovered over him like that angry mom ghost in Ju-On . Have you seen that movie?”
    “No way,” Sidney said. “I like to sleep at night.”
    “Wuss,” Giulia said. “I saw it in a double feature with Ringu . Zane, your uncle’s ghost story occurred before those movies came out, right?”
    “Decades before. He said that hovering ghost in Ju-On scared him almost as much as the actual ghost that night on the porch.” Zane spread his hands. “That’s all I got.”
    Giulia stood. “So despite my personal lack of experience, ghosts possibly exist. In the opposite corner, because of Sidney’s lack of personal experience, ghosts do not exist. Neither choice negates the possibility that a live human could be playing poltergeist in that lighthouse. I’m still going in with a hypothesis of greedy psychic is greedy. Thanks for the crash course in hauntings. Can you carve out an hour to dig a little deeper into those two?”
    Zane checked his onscreen schedule. “I can between four and five. I think tonight’s group game night will include Call of Duty: Ghosts. For some reason, I’m in the mood.”
    Sidney shivered. “I’m going home and playing with Jessamine for two hours straight as soon as Jane gets here.”
    Giulia snapped her fingers. “Jane. I knew there was something else on my to-do list. If she shows up, don’t let her into my office until I open the door.”
    She sat in her desk chair and soaked