The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

more, we rolled along the high, narrow strip of brush-covered earth, parallel to the highway. Then like the end of a roller-coaster ride from hell, we finally came to a full stop.
    I closed my eyes. “Thank you, Jack,” I silently whispered.
    My pleasure, baby.
    I turned to my aunt. “Are you okay?”
    Aunt Sadie’s hand was on her chest; her eyes open wide. “What a ride!”
    A few seconds later—after we both assured each other that nothing on either of us was bruised or broken—I unlocked my shoulder harness and tried to pop the door.
    “It won’t open! My door’s wedged against some high brush. Try your door.”
    “Oh, dear. Mine will only open about five inches.”
    Just then, I noticed someone had stopped to help. There was no shoulder on this stretch of road, just a narrow strip of weeds below the steep embankment on which we were now stranded. The driver of a car or van couldn’t fit on the thin strip of land below us, but a motorcyclist could—and that was exactly who’d pulled over.
    “That’s Leo Rollins’s motorcycle,” Sadie said, pointing.
    I recognized the big bronze Harley. Then Leo lifted off his shiny gold helmet and I knew it was him for sure—no one else in the area had Leo’s shaggy yellow hair and dark blond beard. Leo’s mountain-man build was a giveaway, too; and for a big man, he climbed the steep, uneven embankment with surprising agility.
    I rolled down the window. “We need help!”
    “I can see that,” he said. “You hurt?”
    Leo was a man of few words and when he did speak his voice was so low and deep, I expected the floor to tremble, like it did for those sub-woofers he sold in his electronics store.
    I didn’t know the man very well; Sadie didn’t, either. Ever since he moved to our town a few years ago, he pretty much kept his own counsel. The man’s beard was more famous around town than anything he’d ever done or said. It grew in inverse proportion with the length of the New England days—the shorter the days, the longer his beard. By the time Christmas came around, and his whiskers were about down to his pectorals, he always put in a book order with us. Last year’s included Lee Child’s and Michael Connelly’s entire backlists. We fulfilled it the last week of January and by the first week of February he was holed up alone in his Vermont cabin till March. For the past few years, he’d gone every year like clockwork.
    “We’re okay,” I assured Leo. “Just a little shaken up.”
    “Thank you for stopping,” Sadie called from the passenger seat.
    “I saw the whole thing,” Leo told us, pointing to the end of the onramp. “Seymour almost T-boned that Mac truck’s trailer. Where is he?” Leo glanced inside the vehicle.
    “Seymour wasn’t driving,” I said.
    Leo frowned. “But this is his breadloaf bus.”
    “He lent it to us to get home.”
    “I’m phoning Bud,” Sadie called to us, pulling out her cell phone. “He can pick us up and take us home. And he’ll know who to call to tow this thing.”
    “Good idea.” While Sadie placed her call, I turned back to Leo. “Can you help me get out of here? The door’s wedged shut.”
    Mutely, Leo nodded his shaggy lion head. He bent over and lifted up his right pants leg. Strapped around the upper part of his black boot was a leather sheath. He pulled free a fancy-looking dagger and used it to slash at the brush wedged against my door. I pushed the door harder, forced it half open, and squeezed through.
    “You said you saw the whole thing, right?” I asked, stumbling out onto the rocky hill.
    Leo caught me. “Yep.”
    “Then you must have gotten a good look at the car right behind us?”
    Leo’s brows knitted. “A car? Behind you?”
    “Yes, a dark sedan started tailgating us as soon as we left Millstone. There was just one driver, but the car’s high beams were on, so I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. I was hoping you could help me out there. Did you get a look at the car and the driver?”
    Leo scratched his temple. “A car? Behind you?”
    “Yes! The sedan was right behind us when we turned onto the onramp, so it must have been right behind us as we merged onto the highway. Did you see the driver?”
    “I didn’t see any driver, Mrs. McClure, ’cause I didn’t see any other vehicle. The only thing that came hurtling down that onramp was Seymour’s ride here.”
    I frowned at that, unable to comprehend how that could possibly be true.
    “Pen!”
    I