The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

a drag race. But Peter never finished that race. When his souped-up GTO crashed, he hadn’t survived.
    “Anything else you need?” Spencer asked Bonnie, his eyes darting back and forth from the pretty teenager to the hardwood floor.
    “No, thanks,” she said brightly. “I’m almost through.”
    “Oh, that’s all right, Bonnie,” Aunt Sadie said, waving her hand. “You’ve stayed late enough. Get home safe now. We’ll lock up.”
    “Okay. If you’re sure?” Bonnie said. She put the broom away and headed for the door. “Well, goodnight, everyone!”
    “Wait a sec there, Bon,” I called. “Just one last thing. What did you mean when I asked you if there were any problems tonight?”
    Bonnie tensed as I walked up to her.
    “You said, ‘not really, that depends,’” I reminded her. “You want to elaborate on that?” (I didn’t like putting the girl on the spot. But given the day I’d had, I wanted to be as fully prepared as possible for any unpleasantness coming our way.)
    “Well, something did happen, uh, while the Yarn Spinners were meeting,” Bonnie replied.
    Her tone wasn’t jocular, but Spencer suddenly started giggling. He exchanged a look with Bonnie and she bit her lip—apparently to keep from laughing, too.
    I folded my arms. “Okay, spill it. What happened tonight?”
    “It’s the display,” Bonnie said. “The Zara Underwood standee.”
    “Uh-oh.” Sadie shook her head. “Here we go again.”
    “Again?” I frowned at my aunt. “What’s wrong with the standee?”
    Sadie shrugged. “One or two people complained to me about it earlier today.”
    “Complained?” I said. “About a cardboard cutout? What’s the issue?”
    Spencer started laughing harder. In fact, he laughed so hard he doubled over. Then I heard a deeper voice laughing inside my head. “Jack!?”
    Great, I thought, even the ghost knows what they’re talking about!
    “Okay,” I said. “Will somebody tell me what’s so funny?”
    “Just look , Mom! Look for yourself!”
    I followed my son’s pointing finger, striding back through the archway that led to the bookstore’s dark aisles. I flipped on the lights, which not only activated the recessed lighting but also turned on the many floor lamps throughout the aisles.
    The lamps were actually a part of our business strategy. When I’d first moved back to Quindicott from New York City, I’d used my late husband’s life insurance check to completely remake the dusty old shop. Sadie had been all for it, so we’d replaced the heavy metal shelves with hardwood bookcases, restored the woodplank floor, added colorful throw rugs, and placed easy chairs, Shaker-style rockers, and a variety of floor lamps throughout the shop. Jacking up the “comfy” factor had increased shop traffic significantly. Tourists found the bookstore “quaint,” like stepping into a New Englander’s private library, and locals found the atmosphere so comfortable they browsed longer and bought more.
    For all of the store’s casual coziness, however, we were still a business. We used display tables, cardboard book dumps, window clings, shelf-talkers, eye-catching standees, and signage near the picture window to inform local customers and window-shoppers alike what was new in stock.
    As I stepped past the cardboard displays for the newest front-list releases from Dean Koontz, Jacqueline Winspear, and Alexander McCall Smith, I finally saw the Zara Underwood standee.
    I’d put the thing together, and I well remembered what the two-dimensional cutout of the stripper-turned-actress-turned-writer was supposed to look like. The big-breasted blond had posed holding a revolver against her thigh. She wore high heels, white stockings held up with a garter belt, a powder-blue bustier, and matching frilly panties. The outfit was the exact same one described in a key scene of Bang, Bang Baby , Zara’s debut crime novel.
    At the moment, however, I couldn’t tell what the woman was wearing. Her entire body from her neck to her ankles had been wrapped like a mummy in four different kinds of yarn.
    “Oh, for pity’s sake.”
    Bonnie quickly stepped up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. McClure. But I couldn’t stop them.”
    “ Them being the Yarn Spinners?” I pointed to the fuzzy threads of lemon yellow, turquoise blue, neon pink, and white cashmere crisscrossing Zara Underwood’s cardboard torso. “I mean, who else, right?”
    Bonnie nodded and Jack started laughing again in my