Bücher online kostenlos Kostenlos Online Lesen
The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

Titel: The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Alice Kimberly
Vom Netzwerk:
voice ask—
    “Who’s she ?”
    I glanced at the counter stool next to mine, half expecting to see Spencer, but it was another little boy sitting there—one I’d never seen before. His freckled face needed a good washing and so did his clothes; and his brown, shaggy hair looked like it could use a good trimming.
    The boys in Quindicott wore T-shirts and jeans, almost exclusively. This boy wore a collared shirt tucked into belted and cuffed gabardine slacks. He didn’t appear older than twelve, yet his frank, appraising brown eyes were staring up at me with an expression older and harder than any twelve-year-old’s I’d ever seen.
    “Did ya hear me, Mr. Shepard?” the boy asked. “Who’s she ?”
    “She’s going to help me with your case, kid. That’s who she is.” The voice was deep, gravelly, and intimately familiar.
    I looked past the boy and saw the man. “Jack.”
    It took me a minute to get used to the realness of him—the fortyish face with its hard planes and angles; the flat, square chin with its daunting dagger-shaped scar. His sandy-haired head was bare at the moment, but I noticed his gray fedora sitting on the counter in front of him. The double-breasted suit looked familiar, too, with its lines tightly tailored to his broad shoulders and narrow waist.
    “Hiya, baby. Welcome back to my world.”
    He was gazing at me now, over the boy’s shaggy head, with a kind of bemused expectation—as if waiting for me to react to this trip back in time, back to the world of his memories.
    I tore my gaze away from his intense granite eyes to check out the scene beyond the diner’s front window. I could see it was daytime, the sidewalk crowded with pedestrians in ’40s-era garb—men in suits and hats, women in calf-length skirts and dresses. Not one pair of distressed jeans. No flip-flops, T-shirts, tattoos, or piercings. The cars looked like something from a Smithsonian display: heavy metal dinosaurs spewing leaded fossil fuel. A few stories above, the steel-girder framework of an elevated train muted the midday light, dappling the otherwise sunny day with gray shadows and blue shade.
    I glanced back at my PI. “What year is it exactly?”
    Jack slid a newspaper across the dull olive counter. I skimmed the Times headlines—“Butter Rises to 90 Cents a Pound,” “Truman Hails National Guard,” “Long Island Fire Kills 8.” My gaze searched page one for the date: September 10, 1947. Two years before a bullet sent Jack Shepard to an early afterlife.
    “She got a name, Mr. Shepard?” the boy asked.
    “She does,” Jack replied, throwing a wink down the counter at me. “But it’s Mrs. McClure to you.”
    The boy whistled. “She’s a good looker. She your girl?”
    “I’m not his girlfriend,” I said. “I’m his—”
    “Secretary,” Jack said.
    “Partner,” I corrected. “Remember?”
    “We’ll see,” Jack murmured, patting his pocket.
    “We’ll see?” I repeated.
    “Case by case, honey. Case by case.”
    Jack pulled out a pack of cigarettes, shook one clear. I stared in shock as he dared to light up inside the restaurant. “Are you crazy?” I said, expecting the restaurant manager to rush over immediately and kick him out. And then I remembered.
    “What’s with the face?” Jack asked. “Oh, sorry. You want one?” He offered me the pack.
    I shook my head.
    “Oh, yeah.” Jack laughed. “Forgot. You’re one of those good-girl, do-right, no-smokin’ Janes.”
    “Nicotine’s a terrible carcinogen, Jack. That’s why smoking’s been banned almost everywhere in my time.”
    The PI blew a smoke ring. “Well, we’re not in your time.”
    “I’ll have hers!” In the space of an eyeblink, the little boy had grabbed a cigarette from the pack and shoved it between his lips. “Got a light?”
    I plucked the Lucky from the kid’s mouth, shoved it back into Jack’s pack, and slid it back to its owner.
    “Hey!” the boy cried. “What’s the big idea?!”
    “Your health’s the big idea, young man. Haven’t you heard that smoking causes lung cancer?”
    “Lung what?” The kid turned to Jack. “Jiminy crickets, what’s she talking about!”
    Jack took another drag, blew it out. “She’s saying you’re too young to smoke. That I happen to agree with.”
    “I’m twelve years old!” the boy cried, as if that were plenty old enough.
    “You shouldn’t start smoking at any age,” I said.
    Jack threw me another bemused look, and I realized with a start

Weitere Kostenlose Bücher