The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery

be a cad.”
    “This is Penelope. She’s helping me out today.”
    “Charmed.” Brennan winked again, but this time it was more of a leer. “And what exactly are you helping our Mr. Shepard with, Red?”
    “The case of a missing mother.” I sniffed.
    Beneath a boyish shock of hair, Brennan’s eyes lit up. “Really? Sounds like great copy.”
    “Don’t tell him a thing,” Jack warned.
    “Okay, then,” I said. “I guess we’re off to Great Neck then.”
    “Great Neck?” Brennan echoed as we began to move past him. “You two investigating the deaths in that fire?”
    “What fire?” Jack asked.
    Brennan slapped a newspaper into Jack’s hand. “Read all about it, buddy. Eight dead in mansion land. Rich guy’s place burned to the ground. Could be arson. And if it is, it’s eight counts of homicide.”
    “I’ll read it,” Jack said, then hustled me out of the bookie’s lair.
    When we hit the street, I asked Jack how we were getting to Long Island. The weather was looking pretty lousy by now; clouds were smothering the sun. The daylight was dying.
    “Close your eyes, baby. We don’t have much time left.”
    “We’re not done, are we? I still haven’t solved the case!”
    “Close your eyes.”
    I did and all of a sudden the balmy September weather felt much colder. The hard street under my pumps turned soft, as if I were now standing on damp earth. A chilly wind blew and I smelled the acrid scent of charred wood. I opened my eyes and gasped.
    I was no longer in Manhattan. I was standing in front of the Long Island mansion that had burned to the ground. The stone foundation was left, but the structure itself was a smoldering wreck. I glanced around, looking for Jack, and noticed the wrought-iron fencing around the property.
    “Oh, my God.”
    The design in the fence was wholly unique—a series of pentagrams, each with a fleur-de-lis at its center.
    Jack walked up to me, took off his double-breasted coat, and draped it around my shoulders. For a moment, he hugged me close from behind, and then he turned me in his arms.
    “The officials on the scene are still assessing the damage,” he said quietly and pointed to two men in suits and three in uniform. “They pulled eight bodies out of here. The way they found six of the bodies, they suspect they may have been drunk or drugged. The last two were found in the basement tied to chairs—a man and a woman.”
    The weather was getting colder, the evening darker. A low mist began rising off the damp grass. I shivered. “Was the woman who died in the fire—was she J. J. Conway’s mother?”
    Jack nodded. “She was. Her body was identified within the week.”
    He handed me a newspaper, the same paper Brennan had given him, the same newspaper J. J. had been peddling earlier. There was a small photo with the article about the fire. It showed the owner of the home that burned to the ground.
    He was a fat man in a three-piece banker’s suit with dark hair brushed off his forehead. He was the man in Miss Todd’s portrait. He was the ghost in Miss Todd’s mansion.
    The caption gave me a name: GIDEON WEXLER.
    “But I still don’t understand, Jack. What does it mean? Who is this man? And what’s his connection to Miss Todd’s place?”
    I looked up, but Jack’s solid form wasn’t near me anymore. He was just a silhouette, at the edge of the grounds, fading into the fog.
    “Keep digging, baby,” his voice called from the rising mist. “The case is in your time now . . .”
    “Wait, Jack, don’t leave me! I need you! Jack!”
     
    “PEN? PENELOPE!”
    My eyelids lifted. Sadie was sitting on the edge of my bed. “What century is it?” I asked, feeling disoriented.
    My aunt smiled. “It’s the twenty-first, dear. And the day is Sunday and the time is nearly five. Do you feel up to working in the shop?”
    “Oh, yes.” I nodded. “No problem.”
    “Good. I’ll see you downstairs in a little bit then.” Aunt Sadie smiled, stroked Bookmark, and got up to leave. Sensing a snack in the offing, Bookmark jumped off the bed to follow her.
    I rubbed my eyes, feeling groggy. Part of my mind was still stuck in the past—Gideon Wexler was the name of the man in the portrait. But that name didn’t mean anything to me. And it made no sense. Who was Miss Todd to this man? A relative? A friend? A lover? And what did it matter, anyway?
    I called silently to Jack, but he was gone. Once again, reliving his past memories had exhausted him.
    “An