Daisy's Chain: A Cozy Ghost Mystery (Storage Ghost Mysteries Book 5)

Storage Ghosts

Daisy’s Chain

Chapter 1

“What
are you squinting at? You’ll give yourself even more wrinkles.”

Grace
looked at her brother and said, “I’m not squinting, I’m looking.”

Frankie
came to stand at her side.  “You were definitely squinting, do you need
glasses? There’s nothing to be ashamed of, your eye sight gets worse as you get
older.”

Grace
frowned at him. “I wasn’t squinting, I don’t need glasses and you’re older than
me!”

Grace
had been looking around the shop hoping to see a ghost, the ghost of an elderly
lady called Pearl.

Frankie
folded his arms and gave a satisfied nod towards the shelves. “It’s nice to see
the shelves full, isn’t it. Mum and Dad would have been proud. And we’re
actually making a profit. You can use some of our money to buy glasses, don’t
get ones that make you look like an old woman.”

Grace
ignored his last comment. “Mum and Dad would have been proud, I’m proud of you.
I wasn’t sure about this locker buyer business but you’ve made it work.”

A
glassy look came over Frankie’s face and he gazed into the distance. “Sylvester
says I’m a natural. And he should know,  he’s been to millions of auctions.”

Grace
doubted it was millions but she wasn’t going to say anything negative about
Frankie’s hero, the great Sylvester Sylver, the American auctioneer that they’d
met at the storage locker auctions. Grace liked Sylvester too but not in the
almost stalker like way that her brother did.

She
casually asked, “How many visitors have you had to your site now?”

Frankie
turned to her and beamed. “Over two thousand! Can you believe that? Ever since
I put those videos up of Sylvester working in his office it’s gone mad! I
didn’t know he had so many fans in England.”

Grace
had a sudden image of Frankie wearing a T shirt proclaiming that he was
Sylvester’s number 1 fan. She shook her head, better not mention that to
Frankie, he’d be online in a second getting one made. She said, still as
casually as she could, “Have you taken any more videos of the shop recently?”

Frankie
took his phone out of his pocket. “I took one yesterday, just a short one
showing our stock on the shelves. Just to let my followers know where
everything goes. I haven’t posted it yet.”

Grace
held her hand out. “Can I have a look?”

Frankie
narrowed his eyes. “Why are you so interested? Can’t you wait until I post it
online then log onto my site?”

“I
will log on but I want to see the video now.”

Frankie
didn’t look convinced.

Grace
went on. “I’m so proud of all that you’ve achieved, Frankie. Setting up a web
site to help our sales, that was a great idea, I want to support you.”

Frankie
nodded and handed her the phone. “Yeah, I have done well. Here, you can look.
The video’s quite small, hope your old eyes don’t strain too much.”

He
gave her a cheeky grin and walked over to the counter. He was soon busy looking
at paperwork.

Grace
was proud of Frankie and wanted to support him, but that wasn’t the reason why
she wanted to look at the video.

She
pressed play and held her breath.

The
video showed the full shelves in the shop;  household goods, bits of jewellery,
the odd antique. Grace wasn’t sure how they would class their shop now, it used
to be an antique shop when their parents owned it. Since their parents had died
and left the shop to Frankie and Grace it had become more of a bits and pieces
kind of shop. It depended on what storage locker they bought as to what ended
up in their shop.

Grace
squinted at the image. Perhaps she did need glasses. She could hear Frankie
wittering on about something in the video. She glanced up for a second and saw
the real Frankie wittering to himself by the till. Great, two Frankies. Grace
blocked his voice out and concentrated on the video.

There!

There
she was!

Pearl, the ghost who
lived in their shop.

Chapter 2

Grace’s parents
had died in a car accident recently. Grace was in the car at the time and was
almost killed. It was a few months after that when she started seeing ghosts.
She saw shadows at first and thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. She
saw her first fully formed ghost when Frankie dragged her along to their very
first storage locker auction.

Grace now smiled
as she recalled that ghost, a young man called Jacob. She’d helped him with a
problem he’d had. And Jacob had helped her, he’d led her to some valuable gold
coins.

Since then she
had assisted other ghosts. It had helped to take her mind off the constant
grief that she felt for her parents.

But there was one
ghost that she couldn’t see, this old woman in their shop. Other ghosts had
seen her, and they had heard her. It appears that Pearl uses language worthy of
an X rated gangster movie. The only time that Grace had seen her was through
videos shot on Frankie’s phone, and through a CCTV system that Frankie had
installed.

Grace looked at
Pearl now on Frankie’s phone. The old woman must have known she was being
filmed. In the video Frankie was talking about the items on the shelves, Pearl
held out her arms to demonstrate each object, as if she was on a games show.
She’d even hitched up her long dress to show off her tight clad legs. Grace
wasn’t sure whether the tights were wrinkled or if it was Pearl’s legs. As the
video went on Pearl got bored and started to make exaggerated yawning motions.
Then she started making obscene gestures with her hands.

Grace burst out
laughing. She put a hand over her mouth to stop the noise. She shouldn’t be
laughing but it was funny to see an old lady doing that. And, from what she’d
gathered from other ghosts, Pearl was here to look out for Grace. It felt comforting,
if somewhat weird.

The phone was
snatched away. Frankie said, “What’s so funny? That’s a professional video, I
haven’t had any complaints from my followers.”

Grace tried to
collect herself. “I wasn’t laughing as in laughing, I was laughing because …
I’m so happy for you.”

Frankie gave her
a searching look. Grace gave him a bright smile hoping she wasn’t overdoing it.

“Okay,” Frankie
said, “I believe you. It’s nice to see you smiling. You don’t look as haggard
today, have you been sleeping better?”

“Haggard? I don’t
look haggard! But yes, I have been sleeping better.”

Frankie nodded
and put his phone away. “Are you still coming to the auction? You don’t have
to, I don’t mind going on my own.”

“I like going. Is
it far away?”

“No, but go to
the toilet first. You know what you old women are like, first your eyesight
goes, then your bladder.”

Frankie swiftly
moved out of the way as Grace swung her hand towards him. He was too quick,
she’d get him next time.

She froze. Was
that a cackle she heard from behind her? Pearl?

She hoped so. She
really wanted to talk to her, find out more about her.

Grace paid a
quick visit to the toilet and grabbed her things. She was in a happy mood as
Frankie started up the van. There was a time when she thought she’d never be
happy again, she was in a pit of black despair and was unwilling to climb out
following her parents’ deaths.

She knew the
reason why she felt happier, she liked helping the ghosts that she met, it made
her feel useful.

Was she going to
meet a new ghost today? She hoped so.

A few hours later
Grace was wishing that she’d stayed at home.

Chapter 3

As soon as they
pulled into the storage unit facility Grace could hear something.

“Frankie, can you
hear that? Like a banging noise. Is there some construction going on?”

Frankie shrugged
and switched off the engine. “I can’t hear anything. Now, Grace, listen
carefully, it could be chaos out there today.”

“Why?”

Frankie held his
arms open as if it was self explanatory. “Me, of course. There are probably
fans of mine out there, people who’ve been following my blog posts. If there’s
going to be a mob I want you to come back to the van and lock yourself in.”

“Why would your
fans be here?” Grace asked. “Oh no, don’t tell me you’ve told everyone where
you’re going to be today?”

“I have a duty to
my fans,” Frankie said in a noble tone. “Come on, brace yourself.”

Frankie put a
smile on his face and opened his van door. Such was his confidence that Grace
half expected a mob of groupies to descend on him.

“Nice to see you
too,” said Big Bob.

Grace got out of
the van and walked over to the lone figure that was standing next to Frankie.

“Hi, how are
you?” Grace said with a smile. Big Bob used to tour the antique fairs with her
dad. He had proven to be a great friend since they started out on this locker
buyer business. It helped that he was the size of a grizzly bear, Grace always
felt braver at his side.

Frankie was
looking around Big Bob.

“Looking for
something?” Big Bob asked.

“Nothing in
particular,” Frankie said. He started to look around the car park.

A voice suddenly
cried out. “You! In the denim jacket! Don’t move!”

A young woman in
a bright orange security vest ran towards them.

Frankie puffed
his chest out and gave Grace a knowing look.

“What’s going
on?” Big Bob asked.

“It’s one of my
fans, she probably wants an autograph.”

Grace noticed the
angry look on the woman’s face but didn’t say anything.

The woman stopped
in front of Frankie and waved a notepad at him.

Before she could
speak Frankie grabbed the notebook, took a pen from his pocket and paused for a
second. He smiled at the woman and said, “What’s your name?”

The woman
snatched the notebook back. “Never you mind! You owe me £10!”

“Pardon?”
Frankie’s smile slipped.

“I’m in charge of
parking and you haven’t paid any parking charges since you started to come to
these auctions. I know your sort, think you can get away with murder!” The
woman held her hand out. “Ten pounds.”

Grace pressed her
lips together, her laughter was aching to come out. She glanced at Big Bob and
noticed he was doing the same.

Frankie’s cheeks
had gone red. He fumbled in his pockets, pulled out a crumpled note and handed
it to the woman.

She gave him a
look as she straightened the note out. She wrote something in her notebook and
then said, “All paid up. Don’t forget next time.”

“I won’t, sorry,”
Frankie said in a quiet voice.

Grace saw
Frankie’s crushed look and started to feel pity for him.

The woman
suddenly laughed and said to Frankie, “I love your site by the way, your blog
is hilarious!”

She turned and
walked away. Frankie gave Grace a smug look and said, “I told you, fans
everywhere.”

Any pity she felt
for Frankie evaporated.

Grace flinched.

There was that
banging noise again.

It was really
loud. She looked at Frankie and Big Bob. They seemed oblivious to it.

Which only meant
one thing.

The noise was
being made by a ghost.

Chapter 4

The
auction began when Sylvester Sylver appeared.

He
was wearing an orange leopard print silk shirt today. His collar was pulled up
and he looked more like a silver haired Elvis Presley than ever. He treated the
bidders to one of his famous megawatt smiles. He turned towards Frankie and
winked at him.

Frankie
gave him a casual wave. He turned to Grace and grinned, “Did you see that? He
winked just at me.”

“Calm
down, I thought you were getting over this man crush of yours,” Grace said.

Frankie
tutted. “Man crush! I admire Sylvester, he’s the best auctioneer in the world.
If ever we had another auctioneer you’d soon see the difference. Sylvester is a
professional.”

Sylvester
called out, “Are we ready to begin? We’ve got some awesome lockers today, and,
I’ll be honest, folks, some not so awesome ones.”

The
banging noise had reduced in volume and Grace wasn’t flinching anymore at the
thudding. She said to Big Bob, “What does he mean by not so awesome?”

Big
Bob replied, “I’ve heard rumours that there are some charity scam lockers up
for auction today.”

Noticing
Grace and Frankie’s confused looks, Big Bob explained, “You know you get those
charity bags through the post? Some companies run scams. They collect the
filled bags from doorsteps but the bags don’t go to charity shops. They rifle
through the contents and take out the best items. I’ve heard that they find all
sorts of valuable stuff, they make a good profit.”

Grace
nodded. She’d filled charity bags many times, she’d had no qualms about putting
good items in there thinking she would help the charity to raise money.

Big
Bob carried on, “Anyway, they sell the good stuff online or on market stalls.
They put the rubbish in storage lockers like this, mount them up until the
doors can hardly be closed. They use false names and credit checks to get the
lockers in the first place. After a few months they stop paying the fees and
the lockers come up for auction.”

“That’s
awful,” Grace said. “Can’t the police do anything?”

Big
Bob shrugged his big shoulders. “They can’t do anything unless they catch them.
These companies use professional looking charity bags. People never check to
see if they’re genuine.”

Grace
thought of the charity bags she’d filled, a sick feeling settled in her tummy.
Why do some people have to be so mean?

The
auction began. The first locker was opened. The crowd gasped as they saw what
was inside.

“A
Ford Capri! With go faster stripes!” Frankie said in awe. “Grace, do you
remember that toy car I had when I was young? It was just like this. I’ve got
to have it!”

Big
Bob put a hand on his shoulder and turned Frankie to face him. In a serious
tone he said, “Frankie, never bid with your heart, bid with your head. You’ll
lose money if you let your heart take over.”

Frankie
tried to twist his head back to the car. “But it’s a Ford Capri! In red!”

Big
Bob said, “Let it go. Look at the crowd, look at the bidders, they’ve got a
crazy look in their eyes, you’ve got the same crazy look.”

Frankie
seemed to deflate. He sighed and said, “You’re right. I wonder why someone
would put such a car in a locker and forget about it.”

Grace
walked a bit closer to the locker. The ghost woman inside was smiling at her
and beckoning her closer. Grace stopped just at the entrance of the locker and
mouthed an hello.

The
woman seemed to be in her sixties. She burst out, “I’ve got to tell someone!
This car belonged to my hubby, he was devoted to it. I couldn’t stand it. I’ve
stored it here for twenty years! He’s no idea and now he never will!”

The
woman started laughing, it was almost hysterical.

Then
she disappeared.

Grace
didn’t know what to make of that. Did the woman need her help? Did she feel
remorse and wanted the car to go back to her husband?

Grace
waited a few seconds, the ghost woman didn’t return.

Maybe
she didn’t need Grace’s help.

Perhaps
this was going to be a day when no one needed her help.

A
sudden boom shot out.

Grace’s
hands flew to her head. It felt like something had struck her.

BOOM!

Grace screamed and collapsed
to the ground.