Spackled and Spooked
Read Spackled and Spooked Online
Authors: Jennie Bentley
Table of Contents
Home-Renovation and Design Tips
Unannounced House Guest
Without Derek here, the place was eerily quiet. I started humming, but stopped when I realized I was singing the theme song from the
Twilight Zone
.
I’d been at it for about ten minutes maybe, when I heard a sound. And then another. Footsteps. I stopped, holding my breath.
“Derek?” I tried. “Is that you?”
But no, how could it be? I’d put the security chain on the door; he couldn’t have gotten in. So who was coming down the hallway toward the bathroom . . . ?
“Derek? If you don’t stop scaring me right now, I’ll kill you!” A little ribbing is OK—I’d come to expect that from him—but this was going too far.
“Derek? Dammit, say something, OK?”
Nothing. And yet the steps kept coming closer. Soft, inexorable steps on the fluffy carpet in the long hallway. Any second now, whoever was outside would be visible through the open door. I turned to face the opening, my legs stiff. I gripped my wallpaper scorer so tightly that my fingers hurt, and prepared for battle.
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Jennie Bentley
FATAL FIXER-UPPER
SPACKLED AND SPOOKED
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SPACKLED AND SPOOKED
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2009
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Acknowledgments
Just like last time, a lot of people had a hand in making this book what it is, and in helping me survive the ordeal of getting it here. Thanks, hugs, and kisses to the following:
My agent, Stephany Evans, for support and encouragement, and for sticking with me through it all.
My editor, Jessica Wade, for continued belief in me and for allowing me to continue the journey with Avery and Derek.
My publicists, Megan Swartz with Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Tom Robinson with Author and Book Media, without whom this book would be nowhere.
To Rita Frangie and Jennifer Taylor, for an outstanding cover.
My long-distance critique partner, Jamie Livingston Dierks, for reading every word of this manuscript, twice.
My other critique partner, Myra McEntire, for hot chocolate and conversation, some of it when I really ought to have been writing instead.
Fellow writers Hank Phillippi Ryan, Tasha Alexander, Diana Killian, and Kelli Stanley, as well as the rest of the ITW Debut Authors and assorted Sisters and Brothers in Crime, for helping me navigate the choppy waters of the publishing biz.
My Facebook friend Jennie Puplett nee Bentley, for approving my use of her maiden name.
Everyone who read the first DIY,
Fatal Fixer-Upper
, and liked it—especially those of you who took the time to say so, to me or someone else.
My family and friends, near and far, who know the real me and love me anyway. Particularly my husband and my two boys, for putting up with my often crazy schedule, and for developing a real liking for frozen chicken nuggets and microwaveable vegetables. You allow me to do what I love, and I couldn’t be more appreciative!
xoxo
1
“There is no such thing as ghosts,” I said firmly.
“Glad to hear it,” my partner in grime answered.
I squinted up at him, suspiciously. Not only is he quite a lot taller than me, but I was kneeling on the floor of my Second Empire Victorian cottage, putting the finishing touches on a chair I was reupholstering. He lounged in the doorway, scuffed boots crossed at the ankles and sculpted forearms crossed over his chest. “Why is that?”
He grinned, causing crinkles to form at the corners of his cornflower blue eyes. “Because you won’t freak out when I tell you I bought a haunted house this morning.”
“You did
what
?” I said, right on cue. He chuckled. I rolled my eyes. I love the guy—sort of—but his sense of humor can be a little trying at times. Especially those times when I’m the brunt of the joke, like now.
Derek Ellis and I had been business partners for just a few weeks and romantically involved for a few more. I had known him longer, but it had taken us a while to get to the point where we wanted to be this close.
Our joint venture, which had started out as Derek’s venture, was a home repair and renovation business head-quartered in the small town of Waterfield, Maine. We both lived there, although not together. I had inherited my aunt’s house the previous May, while Derek lived in a converted loft above the hardware store downtown. It has exposed brick, concrete kitchen counters, lacquered Scandinavian cabinets, and a whole lot of other things he won’t allow me to put into Aunt Inga’s—well,
my—
house because it would mess with the original 1870s mojo.