The Ghost of Marlow House (Haunting Danielle Book 1) (7 page)

“No…” Danielle flashed him a smile. “I
need to wait for the plumber. You two go.”

“Are you sure you want your friend to be
alone with him?” Walt asked when he appeared a few seconds after Lily and Ian left
the house.

“He seems like a nice enough guy. He did
help her get the water turned off and cleaned up this mess. And Lily seems to
like him.”

“He lied about what he does for a
living.”

“Or so you say the dog said…or didn’t
say.
Whatever
. He seems harmless enough.” Danielle glanced uneasily at Walt.
She was not looking forward to telling him how he died.

“The plumber said he probably couldn’t
get here for at least an hour. Why don’t we talk while I wait for him?”

“You found out something?” Walt looked
hopeful.

“Yeah…I did.” Danielle pulled up a chair
and sat down at the kitchen table. Walt joined her.

“I went to the newspaper office first. I
learned that years ago there was a fire that destroyed all their past copies of
the paper. But the lady suggested I check with the museum, because they’ve collected
old issues from subscribers. So that’s what I did.”

“You found an article on my death?”

“Yes. The first article written in the
local paper.  Unfortunately, Lily called in a panic about the broken water pipe
so I didn’t get a chance to read any of the other articles.”

“What did it say?”

“Mr. Marlow, I don’t think you’re gong
to like this.”

“Well, I don’t imagine I would be
thrilled with any news of my death. And please, call me Walt.”

“Okay…Walt.” Danielle paused a moment
before continuing. “This probably explains why you’re still here. Why you can’t
seem to leave.”

“Go on.”

“You killed yourself.”

He didn’t respond immediately—just
looked blankly at Danielle. Abruptly he stood up; the chair he had been sitting
in crashed to the floor.

“I did not kill myself!”

“You hung yourself in the attic. Your
neighbor—George Hemming found you. He looked out his window and saw you hanging
in your attic window.”

“George found me?”

“He’s the one who stopped over here
after Angela left for Portland?”

“Yes. We were good friends. But this is
impossible. There is no way in hell I hung myself. There must be something in
the other articles—the ones written after the first one—the ones you haven’t
read yet—that say it was all a mistake.”

“I don’t think so, Walt. The museum docent
knew all about your story. Claimed to have read all the articles regarding your
death and said it was suicide.”

 “What did it say about Angela?”

“Just that she was in Portland, visiting
her brother. According to the docent this wasn’t long after you returned from
your honeymoon.”

“I remember Angela leaving for that
trip. We argued before she left, but I certainly wasn’t depressed and suicidal.
No. There has been some mistake.”

Danielle watched as Walt paced the
kitchen in a fit of agitation. Suddenly he stopped pacing and faced Danielle.

“I know why I’m still here.”

“Why?”

“Because I have to prove I didn’t commit
suicide. You have to help me. I can’t leave while people believe I killed
myself.”

Ian and Lily had just walked into Pier
Café when they heard a man ask the waitress: “Do you think they’ll change the
name or call it Marlow House?”

Lily stopped abruptly and stared at the
man. He was less than four feet away, his back to her as he sat at the lunch
counter. She couldn’t see his face, just the back of his gray dress shirt and his
head of shortly cut dark hair. His breakfast companion, a second man sitting
next to him at the counter, noticed Lily staring and turned around to face her,
a cup of coffee in his hand. The waitress standing behind the counter,
refilling the coffee cup of the man who’d mentioned Marlow House, glanced up at
Lily.

“Sit anywhere,” the waitress told Ian
and Lily. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

“Did you say Marlow House?” Lily asked
the man in the gray shirt. He turned around to face her. Lily found herself
staring into a pair of arresting black eyes. Both he and his companion looked
to be in their early thirties. The attractive dark eyed man looked as if he was
dressed to go to the office, while his companion, an average looking fellow
with forgettable features, dull brown hair and pale blue eyes, looked like a
construction worker, dressed in worn denims and a stained blue work shirt.

“Yes, why?” the man asked.

“Well...ahhh…” Lily stammered. A wave of
embarrassment washed over her as the man boldly moved his gaze up and down her
body before looking her in the eyes. The fact she was with Ian did not curb his
blatant perusal.

“My friend owns Marlow House.” Lily
almost said,
I’m staying at Marlow House
, but quickly changed her mind
because of how he was looking at her.

“Really? So when does it open for
business?” the man in the gray shirt asked as he turned around completely, now
facing Ian and Lily as he leaned back against the counter. Briefly he glanced
over at Ian, before looking back at Lily.

“Open for business? What do you mean?” Lily
frowned.

“I was just telling them how Marlow
House is going to be a B and B,” the waitress behind the counter explained. “So
you’re a friend of the new owner?”

“Yes, but how do you know anything about
a B and B?” Lily asked.

“Small town,” the waitress said with a
shrug.

“So it’s true?” the man in the gray
shirt asked.

“Umm….well…” Lily suddenly wished she’d
kept her mouth shut. “It’s one possibility, yes.”  Without saying another word,
Lily grabbed Ian’s hand and pulled him across the diner to a booth. They sat
down, sitting across from each other.

“What was that about?” Ian asked. Lily
glanced over at the counter; the man in the gray shirt was still staring at
her.

“I just felt funny talking about
Danielle’s business with strangers. She gets a little annoyed with me sometimes
when I blurt things out without thinking.” Lily picked up two menus from the
end of the table and handed one to Ian.

“So how do you think they knew?” Ian glanced
over at the two men and waitress. The man wearing the gray shirt gave him a nod
and then turned back around to the counter.

“Probably because it
is
a small
town. Danielle had her attorney do all the legwork already—checking into the
legalities, lining up necessary permits and licenses. Figuring out what she
needed to do to comply with the local laws. I guess when you start doing stuff
like that it’s kind of hard to keep it a secret.”

“So she’s got everything in place, ready
to go?”

“Not exactly. She wanted to check out
the property personally before making the final commitment. Unless the
contractor she’s hiring to check out the house comes up with a ridiculous list
of needed repairs, it’s possible she could be ready to open within a month.
That’s of course if we work our butts off.”

“That soon?”

Before Lily could respond, the waitress
came to their table with coffee and took their order. When she left, Lily
answered Ian’s question.

“If last week someone had asked me when
Danielle would be opening the B and B, I would tell them not until next
summer.”

“A year? Now you say a month?” Ian
sipped his coffee.

“I expected the house to be a
wreck—after all, it’s been vacant for almost ninety years.”

“So that is true?” Ian set his coffee
cup on the table and looked up at Lily. “It’s really been vacant that long?”

“No one’s lived in it since 1925.”

“I’d heard that,” Ian mumbled.

“You have? I didn’t realize you were
familiar with the house’s history.”

“I’m not really,” Ian shrugged. “When I
rented my house for the summer I was curious about the neighborhood.  Marlow
House is in good shape, but by the condition of the yard, I didn’t think anyone
lived there. I asked around about it.”

“Danielle’s great-aunt—that’s who left
her the property—she hired a housekeeper to come once a week.”

Joanne Johnson
,
Ian said to himself. Lily chatted away, her conversation wandered from Marlow
House to teaching. Ian smiled and nodded, yet his mind kept drifting back to
his real reason for being at Frederickport.  Lily asked him about his teaching
job, jolting him back to the present. Before answering, he looked up into Lily’s
green eyes.

   She was definitely his type, he
thought—at least her physical attributes—busty yet petite.  Tall women never
appealed to him. He wasn’t sure what it said about him that he preferred a
woman to look up to him, rather than standing at eye level. “I’m on vacation,
so I’d rather not talk about my work. I’m here to get away from work,” he lied.

“That must mean you don’t like
teaching.” Lily sounded a little disappointed.

“It’s not that, exactly.” Ian took a sip
of his coffee, trying to silently frame his next sentence. “But don’t you ever
feel you spend the entire school year focused on nothing but work?  Don’t you
ever want to take the summer off and explore new things?”

“I guess you’re right,” Lily agreed.
“That’s why I’m here.”

“So tell me about that,” Ian said.

“What do you mean?” Lily set her coffee
cup down and looked into Ian’s eyes. 
God he is handsome
, she thought.
I
bet all those high school girls have crushes on him
.

“It sounds interesting—your friend
inheriting Marlow House. Her plans to turn it into a bed and breakfast. What do
you know about its history?”

“History? Not much really. I know her
great aunt left her the property. Not a blood relative. She was married to
Danielle’s great-uncle, her grandfather’s brother. She didn’t even know the
house existed when her aunt died.”

“So she never knew
anything
about
the house until then?”

“Nope, nothing.” Lily shook her head.
“Her great-aunt and uncle lived in Europe for as long as she could remember.
She didn’t even know they had property in the states.”

“Interesting,” Ian murmured. He glanced
to the lunch counter where the two men still sat. Frowning, he turned his
attention back to Lily. “Does she know how her aunt came to own the property?”

“From what I understand she inherited it
from her mother. But beyond that, Danielle doesn’t know much.” Lily paused for
a moment, and then added, “Except about the curse.”

“The curse?” Ian arched his brows.

“They say there’s a curse on the
property. People who own it have bad luck, or something like that. I don’t
think Danielle believes there really is a curse.”

“Do you know if the house has been
repaired a lot over the years?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well…” Ian paused for a moment, again
looking for the right words.
How can I get the information I want without it
sounding like a strange question?
“If Danielle intends to turn the place
into an inn, I wondered how many repairs have been done over the years. How
many walls torn down, that sort of thing. It might reflect on how sturdy the
house is
.” That sounded lame even to me
, Ian cursed himself.

 “From what I understand the house has
pretty much remained untouched over the years—aside from a weekly cleaning from
a housekeeper. Of course, it has been almost ninety years, so I imagine there
were repairs over the years. Even when someone doesn’t live in a house things
can break. An unmaintained vacant house seems to deteriorate quicker than a
maintained house that suffers the daily wear and tear of people living in it.
In fact, Danielle and I had a discussion about this last night.”

 “You know, I’m pretty handy around the
house.”

“I noticed that this morning.” Lily
grinned.

“My dad was a general contractor. I
worked for him during high school and through college. You mentioned Danielle
was going to hire a contractor to check out the house. I would be happy to go
through it for her, no charge. It would be fun.”

“Fun? You have a strange idea of fun.” Lily
laughed.

“It would give me something to do, and I
always enjoyed the work.”

“Then why did you go into teaching and
not construction, like your dad?”

“It’s one thing to do something as a
hobby and another to turn it into a fulltime career—working for other people.
I’d rather do my own thing.”

“I’ve a friend who buys old houses and
fixes them up to flip. He makes good money, and he pretty much works for
himself.”

“That can be pretty risky,” Ian said.

“I used to think teaching was a
dependable job. Class sizes went down in California and teachers were in
demand. They went up again, and there were layoffs.”

Ian didn’t comment, so Lily asked, “So
why did you decide to be an English teacher?”

“Well…I like to write. It seemed to
fit.”

“Have you ever considered writing a
book?” Lily asked.

“Doesn’t every English teacher?” Ian grinned.

“I admire writers. I couldn’t do it.” Lily
shook her head at the idea.

“Why do you say that?”

“For one thing, I don’t think I’d have
enough patience to sit in front of a computer or typewriter that long.”

“I hear some people still write with a
pen and paper.”

“No way. I definitely couldn’t do that.
Sounds even more grueling than writing a book using a word processor.”

Across the diner at the lunch counter,
the two men sat alone finishing their breakfast. Adam Nichols, the man wearing
the gray shirt briefly glanced over to Lily, before turning his attention back
to his companion, Bill Jones.

 “The friend. She’s hot,” Adam chuckled.

“Looks like Ian agrees with you. He sure
gave you a dirty look when you were checking her out.”

 “I wonder what the other one looks
like.” Adam popped the last bite of toast in his mouth.

“You following Ian’s lead?” Bill glanced
over at Ian and Lily.

“It’s a good guess he’s already made it
in the house.”

“We wouldn’t have to deal with this crap
if Renton knew what the hell he was talking about. We were supposed to have a
week to get it done.” Bill picked up his mug and downed the remainder of his
coffee.

“And we better figure out how we’re
going to do that before Ian beats us to it.”