Murder on the House: A Haunted Home Renovation Mystery (Haunted Home Repair Mystery) by juliet blackwell Page B

night in a haunted house that I didn’t ask for a lot of extra detail. Like, for example, am I supposed to stay in my wing and ignore you all?” He grinned, showing white even teeth. Again I was struck by how this guy could be featured on a World War II poster, sort of a cross between an all-American boy and a Nazi ideal. “I’m here all by myself, just chicken feed for the ghosts.”
    Just then, I caught sight of Anabelle. She was standing right behind him at the end of the hall, looking just as she had appeared the other day, long dark hair, purple dress. This time, though, she wasn’t smiling. In fact, she seemed to be softly crying.
    I tried to ignore the pounding of my heart. Josh noted my gaze and followed it, looking over his shoulder.
    “What is it? You’re trying to freak me out, right?”
    “No, I . . .” I glanced at Stephen and Claire. Neither of them appeared to be seeing anything out of the ordinary. “Nothing.”
    Anabelle opened her mouth as if to say something. I couldn’t concentrate on both of them at once, and I really didn’t like the idea of chatting with Anabelle with Josh at my side. I didn’t even know if anyone but me could see her.
    “Look, I might as well put my cards on the table,” Josh began. “I—”
    “Um, do you mind if we go downstairs to the kitchen and discuss this over a drink?”
    He shrugged. “Sure, I could use a drink. Why not?”
    There was no sign of Mrs. Bernini as we all took seats around a small wood-block table in the brightly lit kitchen, a room so big it was clear it had been built for a cook and her staff. As I reached for some small juice glasses I found on an open shelf, I noticed my hands were shaking from the aftereffects of our close encounter.
    “Here’s the deal,” said Josh, leaning his muscular forearms on the wood block. “This project could make my name. How can I get you to back off?”
    Apparently Josh didn’t believe in small talk.
    “Um . . . you can’t?”
    “You’re pretending you can see these ghosts? Kim mentioned something about a little girl? Don’t you think it’s a little low, cashing in on a family tragedy?”
    “Mel’s the real deal,” said loyal Stephen. “If she says she saw the girl, she saw her.”
    “I know it sounds far-fetched,” I said, “but the truth is that I’ve had some experience with the, um, departed.”
    “She even has ghost-hunting equipment,” said Claire as she brought the leftover pizza out of the industrial-sized refrigerator. At Stephen’s look, she responded, “What? I’m stressed.”
    “What kind of equipment?”
    “An electromagnetic-field detector, a night camera, a baby monitor. That sort of thing. I’ve got the EMF reader with me, but we set the rest of the stuff up in the nursery.”
    “You’re pulling my—”
    At that moment, the receiver started to crackle. We heard crying, and the clicking of the camera. And then a mechanical voice: I drive a dump truck.
    Claire dropped her pizza. We all looked at one another for a moment, frozen, cartoonlike.
    “What the . . . ?” Josh said.
    “Is that clicking, whirring sound . . . the camera going off?” whispered Stephen.
    Next we heard the carousel start up, cranking out its tinny tune. And then the sound of cymbals crashing, and more I drive a dump truck , I drive a dump truck  . . . over and over.
    I headed for the stairs.
    “Wait,” said Josh, then louder as I started to mount the steps, “Mel, wait !”
    “What?”
    Josh looked white as, well, a ghost. “I’m not going up there.”
    “That’s fine. Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I wasn’t going to let Anabelle scare me. As for any other spirits . . . well, I had been okay before. Plus, I was getting aggravated. I’d noticed that always seemed to make me brave, perhaps beyond reason.
    “I’m going with you,” said Stephen. “Come on, Claire, Josh, we should all stick together.”
    But when I turned to proceed up the stairs, I heard