Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Oh, my God," Harper gasped, not for the first time. She pressed a hand to her chest and repeated, "Oh. My. God."

"Jeez, somebody get this woman a thesaurus," Gabe mumbled. "I thought she was supposed to be a writer."

He turned and glanced at Millie, who did a half nod, half shrug of confirmation.

Meanwhile, unaware of the ghostly critics in the room, Harper hit the button to stop the recording from playing and spun to look wide eyed at Natalie. "Oh, my God."

At this, Gabe ran his hand over his face and Millie let out a little giggle from behind her fingers.

"This is real," Harper said rather than asked, sounding breathless with wonder.

"It is." Natalie nodded, happy to be telling the complete truth for a change.

"And you believe it—the voice—is an actual spirit?"

"One hundred percent, I do, " Natalie confirmed, once again, one hundred percent truthfully.

"And Liam recorded this in my bedroom in the attic?" Harper asked.

Oh, well. So much for being truthful…

"Yes," Natalie lied with a definitive nod she hoped made her answer seem extra convincing.

Harper spun to look at her fiancé. "Can you believe it?"

Stone had remained suspiciously silent up until now, although he did look a bit pale beneath his farmer's tan. "I don't want to believe it, Harper. We sleep in that room. We… do other things in that room. And there was a ghost watching us?"

Poor Stone. But she did share his horror over the reality of ghostly voyeurism. A shiver ran down her spine.

Swallowing hard, Stone glanced at Natalie. "Where is Liam, anyway?"

She couldn't admit that even though he had showed her how to use the recorder so she could capture Gabe's voice in his lab earlier that day, Liam had refused to be there when she delivered the bogus recording to Harper and Stone.

"Uh, he had something important to do. A… meeting. A, uh, Zoom call actually. For his research." There. That sounded real.

More details always helped sell the lie. And Liam probably was working on his research project, which was something very important. So really, it wasn't all that much of a lie at all.

Stone-faced—no pun intended—Stone continued, "It's the same voice I heard in the garden."

He looked between her and Harper. And looked like he needed a drink.

"Which proves he—the ghost—did move out of the house. Just like he promised he would. He's in the garden now. See?" Harper was obviously in caretaker mode, trying to calm Stone. "At least he sounds like a nice ghost."

Harper reached out and squeezed Stone's hand, uncharacteristically assuming the role of the calm reasonable one in their relationship while Stone visibly freaked out.

If Natalie had to guess, Harper was worried he'd refuse to sleep in the house anymore. Since they were supposed to live there in her great aunt Agnes's house even after they got married, that could pose a problem.

"I'm nice and I'm handsome too," Gabe joked with a wink at Millie.

Luckily he hadn't been holding Millie's hand while speaking. Without the two entities having physical contact, Harper and Stone couldn't hear them speak. Only Natalie could. Why that happened, no one knew for sure. Gabe and the rest of the ghosts didn't get an instruction manual upon dying.

But not revealing themselves now was a smart move on Gabe's part. Hearing the tape had been enough of a revelation for Harper and Stone for one day. They didn't need to know they were in the midst of an up close and in person spiritual—or at least spirit —encounter here and now.

Harper spun back to Natalie. "But now that we have concrete irrefutable proof, we have someone else—besides the ghost—who we need to deal with."

"Who?" Natalie asked.

"That phony Madame Letisha." Harper scowled.

Uh oh.

"Uh, proof for what?" Natalie asked, fearing the answer.

"Proof to discredit her. We have to stop her from misleading other unsuspecting clients."

Shit. Was what had begun as a little white lie going to end up starting a war between Harper and Madame Letisha?

This could end up in a lawsuit. Would the tape hold up in court as evidence?

The recording was real—and really Gabe—but it hadn't been recorded in Harper's house nor had they captured it on the date Letisha had been there. Could an expert prove that?

As Natalie panicked, Harper continued to lay out her plan of attack against Madame Letisha, unconcerned that neither Stone nor Natalie was participating in the conversation.

"I'll give her a one star on Yelp, of course. But I think I need to go live on social media and play that tape. I'll cross-post the video to every platform I'm on."

The path to Madame Letisha's destruction continued as Harper started to brainstorm how to add the character of a charlatan—a fraud medium—into the current book she was writing. And then how to kill off the character in the most horrible way possible.

"Well that turned dark quickly," Gabe said as Millie watched Harper rant.

He turned his gaze back to Natalie.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked. "Any more brilliant ideas?"

She didn't need snarky sarcastic comments from the resident spirit. But she did need a good idea of what to do to deal with this situation and Harper.

Unfortunately, it seemed she was fresh out of ideas.