Chapter Thirteen

As I parked next to the lone car, I hoped the absence of visitors was because of the early hour and not lack of tourist interest. Given Taryn's comments, though, I suspected the Manor was having as much trouble attracting tourist dollars as the town of Ghost as a whole.

I finished the last bite of muffin and climbed out of my car, brushing crumbs off my jeans, and slung my messenger bag over my shoulder. Locking up was irrelevant. For one thing, if anybody was desperate enough to steal the Civic, they had more problems than I did. For another… Did I mention the fenced grounds, long driveway, and empty parking lot?

I stood next to the car for a minute, uncertain how to get in. But just as I'd finally decided to circle around to the front verandah, Saul poked his head out a door near the rear of the house. I hadn't noticed it because it was camouflaged by an odd combination of shadows and weird wall angles. In fact, even though I'd seen it now, I wasn't sure I'd be able to spot it again if it was closed.

"Maz! Good to see you!" Saul beckoned me over. "Come in this way."

When I jogged over to meet him, he held the door for me and gestured for me to enter. I stepped inside what was clearly a visitor's center—complete with a ticket window, spinners of postcards, and shelves of merchandise, although the merch was a little sparse.

"Good morning."

"So glad you could make it." Saul led me through the room and into a hallway. He tapped the wallpaper above the cream-painted shiplap wainscoting. "Thaddeus had this wallpaper custom made to honor his daughters."

I peered at the delicate floral designs on the ivory background. "I take it his daughters were named Daisy, Violet, and Iris?"

"Daisy, Violet, Iris… and Caroline."

My eyebrows shot up. "That seems… pointed."

Saul shrugged. "Apparently Frances, Thaddeus's wife, put her foot down when he wanted to name the fourth girl Heliotrope."

"And I'm sure Caroline was grateful."

"That's undetermined. From all accounts, Caroline was the least… compliant of the Richdale children, possibly because other than her twin, Cornelius—"

"Cornelius? Really? Why do people persist in giving twins alliterative names? Isn't it enough they've got the same birthday? Give them their own initials, for Pete's sake."

"I suspect the alliteration was the least of her worries. Her other siblings persisted in calling her Ragweed."

I winced. "Ouch."

"Exactly." He continued down the hall, making at least three sharp right angle turns before stopping at the foot of a narrow staircase. "We'll take the servant's stairs."

"Seems appropriate."

"Yes, well, we do live to serve."

I followed him up the steps to the second floor, where he ushered me out of the stairwell and down a wide hallway into a long, light-filled room, its ceiling and paneled walls painted white, a jewel-toned rug on its gleaming hardwood floor. Judging by the ceiling angles that framed a tall, multi-paned window, we had to be in one of the many gables I'd noted from outside.

Saul grinned at my slack-jawed expression. "We may live to serve, but that doesn't mean we have to be miserable while we're doing it. Please. Have a seat." He took his place behind the massive oak desk that sat in front of the window, and I managed to stumble across the room and sit in a brocade-padded chair across from him. He rested his elbows on his chair arms and laced his fingers across his middle. "I've been intending to inventory and organize Thaddeus Richdale's papers practically since I was hired on as director."

"When was that, sir?"

He waved one hand. "Oh, please. Call me Saul. No need for formality here."

"All right. Saul, then."

"To answer your question, about five years ago. I'm a lawyer by training. Used to practice here in town. Taryn took over my practice when my husband and I decided to semi-retire." He smiled wryly. "Little did we know that we'd be working harder in retirement than if we'd stayed with our original professions."

"What does your husband do?"

"He's now the town's librarian—totally unpaid—although he used to be the only family practice doctor in Ghost. He also volunteers with adoption and surrogacy agencies, helping to place children with loving families, and to help families like our own grow and prosper. Of course, he did that before he retired too. It was his passion project. You'll find a number of families here in Ghost who owe him for his work."

"That's lovely."

His smile turned tender. "Yes. He is."

"If you don't mind my asking, why haven't you been able to make progress with the papers? Are they stored poorly or damaged?"

"Not a bit. Thaddeus was meticulous in his record-keeping because he wanted to ensure that if any of his efforts to contact the other side succeeded, he'd be able to replicate the process. He also kept diaries, as did his wife and two of his six children. There are crates of the things, so if you think I was just throwing you a bone, please disabuse yourself of that notion."

"Crates?" I said faintly.

He nodded. "Crates. A whole room full of them. And the reason I haven't been able to even make a start is that all my time is taken up with fundraising to try and keep the place afloat." He grimaced. "And did I mention I'm supposed to be retired? I do try to work fewer than sixty hours a week nowadays."

"So what do you envision for the result? Do you want to just organize and catalog the papers? Cross-reference them? Scan them into digital copies?"

"All of that, yes. But what I'd really like is the story of Richdale and his quest in an entertaining and easily digestible story. Nothing dry or academic. Anecdotal. Something that visitors could pick up in the gift shop on their way out. Does that make sense?"

"Absolutely." Belatedly, I dug in my bag and pulled out a pad and pen to take notes. "The Dunsmuir estate up in Victoria has something similar."

"Exactly! Is that something you could do?"

I shifted a little uneasily. "In terms of ability, yes. I've ghostwritten similar books for clients who wanted their family stories… well, not fictionalized, but novelized?" When Saul nodded, I went on. "However, it depends a lot on the material. If the stories are there in the papers, I can pull them out and make them entertaining. But if there's nothing of interest?" I spread my hands. "I'm not a novelist. I can vet what's there, but I can't invent it from whole cloth."

He chuckled. "Oh, don't worry. The papers might be extensive, but there's a story there. Thaddeus was quite a character, and the rest of his family wasn't exactly boring. Cornelius ended up as a stuntman in silent pictures." Then he sat forward, eyes sparkling. "Now, how was your second night in your house? Did you experience any other manifestations?"

Okay, here goes . "As a matter of fact, yes." I extracted the paper from my bag and slid it across the wide polished desk. "This was on the kitchen counter this morning."

His eyes widened and he picked it up, holding it between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. "Oh," he breathed. "Not even left on the typewriter? Actually moved downstairs to the kitchen? That's extraordinary ."

I took a moment to wonder if Saul owned a half dozen time shares or had fallen for emails from displaced Nigerian princes, because he seemed far too innocent and trusting for a retired lawyer. If somebody had handed me that paper and said a ghost had typed it up and schlepped it downstairs, I'd have called bullshit in a heartbeat.

I knew that's exactly what had happened, but Saul had only my word for it.

"Do you suppose they're apologizing for the mess in the library?" he asked.

His voice was soft, so I wasn't entirely sure he was speaking to me, but I took a deep breath. "No. He was apologizing for almost doing it again."

Saul's head snapped up. "What?" And there was the lawyer voice.

I clasped my hands together in my lap. "When I was looking over the manuscript for a prospective client, someone, er, commented on it from behind my back."

His eyes widened. "They spoke ? You heard them?"

"Yep. He was, um, a little judgmental about the quality of the writing."

Now his eyes narrowed. "‘He'? It was a male voice?"

"Yes." I swallowed. "And not only a voice. I could see him."

Saul let go of the paper, which drifted to the desktop, and fell back in his chair. "You saw someone," he croaked. "An actual apparition?"

"Not only that. I know who it was." I took another breath. This might be tough for Saul to hear. It's one thing to poke around in ghost stories from Thaddeus Richdale's era, but this was someone Saul had known personally. "It was Avi."