Secrets of the Specter

I opened my mouth to ask about Nathan Hale, but my cell phone rang on the nightstand beside me.

I held up one finger to Maggie, pleading for her to remain, then grabbed my phone and said hello.

“Hey, Angie,” I chirped. My cousin Angie was one of my favorite people. She’d been the first person I called when Ms. Cat showed up outside my shop door, but sadly I hadn’t talked to her since.

“How’s it going, Mags?” she replied. “I was just thinking about you and wanted to call. It’s been a while.” We usually talked one or two times a week, but I’d been a bit preoccupied.

“It’s going…kind of badly, actually,” I admitted with a sigh.

“Oh, no. What is it?” I heard a series of sharp barks in the background as Angie moved through her house, the old floorboards creaking beneath her wait. “Paisley says hello and that she loves you, by the way. Now tell me what’s up.”

I took a deep breath and then let it all out—or at least most of it.

“We had a fire at the shop yesterday, and then someone tried to break into my house.” I really wanted to tell her the entire truth about Maggie and Ms. Cat, but that wasn’t the sort of conversation one had over the phone. Or at all, really. I didn’t want to end up in a rubber room or some such.

I tried to keep my attention on Angie and not on the computer screen, rereading information about Nathan Hale over and over again, waiting for the pieces to click into place. I was only half-listening as she told me about a fundraiser she and her nan were planning to benefit the cats at their local shelter.

She’d always been a cat lover, my cousin. At least as long as I’d known her. In fact, she never went anywhere without her tabby, Octo-Cat. When we’d first met in-person last December, she’d even brought him along to a festival downtown. And that was after her failed train journey down to Larkhaven for Thanksgiving that had resulted in a train wreck and a murder investigation.

Never a dull moment for either of us, it seemed.

Still, for all of Angie’s quirks, she never ranted and raved about ghosts or magical cats. I knew she wouldn’t judge me if I chose to relay my experiences with both of said things, but I also knew that I needed to focus on what had happened to Maggie in the past—not why she was here now.

Like a good cousin, Angie offered me a string of platitudes and offered to fly down to help if I needed her. I, of course, refused and tried to move the conversation back to her life in Blueberry Bay. She was just telling me about how her and Charles’s wedding plans were coming along when…

“Meow.”

I craned my neck to get a better view of the floor.

Ms. Cat meowed again, and the image of Maggie flickered in and out, like a dying lightbulb.

“Hey, Ang,” I interrupted. “Remember the cat I called you about? She sort of adopted me, and I think she needs me for something now.”

Angie chuckled. “Well, if anyone understands the demands of living with a cat, it’s me. Call me later.”

“Will do,” I promised before ending the call and shifting my focus back to Maggie.

“Sorry about that,” I whispered. Yes, I probably should’ve dealt with the ghost instead of taking the call. But it felt so good to be normal again, if only for a short while.

“Are you…?” My words fell away as I tried to think of a good way to put my question. “Um, were you involved with Nathan Hale?” I asked.

Her eyes widened, and she floated a little bit closer. My heart lifted with hope. I’d finally come upon something helpful!

“Okay, I’ll take that as a yes. Were you his girlfriend or wife?”

Maggie shook her head and cast her gaze toward the floorboards, appearing dejected.

I sighed and sat back. Nathan was important. I just had to figure out how. “Aunt? Daughter? Mother?”

Maggie clasped her hands together, looking hopeful, but still shook her head. I was getting closer.

“Oh,” I exclaimed. “I’ve got it. You were Nathan Hale’s sister, right?”

A delighted smile spread across Maggie’s face, and she nodded eagerly.

“Great,” I said, letting out a slow breath of relief. “I’ll look and see what I can find about it, okay?”

Maggie was still smiling wide when she faded out of my bedroom.

Ms. Cat meowed, then jumped up on the bed and curled up in a ball to sleep at my side.

Yes, I was finally getting somewhere!

Maggie was Nathan’s sister.

I pulled my computer back onto my lap to see what else I could find about him.

Not a lot, as it turned out.

After sitting for ages and finding nothing, I decided to head to the kitchen for a snack. When I returned to my room with a bowl of pretzels and a bottle of water, Ms. Cat had vanished from her spot on the bed.

I considered searching for her, but with my luck, she was already two towns over. That was another mystery I would need to solve because I’d done the math. There was no way she could have gotten from the scene of our car accident to my house as fast as she did—at least she couldn’t have done it on foot.

I had to trust that she’d come back, just like she had every time before. So instead of searching for her, I dug back into my Nathan Hale research.

Now that I knew precisely where to look, there was much less information to find.

Still, I persisted.

One way or another, I had to help Maggie.

And, oh yeah, it would also be nice to not die myself, provided the warning in the letter she gave me during our first meeting had any merit.

And given everything I’d learned so far, I strongly suspected it did.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Maggie kept off the mortal plane for the rest of that day, leaving me to idly search for more information on my own. Now that I had a lead, I had a hard time giving up the hunt—no matter how few and far between the results proved to be.

Ms. Cat eventually wandered back in, licking her chops.

“Did you have yourself a nice drink of water?” I cooed. She replied by staring at me blankly.

When I turned my eyes back to the laptop, she hopped up onto her spot on the bed, staying close while I combed the internet.

It felt like hardly any time at all had passed, but now the sun had already begun its descent toward the horizon. I took out my phone and texted Aunt Linda to let her know that I’d be staying at my own place tonight.

She replied within a few seconds: Set your alarm!

Huh, so even though I hadn’t told her about the attempted break in, she’d still heard all about it from somewhere. Small-town life at its finest.

After assuring her I would take every precaution to remain among the living, I went downstairs and made sure all my doors and windows were locked tight and engaged the alarm. I’d gotten lax about making sure the house was completely fortified as of late. Mostly because nothing had ever happened… until last night. I wouldn’t slack off on security again, now that some would-be intruder had put the fear of God into me.

I’d forgotten to swing back by Aunt Linda’s house to grab Ms. Cat’s litter box, so I found an old Amazon delivery box and poured some litter inside. It would have to do for now.

As I opened a can of food and plopped it onto a tea plate for her dinner, a worrying thought occurred to me.

If Maggie appeared, would that set the alarm off?

I considered what the tech had told me when he’d first installed the system. He’d said nothing of ghosts, but he said it would go off if any doors or windows were opened and the code wasn’t put in within ten seconds following that.

Hmm. Unless Maggie had plans to open all the doors and windows in the house, I should be good to go. At least I hoped that would be the case.

Whatever the case, I was safe for now. Secure in that knowledge, I settled into bed. I had to give my brain a break from all the digging into Maggie’s past and my present I’d done as of late.

I pulled out a new Historical Romance novel I’d purchased from the bestsellers rack at the supermarket and dove in. I was glad the time period was Elizabethan England and not Revolutionary America for a change. I managed a few chapters before falling asleep with the paperback splayed open across my chest.

Ree-ooh! Ree-ooh!

The next thing I knew, my alarm system was whooping and hollering downstairs.

My chest tightened as I scrambled up. My book went flying, but I couldn’t worry about that just now.

I charged out of bed and slammed my bedroom door shut and twisted the lock in a panic. Fat lot of good that lock would do if someone had already broken through my thick outside locks.

Think, Mags. Think!

I heaved and ho-ed and pulled my chest of drawers over as my cell phone began to chirp.

The moment I had the door covered, I ran over to the nightstand to retrieve my cell.

“Heh-hello?” I croaked, my throat dry. After swallowing, I tried again. “Hello?”

“This is Brenda with Adams Alarms. We show a breach at your home. The police have been called. Are you safe?”

“I’m safe. I’m in my bedroom, and I blocked my door,” I whispered, just in case somebody was inside.

“Good.” The woman on the phone was calm and collected. I wish I could’ve said the same about myself. “Please stay there and stay on the line with me until the police arrive.”

“Okay. Um. How will they get in?” I asked.

“We show the front door was opened,” she said. “We can’t tell if it was broken open or if somebody entered with a key.”

Of course not. I hadn’t sprung for the video package like the salesman had wanted me to. I’d felt silly enough as it was just getting the regular alarm system.

“The police just turned onto your street,” Brenda informed me. “Do you hear the sirens?”

I hurried over to the window and tried to listen over the wild thudding of my heart. “Yes. I hear them.”

I watched through the window as one police car pulled into my driveway, then sighed when Officer Don hurried to my front door with his flashlight shining and one hand on his gun.

Seriously, did this guy work twenty-four hours a day? “He’s here,” I told Brenda, all the while wondering if Don would be mad at me for not taking his advice about sleeping elsewhere.

“Wait for him to come to your bedroom door in case there’s still an intruder in the house,” the operator instructed. “Just sit tight.”

It took a solid five minutes for Officer Don to make it to my door. While I waited, I searched the room for Ms. Cat, but she wasn’t in here. I even checked under the bed and in the back of my closet. No sign of her.

“Hello?” a masculine voice called through my bedroom door. “Mags?”

“Yes?” I replied, my lips dry. I wasn’t about to call out his name, in case it was the intruder pretending to be the officer.

“This is Officer Don,” he replied.

I started to move the chest of drawers, but then my paranoia got the best of me. What if the person who broke in got the drop on the officer, and knew his name, so they were pretending to be him? I didn’t know Officer Don well enough to be sure that was his voice through my thick oak door.

“Can you prove it’s you?” I squeaked.

“Well, I’m aggravated at you for staying here again so soon after I took your report the day before yesterday,” he groused. “You should’ve stayed at your aunt’s another night or two.”

Ouch. Yeah, that was him, and just like everyone else in town, he knew all my business.

“Okay, hang on,” I called.

I heaved my chest of drawers back where it went, then unlocked the door and swung it open, belatedly realizing I was just wearing a tee and undies. I had shed my bra before bed but didn’t change into real pajamas or put on any pants. Whoopsie.

“Uh, ha! Give me a second to change,” I said, then closed the door again. “I’ll be right downstairs.”

“Sure,” he replied with a chuckle. “I’ll wait in the living room while you pack a bag to go back to your aunt’s.”

Oof. Yeah, as much as I hated to admit it, he was right.

I changed quickly, packed another bag, and headed downstairs to find Ms. Cat perched on Officer Don’s lap. “You’re going to get little white hairs all over your nice dark uniform,” I warned with a giant roll of my eyes

He shrugged. “I have a chihuahua, two cats, and a hamster. So, let’s just say, I always keep a lint roller in my squad car.”

With a smile, I scooped the cat out of his arms. “Come on, you trouble maker, you.” I scratched her behind the ears, and she let out a rumbling purr. “Your litter box is still at Aunt Linda’s. And there’s food there, too, since I see you didn’t finish your dinner.”

With a sigh, I smiled at Officer Don and offered a reluctant shrug. “I’m ready. Did you find anything when you looked at the door?”

He shook his head. “Your front door was open, but this time there was no sign of forced entry. More than likely, whoever it was had a key but took off when they triggered the alarm.”

Who could have possibly had a key? As far as I knew, Aunt Linda had the only other copy, and she would never give it out to anyone without my say so. This was getting downright terrifying. Where could you go when you weren’t even safe at home?

“I need you guys to catch this person and fast,” I hissed, even though I knew he was just trying to help.

Officer Don nodded as he rose from my couch. “I agree.” He did another check of the house while I tossed Ms. Cat and my bag in my car.

“I’ll get with the captain,” he promised me after I entrusted him with my alarm code. “See if we can increase the patrol around here.”

I pursed my lips. “Thank you. I’ll try to think of anything I can do. Maybe I’ll spring for the alarm company to set up the video surveillance they tried to get me to pay for before.”

“Seems like that might be a good idea.” He tipped his hat, then waited by his car while I got into mine. It wasn’t until I put my car in reverse that he got into his cruiser and backed out of my driveway. Man, Officer Don sure was serious about my safety.

Someone out there really wanted to hurt me—or at least to spook me. But at least I had someone who was equally committed to keeping me safe.

Things could have been a whole lot worse if I didn’t.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Wakey-wakey. Eggs and bakey,” Aunt Linda called from the doorway to my old bedroom.

I smiled in my half-sleep. She’d woken me up with that silly phrase since I was a little girl and had come to spend the night at her house on the weekends, long before my parents died and I moved in for good.

“Morning, Auntie,” I mumbled. “Five more minutes.”

“No more than five or your breakfast will get cold,” my aunt chastised, and then her footsteps echoed down the hall.

I rolled over in bed and reached for my phone. No missed calls or texts. I guess that was a good thing. I’d slept until nearly ten that morning. Apparently I’d needed it after all the chaos of last night.

“Sorry,” I said as I walked into the kitchen. “This is late, even for me.”

She just smiled as she washed her hands off on a towel. “I only got up about an hour ago, myself. I had a hard time falling back asleep after all the hullabaloo of last night.”

Yup. Her and me both.

I started to apologize for bothering her in the dead of night, but she held up her hand and shushed me. “I’m glad you came to me. I would’ve been upset if you hadn’t. After all, what’s family for if not times like this.”

I poured myself a giant cup of coffee, then pulled out a chair at the old oakwood table. “What’s your plan for today?” I wondered aloud.

“I spoke to the fire chief about a half hour ago.” She handed me a plate heaped full of yummy breakfast foods. “We can get in the shop now. It’s safe. They’ve finished gathering what they need and should be able to finish running analysis within the next day or two. The good news is they’re reasonably certain that we didn’t set the place on fire ourselves.”

I froze with a giant strip of bacon held in front of my face. “Is that really a possibility they were considering?”

She nodded and sipped her coffee. “They have to be thorough.”

Suddenly I felt a lot less hungry.

“Don’t worry,” Aunt Linda reassured me. “I think the insurance will cover it. We’ll get their follow-up report within a few days, they said.”

Slumping down at the kitchen table, I tried not to cry. “I can’t see how I let this happen, I really can’t. I feel so guilty.”

“It could’ve happened to any of us.” She rubbed my back consolingly. “I should’ve said something about removing the curtain when it first went up.”

What a fool I’d been. I’d worked at the candle shop all my life. I knew the risks and dangers. I just couldn’t understand how I’d let it get out of control like that.

I ate in silence to appease my churning stomach, but I silently berated myself the whole time. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about it until the insurance report came in. There was, however, another problem I could actively work on solving.

I pushed my empty plate aside and cleared my throat. “Aunt Linda, what do you know about our family’s involvement in the spy rings during the Revolutionary War?”

Her eyebrows went up. “I don’t know much offhand, but…” She stood. “I’ve got some family history stuff in my office. A family tree and what not. Let me go see what I can find.”

Oh, that sounded promising. I gulped down the rest of my coffee, then hurried to the office the two of us had shared when I lived here with my aunt.

“How come we’ve never talked about this before?” I asked when I caught up with her in the office. She’d already pulled out a massive leather-bound book and was flipping through the pages.

“I don’t know, I just figured you weren’t all that interested in old family history.” She stopped turning pages and scanned the one before her, then pointed to a spot on the family tree.

I craned my neck to see better.

“Susannah Hale married into our family here,” she explained, tapping up and down. “But when she married, she started going by Margaret.”

“Why?” I asked, looking at the path of Susannah’s descendants. She was my great aunt a million times removed—or something like that.

With a big sigh, Linda met my gaze. “She was a part of the spy ring, just like I mentioned the other day.” As it turned out, if she’d just told me more of what she’d known, I could have saved hours of digging around for the answers myself.