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The rest of the afternoon passed normally enough with a fairly steady stream of customers in and out of the shop. Some only browsed while others bought paperbacks or magazines for the beach. Before long, Paige realized it was time to close up for the night.
No sooner was the door locked and the front lights turned out than Paige pulled the key for the locked glass case out of her pocket and used it. She pulled out the leather-bound book, being careful not to let it fall open, and carried it to the shop’s back corner. Sitting in the chair where she’d spent so many hours perusing books as a child, Paige took a deep breath and caressed the logbook’s embossed cover. It was definitely old, and it even felt a little comforting. Of course, she loved old books, so it made sense that this one would feel homey to her.
Casper rubbed his head on her leg and started to jump as though to curl up in her lap. When he bumped into the logbook, he backed away and hissed but didn’t run. He sat down and stared at Paige.
“What a grumpy look, cat. What’s your problem?”
The white cat opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He still looked crabby though.
“Just let me do this real quick, and then we’ll go upstairs. I’m cooking some chicken tonight. If you’re good, maybe I’ll give you a piece.”
Casper lay down and licked his paw.
Paige turned her attention back to the book, took a deep breath, and opened it. Neal’s description of the blast of cold and the odor that he’d encountered from the book was spot on. Paige shivered, gagged, coughed, and sputtered. It made her eyes water as though she’d been chopping onions, and she screwed them up tight.
Then something cool and almost slimy touched her hands and face and she forced her eyes back open. A green mist swirled in front of her. Its source appeared to be the open book on her lap. She lurched forward with the logbook and deposited it on a table a few feet in front of her before scuttling back to the chair. Waving her hand in front of her face in an attempt to dissipate both the smell and the mist, Paige peered toward the book. There was definitely some movement happening over the pages that was independent of the mist.
Soon, the mist and odor were both nearly gone, and she sat face to face with a ghostly apparition. He—it? Paige decided to be charitable and stick with he—definitely looked like a pirate. She was a little surprised to see that the ghost was colorful and not just white, although he didn’t appear quite solid either. He wore a black hat of classic pirate styling, with braided leather bands draping off both sides. Long, braided hair the color of coal peeked out the back of the hat. Only the ghost’s torso floated above the book, no bottom half, but he wore a fancy red shirt, open at the neck, and a ratty brown leather jacket that reminded her of the logbook cover itself.
“Who are you?” he demanded with a thick, old-world accent. She couldn’t help but think that Captain McDougall sounded just like every pirate she’d ever read about had sounded in her head—like he was straight out of the rough streets of mid-1800s Dublin.
“Paige Murphy.”
“I don’t know you. Where’s my Nora?” The pirate looked around the room. “This is the bookstore . . . she should be here.”
Paige swallowed hard. “Nora was my aunt. She’s . . . um . . . gone.”
“Gone?” He raised his bushy brows. “Gone where?”
“Wherever you are, I suppose.”
“You mean stuck in a moldy, old book waiting to be called back into maritime service?”
“No, I mean she’s dead. She passed away last week.”
His bushy black eyebrows knitted together so hard it looked like he only had one. “She’s dead? Why, that lass was hale and hearty as a horse wearing wrought-iron shoes. What happened to her?” He leaned his entire torso toward her. “Hurricane get her?”
“No. Not a hurricane. A drug. It’s possible someone gave her something that caused her already weak heart to give out.”
“Killed by a secret potion . . .” A faraway look came over the captain’s ghostly face. He seemed to be looking at or listening to something that wasn’t in the room. For half a second, Paige wondered about her own sanity. She was sitting there conversing with a pirate ghost’s torso just like he was a real, live, full-bodied human being. But his gaze had snapped back into focus and he was talking again, so she pushed the thought away to pay attention.
“I’ll help you catch her killer and bring him to justice. He’ll walk the plank like the no-good scallywag he is.”
“Or she.” Paige narrowed her eyes. “How do you know Nora was murdered?”
“The dead know something about the dead, lass.”
His facial features transformed before her eyes. Before the faraway look had appeared, his face had showed the droopy, hangdog appearance of sadness. Now it looked hard and fierce. He was angry. Paige scooted back as far as she could in her chair without being too obvious.
He focused a demanding, hard glare on her. “You think she was murdered too, don’t you? Who do you believe did the deed?”
“I don’t know. Do you have any idea?”
He pushed his hat back and shook his head, making the leather cords bounce around. Paige thought it was interesting that the laws of physics still seemed to apply to his form. Either that or it was an illusion.
“I hadn’t talked to Nora in a wee while,” he said thoughtfully. “She and me used to have nice, long talks fairly often. I’d help her with her business when I could. But she didn’t like most of my ideas. Too . . . piratey . . . for her, I guess.” He chuckled. “She was a lily-white rule-follower. Pure as they come.”
Paige nodded. While she herself would push the limits sometimes, like when she went into Bickle’s Nursery, Aunt Nora always walked the straight and narrow path.
“You know”—Paige leaned forward a little—“someone painted a message on the front counter of the shop during the night yesterday. It said for me to get out while I can. Did you write it?”
“Nay. I have to stay close to my book. I hadn’t been out for a while, so today’s a big day. Getting out twice is pretty nice. Though that young whippersnapper didn’t even talk to me. Just fainted away like a deckhand with scurvy.”
She chuckled, imagining Neal as a pirate, scrubbing the deck of a ship. He’d be miserable.
“That was Neal. Did you see anyone else with him?”
“Nay. All alone he was, and up to trouble, I guessed. Nora was the only one who ever let me out. At least in the last fifty years or so.”
A rap on the front door sent Paige diving for the logbook. “Sorry!” she whispered as she slammed it shut. Captain McDougall’s ghost was sucked into it as it closed, making a slight whistling sound as he went.
She left the book on the table and leaned around the corner of the wall to see Jay standing on the sidewalk looking into the shop. Paige sighed. She really didn’t want to deal with him right now. But he’d seen her, so she didn’t have much choice. She shuffled to the door, unlocked it, and let the bike shop owner in.
“I saw the ambulance earlier. Are you okay?”
As Paige opened her mouth to answer, Scott’s voice, telling her to trust no one, bounced off the walls of her mind. “Neal got sick today. I don’t know much.” Keep your answers short and simple if you want people to believe you. She hadn’t said anything untrue—only left a few things out.
Jay glanced over his shoulder out the door and then peered past Paige deeper into the shop. “You know, I don’t think you should be staying here overnight. It’s not safe.”
How did he know she was living in the attic?
Before she could ask, he hurried on. “My offer still stands, you know. You can sell me this place and be done with it.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Okay, well, I’m heading out for the day. Watch your back.”
Before Paige knew what was happening, Jay leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then he turned and walked out the door. Paige rubbed the area he’d kissed. She so did not need this right now. What was with her suddenly attracting unwanted suitors? The thought reminded her of Marco. She hadn’t seen him in a while. She was surprised that thought gave her a pang. What in the world was wrong with her? She didn’t want Marco hanging around drooling on her all the time.
She sighed in frustration and hurried back over to the reading nook to open the logbook again. This time, she sprinted about ten feet away and let the odor and mist dissipate before sitting in the chair again. Luckily, the quantity of both had lessened this time.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Did you hear any of it?”
The pirate shook his head. “Nay. I can’t hear or see anything when the book is closed. It’s good you shut it too. Nora always kept my book closed when others were around just in case someone came by who could see me.”
“What do you mean?” Paige cocked her head at Captain McDougall.
“Oh, not everyone can see me.”
Her eyes widened. She had not expected him to say that. After all, Neal had seen the ghost and she herself had no trouble seeing him. Aunt Nora obviously could and Scott had. “Why?”
The pirate shrugged. “I don’t know, lass. Nora thought it was because people had to be special to see me.”
“Like how?”
“She never told me her suspicions on that one. You know, Casper might know something. Where is he?”
“The cat? He was here a minute ago. What do you mean . . .”
Casper padded over to the table holding the logbook. “Ah, there you are, you bugger. What do you know about any of this? Nora’s death, the painted warning on the counter, any suspicious landlubbers sneaking around here . . . any of it?”
Casper meowed three times and then turned and walked away, heading to the back room where Paige was sure he’d check his food dish.
She looked at McDougall expectantly. “Well?” Oh dear. Now she was waiting for the pirate ghost to tell her what the cat had said. She certainly was far removed from her life in Portofino of cleaning hotel rooms and eating fine food.
“Bah.” He waved a hand and wrinkled his nose. “He’s never very helpful. Not a smart one, this cat. Now, Casper Number Three was a wit. We managed to play many a trick on Nora back in them days. Solved a few mysteries too.”
“But he told you something?” She didn’t realize ghosts could communicate with animals. Witches, sure. But ghosts?
“All he said is that someone named Jay is a pirate.”
That was no help. “So how are we going to find out who killed Aunt Nora?”
“Let me put my mind to it. Perhaps I can come up with a scheme to trap the killer.”
“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Paige told the pirate goodnight, closed the book, and returned it to the case.
As she trudged up the stairs, something tickled the edge of her mind. The more she chased it, the more it ran, so she removed her attention from it and busied herself making some chicken. She hummed as she worked, and just as she opened the oven to slide the pan inside, a picture sprang into her mind. It was Jay as he reached toward her arm, leaning in to kiss her cheek.
Her heart pounded. She closed the oven door and turned around to lean heavily on it. That’s when she realized a clue she’d missed. Jay shouldn’t have known she was staying in the bookstore overnight, yet he’d warned her it wasn’t safe. But there was something else. Like a slow-motion movie scene being rewound, her vision honed in on his hand. There it was. A tiny bit of red paint on his right forefinger.