Adam Nichols sat at his desk, surfing through the local MLS listings on his computer, when Bill Jones walked into his office.
“You’re working hard,” Bill snarked as he took a seat on one chair facing Adam.
Adam looked up from his computer and took his right hand off his mouse and absently picked up a pen. “Seeing if anything interesting has come on the market.”
“And?”
Adam leaned back in his office chair, his right hand still holding the pen. “A couple of things, but overpriced. So what’s up?”
“I stopped by to ask when you want me to make the rest of the repairs over at the tunnel house.”
Adam cringed. “Can you call it the Crawford house?”
“Why? I bet if you list it as the tunnel house, every agent in town will make an appointment to show the property.”
“I’d rather have someone show it to one approved buyer than a hundred lookie-loos who end up stomping through the house with dirty shoes and no intention to buy.”
“It’s possible a couple of those lookie-loos might want to buy a house with a secret tunnel to Marlow House and you end up with a bidding war.”
“Yeah, right,” Adam scoffed.
“So when do you want me to do the work?”
Adam tossed the pen back on the desktop and sat up straighter. “I’m still waiting for the Crawfords to sign the listing agreement. At the moment, they’re arguing with each other over the listing price, and I don’t want to spend money making repairs if they decide not to list the property.”
“Why wouldn’t they list it?”
Adam shrugged. “Who knows, all this arguing over the price might rekindle something in their relationship. Chris once told me, when he first met them, they were arguing. Fighting could be their thing.”
“Okay, call me when you’re ready for me to go over there.” Bill stood up, but Adam asked him to sit down for a moment.
“What?” Bill sat back down.
“I wanted to say moving those books around was a good joke. You had me going there for a few minutes.”
Bill frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Adam chuckled. “You know what I’m talking about. The books on the bookshelf over at the Crawford house.”
“Uh, no. I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Are you saying you didn’t reorganize the books on the shelves over there?”
“Why would I do that?”
“It had to be you. After we were there, I took Mel and a couple to look at the house, and the romance books that were on the top shelf had moved.”
Bill shook his head again. “And when did I do this? When was I alone in the living room after we pushed the bookcase back in place?”
Adam frowned while considering Bill’s question. “Umm, you came back later?”
“And how did I get in? You haven’t given me a key yet.”
“Then who moved the books around in the bookcase?” Adam asked.
“It wasn’t me. Ghosts?” Bill snickered.
Adam leaned back in the office chair, staring at Bill. He was right. Bill hadn’t been alone with the bookcase after they had moved it, and he didn’t have a key to the house.
“Speaking of ghosts…” Adam then told Bill what Joe and Kelly had told him and Mel.
Bill stared at Adam. “We never talk about it. But I remember that croquet set in Marlow House’s attic.” Not long after Danielle moved to Frederickport, Bill and Adam had broken into Marlow House, looking for the Missing Thorndike, which had been rumored to be hidden somewhere in the house.
After entering the attic while looking for the necklace, some invisible force had chased them away by throwing wooden croquet balls their way. Later, Adam convinced himself that someone had rigged the old croquet set to a remote control device. Bill never bought into that theory, yet pretended to accept it, and pushed the incident to the back of his mind.
“What are you suggesting?” Adam asked.
“There is something about that house. We’ve both experienced it. We pretend it didn’t happen. But stuffed animals flying across the room isn’t much different from what we experienced. Although not as painful.”
“That crossed my mind when Joe and Kelly told us what they saw.”
Bill considered Adam’s words before saying, “There’s a tunnel from Marlow House’s basement to the Crawford house. Maybe our ghost followed the tunnel over and, instead of throwing the books, rearranged them?”
Adam arched his brows. “Our ghost?”
* * *
At Marlow House, Walt and Danielle had just returned from Chief MacDonald’s. They found Eva and Marie in the living room, waiting for them.
“How did the babies do?” Marie asked.
“They were great. Slept most of the time. How was it here? Any activity?” Danielle asked as she and Walt walked into the living room, each carrying a baby carrier with a sleeping infant.
Marie immediately relieved Danielle of one carrier while Walt continued to handle the other one, gently setting them both next to the sofa.
“It’s been silent,” Eva said.
“The chief told us something interesting.” Danielle told Marie and Eva about the body found in the root cellar years earlier.
“Oh, I remember that. Not that it had been found in a root cellar, only that it had been found buried on the property,” Marie told them. “I’m fairly certain they never identified the remains.”
“No, they didn’t. But I have to wonder if this has something to do with what’s going on here,” Danielle said.
“How?” Eva asked.
“In both dreams there were twins, twin girls. At least, I assume they were girls, since they wore pink. Betsy made that quilt for her twin daughters,” Danielle said.
“Considering you recently had twins, and the fact you’re trying to learn more about the woman who made a quilt for her twin girls, it doesn’t sound unusual to dream about twins,” Eva pointed out.
Danielle shook her head. “I was probably wrong about the dreams not being dream hops. It’s true, at the time I assumed they were regular dreams, but I can vividly remember each one. I typically forget a dream not long after I wake up, and even if I can still remember it hours later, it’s more of a vague recollection.”
“And who brought you into this dream hop?” Marie asked.
Danielle shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Did you see the quilt in the dream?” Marie asked.
Danielle shook her head. “No.”
“And now that Edward has told you about the body found in the root cellar, you think that is some way connected to the dream where you’re pushed into a root cellar?” Marie asked.
“In my dream, there was a J on the barn I saw. And according to the chief, there was a J on the Jameson barn.” Danielle let out a sigh. “Or it’s a coincidence, and they were just dreams. Like you said, considering all that’s been going on, it’s no surprise I’m dreaming about twins.”
* * *
Adam pulled up in front of the Crawford house and parked. He sat in his car for a few minutes, staring at the front door before getting out of the vehicle. He walked up to the front door and paused a moment before unlocking it and walking inside. Instead of shutting the door behind him, he left it slightly ajar.
He walked through the house, and everything looked as it had during his last visit. But when he came to the bookshelf, he froze. Once again, someone had reorganized the books. Adam stared dumbly at the bookshelf and then slowly took his cellphone from his pocket, turned on his camera app, and aimed the phone at the bookshelf, preparing to take a picture to document the placement of the books.
“Hey!” a voice called out. Adam startled, his hands flew upwards, and he tossed his cellphone into the air. Adam turned abruptly while fumbling to catch his phone. He saw Chris standing by the entry hall, and his cellphone landed on the floor.
“Dang, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Chris said.
Adam took a deep breath, exhaled, and then leaned down and picked his phone up off the floor and looked at it. The screen hadn’t broken. “Umm, that’s okay. You just startled me.” Adam glanced back at the bookshelf.
Chris narrowed his eyes at Adam. “What’s going on?”
Adam glanced from the bookshelf to Chris. “Can we go to your house and talk?”
“Sure.”
Adam quickly snapped a picture of the bookshelf and then hurried with Chris from the house, locking the door behind him.
* * *
“You just get home from work?” Adam asked Chris as they walked over to Chris’s house.
“Yeah. I saw your car; figured I’d come say hi. I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”
“It’s okay.” Adam didn’t sound convincing.
When they walked into the house, Chris offered Adam a beer. A few minutes later, the two men sat in the living room, each drinking a cold beer.
“So what’s up?” Chris asked.
Adam sipped his beer, looked Chris in his eyes, and asked, “Do you believe in ghosts?”
Chris grinned. He hadn’t expected that question. “Actually, yeah, I do.”
“I do too.” Adam took a swig of the beer.
“So, did you see a ghost or something? Or did you think I was a ghost when I walked in?”
Adam took another swig of beer before telling Chris about the books, about the croquet set, and about what Joe and Kelly had seen at Marlow House. When he was done, Chris said, “I was there when all that happened with Joe and Kelly.”
“So what do you think is going on?”
Chris shrugged. “I know Joe’s convinced Walt did one of his magic tricks. But he didn’t. Walt and Danielle are as stumped as everyone. One theory, it’s not ghosts, but negative energy.”
“Kelly mentioned that.”
“Some people theorize negative energy can attach to an object. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say the energy from a traumatic event. Right before all this started happening, Lily gave Danielle an old quilt she bought at an estate sale.”
Adam nodded. “Kelly also mentioned the quilt.”
“The strange things started happening after Lily gave it to Danielle. One theory, the quilt holds the energy from some traumatic event.”
“And that’s why Danielle wants to find out about the quilt’s history.”
Chris nodded. “Yes.”
“Seems kind of far-fetched. Strange things happened to me at Marlow House long before Danielle received the quilt.”
“Yes, but those things you experienced at Marlow House stopped happening a long time ago. About the same time we stopped smelling cigar smoke.”
Adam stared at Chris for a moment. Finally, he said, “Are you suggesting there was a ghost that haunted Marlow House, but it isn’t there anymore?”
Chris smiled. “Yes. I believe he moved on. After all, isn’t a ghost just a spirit on this plane who hasn’t moved on?”
Adam shrugged. “Umm, I suppose.”
“Because of a few things that have happened, they believe it’s connected to the quilt.”
“If they think it’s the quilt, why don’t they just burn the damn thing?” Adam asked.
“That’s been suggested. But will that destroy the negative energy, or just move it to another object?”
“Where is the quilt now?”
“I heard Walt moved it to a trunk in the basement.”
“The basement? If you think about it, the basement is connected to the Crawford house. Is this energy coming through the tunnel and rearranging the books?” Adam asked.