The Ghost Hunter Next Door: A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery (Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  The Ghost Hunter Next Door

  A Beechwood Harbor Ghost Mystery book one

  Danielle Garrett

  Copyright © 2017 by Danielle Garrett

  Edited by Magical Words Edits

  Cover Design by Alchemy Book Covers

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Books By Danielle Garrett

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Preview of Ghosts Gone Wild

  Acknowledgments

  About Danielle Garrett

  Books By Danielle Garrett

  BEECHWOOD HARBOR MAGIC MYSTERIES

  Murder’s a Witch

  Twice the Witch

  Witch Slapped

  Witch Way Home

  Along Came a Ghost

  Lucky Witch

  BEECHWOOR HARBOR GHOST MYSTERIES

  The Ghost Hunter Next Door

  Ghosts Gone Wild

  When Good Ghosts Get the Blues (Coming Soon)

  Introduction

  The first rule of being a ghost whisperer: Don’t tell anyone.

  Seriously. Don’t.

  Sure, it might sound harmless. A fun party trick, even. I assure you, it’s not.

  How do I know? Well, let’s just say that I’ve had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, and nine times out of ten, it turns into an all-consuming disaster.

  Being plagued by needy ghosts twenty-four/seven is one thing; being harassed by a horde of curious—or worse, grieving—flesh-and-blood people is an entirely different circus. I mean really, who wants to hold an impromptu séance in the middle of the cereal aisle? Not me, and the manager of the grocery store probably isn’t too crazy about the idea, either.

  So, that’s it. If you’re a ghost whisperer, just keep your mouth shut and act normal. Ghosts? What ghosts?

  Now, if only I would start listening to my own advice …

  Chapter 1

  There’s nothing more obnoxious than having an easy-going Sunday morning ruined by a pair of warring ghosts.

  Unfortunately, that was my reality far more often than not.

  “You’re blocking the screen, you talking feather duster!” Hayward Kensington III snapped at Flapjack, a gorgeous Himalayan cat who had once been my childhood pet.

  “Newsflash, stuffed shirt, I’m a ghost. You can see perfectly fine, right through me!”

  Yeah, that’s right, the cat talks. This is one of those things that sounds fun but in reality turns out to be more of a pain in the rear than anything else. On the bright side, he doesn’t require a litter box and he doesn’t meow when I use the can opener.

  “But it’s distorted!”

  With an irritated growl, I stalked into the living room, coffee mug in hand. “Do you two mind?” I snapped, directing a frosty glare at my two constant—whether I wanted them to be or not—dearly, not-quite-departed companions.

  Hayward bristled at my sharp tone and had the good sense, or manners, to look embarrassed. He wrung his gloved hands and bowed his head so that his face was mostly concealed by the silvery shadow of his top hat. “Apologies, Lady Scarlet,” he started, leaning into his Oxford accent. “I was simply trying to convey my displeasure to that beast.”

  Flapjack hissed in protest. His thick tail swished all the more, blurring the small TV screen entirely.

  And to think the day had started off so well.

  Still scowling, I skirted the back of the long couch and moved further into the living room, then set my mug on the coffee table, careful not to slosh any of the scalding liquid over the sides. I slammed my hands on my hips and planted my legs wide, glaring at the pair of them. “What is the one thing that I ask of you two?”

  Flapjack sat down and swirled his tail around his front paws. I swear, he shrugged. “I can’t help it if he’s so touchy about everything!”

  “Get down from there,” I said, snapping my fingers and pointing at the floor.

  Flapjack’s eyes narrowed but he dropped off the edge of the entertainment center, landing soundlessly on his ghost paws. He flicked his fluffy tail up into the air, whipping the tip in feline irritation. He glared at me for a moment, then turned his displeasure back to Hayward as he stalked toward the couch. He leapt up and curled into a ball atop the pile of throw pillows gathered at one end of the couch. I’d chucked them all to one side during a frantic hunt for the remote control earlier that morning.

  “Thank you, Lady Scarlet,” Hayward said with a self-satisfied grin.

  I rounded on him and it slid from his face. “Drop the self-righteous routine, Hayward.” I said.

  When he continued to hover, I took a deep breath, reaching for my last shred of patience. “What do you want?”

  Hayward was an old ghost. A once-upon-a-time English gentleman. He’d died in 1926 after suffering a heart attack during the encore of a premier musical performance at the Vienna Opera House. Hence the perma-coattails and top hat. I guess if you have to be a ghost, you may as well be a fashionable one.

  He took his hat from his head and passed it nervously between his hands. “I was hoping you might invite Lady Gwen to dinner prior to tonight’s meeting.”

  I sighed. “Hayward, why can’t you invite her yourself?”

  Flapjack’s head popped up and, in his best impersonation of Hayward’s accent, said, “Oh, my stars! Lady Scarlet, can you imagine the horror? The impropriety? What would the peasants say?”

  Hayward’s silvery cheeks darkened and he surged forward.

  I held up a hand. “Stop!”

  Flapjack cackled and made a face at the fuming ghost.

  I shot him a glare. “Knock it off, Flapjack, or I swear I’ll banish you.”

  His eyes narrowed, but he put his head back down on his paws. It was an empty threat; we both knew it, but it usually worked for at least a little while. Similar to a toddler’s parents counting to three.

  Turning back to Hayward, I said, “I’ll see if Gwen wants to come over before the meeting.” His eyes brightened. “On one condition,” I added, holding up one finger.

  “Anything, Lady Scarlet!”

  With a victorious smile, I laid out my terms. “You let me watch TV, in peace, with no running commentary, for the next two hours before I
have to go downstairs and work.”

  Hayward popped his hat onto his head and nodded so vigorously it was a wonder it didn’t fall back off. “Of course. Not one word out of me, my lady!”

  Yeah, we’ll see.

  “That goes for you too, Flapjack,” I said, settling into my favorite spot on the couch. The L-shaped sectional was a second-hand find and from the feel of it, it was clear that whoever had owned it previously had rarely used any of the cushions except the one in the corner. It was a little saggy, but that was probably the reason I liked it so much; it was the couch equivalent of a perfectly worn pair of jeans.

  I reached for my coffee and remote control and smiled to myself as I nestled down into the cozy spot. With a few clicks, my favorite Sunday morning ritual officially began—emptying my DVR while sipping on a steaming cup of coffee.

  In peace.

  After spending years abroad running from literal ghosts of the past, I’d finally settled down in the charming town of Beechwood Harbor along Washington state’s rustic coastline. Thanks to an inheritance from my grandmother, I’d opened a florist shop called Lily Pond Floral Design and was ready to begin a brand-new chapter of my life—ideally, a more normal chapter than the past few.

  It took over six months of hard work to get my shop open, during which I hadn’t been the most social of residents. I’d barely explored my new hometown until after the shop’s doors were open. At my grand opening, I’d found a curious community eager to pop in and learn all about their new neighbor—and occasionally buy a bouquet of flowers. I’d also quickly learned that while Beechwood Harbor was postcard-perfect on the outside, it was teeming with paranormal activity and had more than a handful of supernatural residents thriving just underneath the surface. So far, I’d met a vampire, a telepath, and a pair of witches who all live at the Beechwood Manor, one of the town’s historic homes that served as something of a supernatural halfway house.

  Knowing that witches and vampires shared your zip code would probably scare the bejeebies out of most people. I, however, was more or less used to it. Nothing about my life had been normal, so why should it start now?

  My first peek into the supernatural world took place on the eve of my eighth birthday. Once the festivities of my party dwindled to a pile of tattered wrapping paper, ribbons, and crumbs of leftover cake stuck to the ends of half-melted candles, my parents had tucked me into bed so that they could visit with my aunt and uncle in the living room. Restless and more than a little sugar-high, I’d sneaked out of my room and went down the hall to the playroom where all of my shiny new presents were waiting. As quietly as I could, I’d opened my dollhouse and introduced my old dollies to their new friends. As I’d played, the sugar rush wore off and I’d lain down on the bean bag in the reading nook under the window and fallen asleep. When I opened my eyes, Flapjack was watching me from the doorway.

  The only wrinkle? He’d died three weeks prior to my birthday.

  For reasons still unknown, Flapjack had been gifted the chance to come back as a ghost and had returned to me that night. I’d raced downstairs to tell my parents, along with my aunt and uncle. They’d all smiled sadly at me and my mother had taken me back to bed. She’d kissed my forehead and told me to give Flapjack a hug if I saw him again in my dreams. I’d tried to explain that it wasn’t a dream and that he was actually watching us from the foot of the bed at that very moment, but she didn’t believe me.

  They never did. After a few weeks of referring to him as my imaginary friend, they took me to see a counselor, who assured them it was a normal part of the grieving process. After all, Flapjack was my first brush with death, and at the age of eight, the whole concept was a little shaky. Shortly after that, Flapjack realized he could talk in his new form and he advised me to stop talking about him to my parents. In hindsight, I suppose he was trying to avoid getting me dragged off to some asylum masquerading as a boarding school for troubled children. I’d heeded Flapjack’s advice, and we still shared long conversations as he continued to follow me most everywhere I went, but I was careful not to talk to him if they were within earshot.

  The years went on, and more and more spirits crossed my path. Along the way, I’d been forced to come up with a myriad of different strategies to cope with my strange ability. At first, I tried ignoring the ghosts who reached out to me. That backfired when no less than twenty spirits accumulated in and around my childhood home, all of them refusing to budge until I listened to their problems. After that, I tried to help all of them, a plan that crashed and burned in spectacular fashion.

  As a high schooler, I had enough problems without adding the personal woes and perils of ghosts into the mix. Who could be expected to deal with breakouts and break-ups, or agonize over prom dress selections with ten ghosts chattering on about the terrible life choices their offspring were making on the other side of the state?

  After high school, I started traveling the world, and found that country-hopping was an effective way to extricate myself from particularly sticky situations. Plus, it was one heck of a way to spend my twenties. But by age thirty, my resources had dried up and I decided I was too old to keep letting my parents bail me out of trouble whenever my temporary jobs didn’t quite cover my next plane ticket or hotel bill. I returned home to Arizona and found a job working in a local florist shop and found what seemed like my true calling: creating beautiful botanical works of art.

  When my grandmother passed away, she left a sum of money and I decided to strike out on my own again. I may have been staying stateside, but my new business was an adventure nonetheless. I was just getting started, but I had a good feeling about it.

  As long as I could keep all the ghosts in my life in check.

  Piece of cake, right?

  Per Hayward’s request, I invited Gwen over for dinner prior to that evening’s ghost support group meeting. After a few months in town, word had gotten around in the local specter circles that a ghost whisperer was in town. Out of necessity, I’d set aside Sunday evenings to hold a meeting. Then—and only then—ghosts can come to me with requests for assistance. Anything presented outside of those hours falls on deaf ears—no matter how persistent said ghosts are in their requests.

  Hayward and Flapjack are all that I can handle on a daily basis, and still, they give my sanity a run for its money from time to time.

  In some ways, Gwen is another exception. She’s the first ghost I met after arriving in Beechwood Harbor and is the town maven. Queen bee. She knows everything about everyone and was the one who’d helped me establish my “office hours” among the local spirit population. Oh, and Hayward has a major crush on her. I’m talking smitten kitten in a top hat. So for that alone, she gets a bit more leniency. Hayward deserves someone like Gwen. She’s funny, bright, and despite her occasional ditzy moments, is quickly becoming one of my favorite people. Dead or otherwise.

  As usual, I ate a microwave meal out of a plastic container down in my design studio, AKA back room, taking bites in between other tasks. Lily Pond Floral Design was closed for business on Sundays and Mondays so that I could have some time off, as I was currently operating as a one-woman show. Even still, I tended to clock in a few hours refreshing the window displays and taking inventory to get ready for the next week. It worked as the perfect guise for the ghost support group. The attendees all floated in and I could continue to work while they chatted and presented occasional requests. If anyone walked past the front windows, they would likely assume I was singing along with the radio or talking to myself as I worked.

  Gwen rambled on about the local gossip of the week as I finished my broccoli and fish dinner and began working on an arrangement. Most of her revelations surrounded the arrival of a reality TV crew who spent the last week remodeling one of the town’s older homes. Mints on the Pillows was a home improvement show that followed a husband-and-wife team who traveled the country renovating old, sometimes historic, properties into cozy bed-and-breakfasts. When the town gossip mill learned that our
small town was about to be splashed across millions of television sets across the country, a small, outspoken group of people started raising hell and threatening to shut down production with protests and petitions.

  “All I’m saying is that people are angry,” Gwen concluded. “I heard the ladies in the salon saying a petition is going around as we speak to put a stop to the whole thing!”

  “Haven’t they already started filming?” I asked, pausing to glance at her over the top of the bouquet I was arranging.

  Hayward didn’t add much to the conversation; it seemed he was more interested in silently adoring our guest from his place at the front counter. I smiled at the dreamy look on his face and then continued tweaking the hyacinth stalks I’d nestled amongst the greenery in the vase before me.

  “They started filming Wednesday,” Gwen replied without pause, as though she’d been taking minutes on every move the crew made. Which, in all likelihood, she had.

  I offered a half-shrug as I continued working. “I imagine the whole thing will blow over pretty quickly. I mean, how long are they supposed to be in town? A few weeks?”

  “I haven’t nailed that down yet.” Gwen shook her head, sending her feather earrings swinging. Gwen was an eternally preserved flower child, having died in the seventies following a tragic stage-diving accident. Her delicate face didn’t show the signs of the damage that it must have sustained, but I imagined the aftermath of the fall hadn’t been pretty.