Page 13 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
Ten minutes. Lucky decided to give Maverick ten minutes to come back before she left the library. That seemed fair. Coincidentally, that was about how long she projected it would take her to inspect the room.
There wasn’t much else to it, and she felt fine being in there. She started at the door, walking the right-side perimeter, and touching random places. No cold spots. No change in energy. She passed the windows with her back turned, eyes closed—and immediately felt a pinch between her shoulder blades and at the base of her neck.
Whatever lure the orchard used still had its claws in her. She bit her lip to disguise her gleeful smile as she opened her notes again:
Might be a visual-based compulsion? Also capable of retaining access through proximity.
She’d have to be careful out there, but make no mistake, she was fully prepared to give in to the pressure. Her gut didn’t even disagree.
It had taken her a considerable amount of trial and error to find a balance between her instincts and her reckless desire for knowledge. If a location felt dangerous, but she wanted something that could only be found inside? Eight times out of ten, she’d be in there. Hopefully along with several contingency plans in place including two clear paths for exit.
Hopefully. Almost never always.
Once, she’d needed a quick escape and jumped out of a window on the second floor of a multistory building. She accidentally discovered the trick to not breaking one’s legs when falling—hit the ground at an angle and roll with the momentum.
Getting trapped in an orchard surrounded by neighbors with a production crew nearby wouldn’t be nearly as bad. Probably.
Lucky moved on to browsing the books neatly arranged in the built-in bookcases. The collection had its fair share of literary classics, an entire section of mass-market romance paperbacks, and a few popular titles she recognized that’d been published in the last few years.
At home, every single book in her collection had already been read—her choices curated from borrowing library books first. She always bought physical copies of the ones she loved best. If they had a space on her shelf, then they had a place in her heart. She couldn’t imagine having a whole room dedicated to a personal library full of books she’d never read, waiting for her to choose them.
Like any sensible bookworm, she’d brought her e-reader and a small carry-on bag full of physical books. Gothic manorwilling, she was going to be there an entire month. She needed to keep busy! She needed options! She’d already unpacked them upstairs but could use a few more. As she searched reviews online for the titles that caught her eye, a muffled voice stole her attention.
Her entire being went still as a deer caught in headlights, eyes wide and searching. The sound was coming from directly in front of her and had a slight echo.
She brought her ear as close as possible to the back panel of the shelf.
Footsteps. Someone was walking around in what sounded like an enclosed space.
Years of discipline had taught her to jump to plausible conclusions before entertaining supernatural ones. Even as her heart hammered with excitement and adrenaline flooded her system, she forced herself to think through the situation rationally.
Someone in the walls leaned toward improbable because there wasn’t another room next to the library…unless it had a false wall with a secret room behind it.
Lucky sprang into action, efficiently measuring by walking heel to toe from the doorway to the shelves, repeating the process in the hall until she hit the dead-end window. The shelves, which were the length of her hand from palm to fingertip, were nowhere near deep enough to take up the extra measured space in the hallway.
A secret room was in fact the likely solution. But who, or what, was inside?
Lucky frowned, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips as she considered her options. Trusty switchblade in her overalls pocket, she walked to the window at the end of the hallagain. She didn’t know how the intruder got in, and if they made a break for it, she wanted to watch them do it. After clearing her throat, she shouted, “Whoever is in there, you better come out right now before I call the police.”
She wasn’t going to call the police. If anything, she’d call the private security company number Xander gave her to handle this.
“Right. Now.” She ground her teeth—it better not be a damn ghost. She waspromisedno ghosts. “You too, Casper! The order still stands. Out here, right now, front and center. I don’t have all day.”
Rapid footsteps. Something knocked against the wall. A tiny whispered “Ow.”
“Don’t make me count to five!”
A loud click sounded from inside the library—Lucky darted back to the room. She pushed past her rattling nerves and the dread crawling up her throat like a scream. Being in tune with her body and her fear kept her alive. Searching for the supernatural came with risks she was willing to take…up to a point.
In the far left corner, the smallest section of shelving moved away from the wall like a door. A brown face framed by braids appeared in the opening. “Casper?” she chirped hopefully, eyebrows raised.
Lucky continued to frown as her jaw dropped.
There was a little girl in Hennessee House. A little girl walking around inside the walls talking to herself.
Everything about the intruder screamed adorable. From her sweet little voice to her wide brown eyes to the cluster of freckles on her nose and forehead. She reminded Lucky of a strawberry shortcake with her khaki shorts, white shirt, and bright red bandana. It’d been folded into a headband, with the ends sticking uplike bunny ears atop her head. She wasn’t scared. Or worried. Or apologetic. Instead, she was bursting with stubborn hope and daring magic in equal measures. Childlike wonder and mischief personified, but not the kind that faded over time. She’d only grow brighter, more inquisitive with each passing year.
Reading children occasionally threw Lucky. For the most part, a person’s core almost never changed. Personality? Yes. Core? Unlikely. People were who they were, whether or not they discovered it yet. However, sometimes children felt a little…soft. All the ingredients were there but hadn’t finished cooking. This girl, however, seemed to be done.
