Free The Haunted Beach (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 4) by Mary Bowers

sixty-something. Ben was sixty-something himself, and not so distracted that he couldn’t notice a pretty face. But before he could adjust his attitude, a black cat walked around him and preceded everybody into the garage.
    “You brought your cat?” Ben asked incredulously.
    “She runs an animal shelter,” Ed explained.
    “Everywhere she goes?”
    Taylor stepped around the men, saying, “She insisted.”
    “Oh, the cat wanted to come. Now it all makes sense .”
    “She’s not always completely logical,” Ed confided softly, “but she’s a good friend.”
    Ben, a simple man, was reaching the end of his ability to cope. “Why is she here, and what’s with the cat?”
    “Taylor has a special connection to Frieda. As for the cat,” Ed said, giving his glasses a final push up the nose and walking to the house door, “I’m not sure what Bastet is here for, but it’s a rather exciting development.”
    “Oh, really? Well you be sure and let me know when the cat decides to explain what’s going on. Nobody else is going to. Sure. Go ahead. Everybody into the house. Got a Ouija board, Eddie ol’ boy? I’m ready for anything.”
    Ben punched the button to close the garage door and followed them in, muttering. The others had climbed the stairs, but Ben got into the elevator and took it up to the second floor. When the doors opened and he slid the gate aside, Taylor and Ed were already in the formal living room. They hadn’t turned on any lights, but wherever they walked, motion-sensor night lights came on, letting them see where they were going. The cat was nowhere in sight.
    “Nothing in here,” Taylor said quietly.
    “You can speak up, little lady,” Ben said. “The noise of the garage door going up probably made her clear out long before you got up here.”
    “If you were in the elevator and we were on the stairs, how could anybody get past us? She had to go up.” Ed said, looking at the ceiling.
    “Don’t bother to tiptoe around,” Ben said sarcastically. “And don’t bother to go up. She won’t be there. There are two staircases. The service stairs go down to a mud room. Maybe your cat got after her and she ran out.”
    “Are you sure you saw – ah – a real person?” Ed asked cautiously.
    “Well it wasn’t my mother-in-law, that’s for sure.” Then, in an off-hand way, he muttered, “That’s funny.”
    “What’s funny?” Ed asked, quivering.
    “The painting. It’s gone.”
    Ed had walked over to where Ben was staring at a blank space on the wall. At the top of the space was a small, gold hook, supporting nothing. “Was it valuable?”
    “No,” Ben said in a flat voice. “Since you already know, I may as well tell you. It was one of the paintings my wife made of what she said was her mother’s ghost. She said that one was particularly like her, and she insisted I hang it here as a gift. She thought Frieda was still here in the house.”
    “And now it’s gone? Fascinating.” Ed pulled a digital camera out of the pocket of his cargo shorts and took a picture of the bare wall.
    “Seriously?” Ben said. “We’re taking pictures of the walls now? Nuts!” He walked into the living room and threw himself down onto a leather sofa.
    Undaunted, Ed gazed at the empty spot for a moment, muttered, “Just the kind of thing I’m looking for,” and went back to where Taylor was standing in a breakfast nook beyond the kitchen.
    “Well, we may as well go up and make sure everything is normal in the bedroom, as long as we’re here,” he said. “Let’s take one more look down at the beach before we go up, though.”
    He took the edge of one of the curtains to pull it aside, but it wouldn’t budge. While he was looking up at the rod to see what was wrong, the curtains suddenly began to slide apart by themselves. Ed and Taylor both jumped back.
    “Don’t bother to take a picture,” Ben drawled. “It ain’t magic.” When they looked back, Ben was aiming a small remote control