Free The Ghost and The Haunted Mansion: A Haunted Bookshop Mystery by Alice Kimberly Page A

of repair. But those were the lucky ones. Boarded-up windows and GOING OUT OF BUSINESS signs reminded me of the bad old days in Quindicott when Sadie was about to end the life of the family’s bookstore.
    The law offices of Emory Philip Stoddard were located on Whippoorwill Road at the edge of the business district. We turned off Buckeye Lane and searched for the doorway marked 919. Unfortunately, there were a lot of residential buildings on this street and a lot of parked cars. Seymour’s VW Bus was too big to fit into the only two curbside spaces available.
    “You two go ahead,” Seymour said. “I’ll drive around the corner and find someplace to park.”
    Stoddard’s office occupied the ground floor of a three-story, Federal-style walkup. The red bricks were dingy, the white paint on the window frames flaked and peeling, and the plate-glass window had a hairline crack. Even the sidewalk was pitted, with dried leaves and stray candy wrappers littering the curb.
    As we approached the front door, it opened abruptly. A seventysomething woman stood staring at us with chilly blue eyes. Her finely tailored suit and quilted leather handbag certainly didn’t fit the depressed neighborhood. She was a bit heavy, with full hips and thick legs. Her short brown curls were shot with gray, her patrician features buried in a fleshy face polished up with base, blush, and lipstick.
    Sadie smiled and nodded a polite greeting. I said, “Hello. Are you a client of Mr. Stoddard’s?”
    “Good evening,” was all she said in return, rather coldly. Then she swept past us toward a silver luxury sedan parked across the street. Until now, I hadn’t noticed the Mercedes idling there. A middle-aged man with dark hair, a mustache, and Hispanic features sat in the driver’s seat wearing a chauffeur’s uniform.
    “Do you know that woman?” I asked Sadie.
    “Never saw her before.” I shrugged, figuring she was just another client, and we stepped inside.
    The interior of Stoddard’s office was even less impressive than the exterior. What passed for a waiting room consisted of five steel folding chairs on a threadbare beige carpet. The faux wood paneling covering the walls appeared badly scuffed.
    Strange, I thought. These aren’t the sort of digs I expected for the immaculately dressed Mr. Stoddard.
    The man’s a lawyer , Jack said in my head.
    “So?”
    So expect two faces.
    The drab space was so poorly illuminated that at first we didn’t notice the slender young woman sitting in front of high metal filing cabinets and behind a computer screen on a dented steel desk. The girl was college-age, maybe a little older, and like the client who’d just left this office, she wasn’t dressed anything like the few girls we’d passed on Millstone’s sidewalks with their cut-off shorts and denim skirts.
    This girl’s sleeveless dress of black summer silk was finely tailored. Her head was bent over a thick book. She wore a chain of gold links and her long, sleek, precisely cut raven hair spilled down around her shoulders. When she moved, I could see the flash of a gold tattoo on her pale upper arm. It appeared to be some kind of cross, but I couldn’t really tell. Her dark veil of hair was too quick to cover it.
    “Excuse me, miss?” Sadie said. “We’re here to see—”
    “Mr. Stoddard. You have an appointment,” the young woman replied, finishing my aunt’s sentence for her. She didn’t smile at us, just stared intently, her liquid dark eyes squinting slightly behind small, rimless glasses. Her focus moved slowly from Sadie to me, then down to the desk. She pressed the intercom button.
    “Excuse me, Mr. Stoddard,” she said, “your eight o’clock appointment has arrived. Sadie Thornton, her niece, and the gentleman.”
    Sadie glanced back at me. I shrugged. Seymour hadn’t actually arrived yet, but he’d be here any minute.
    “Thank you, Miss Tuttle! I’ll be right out.”
    The storefront office was so small I could hear