Free A Haunting at Hensley Hall (A Ravynne Sisters Paranormal Mystery) by Merabeth James Page B

least he’s headed in the right direction. I’ll follow him, while you can drive around to the back. We can toss a coin to see who fixes lunch?”
    Charlie was still laughing too hard to reply

    ***
    It was nice to have a real fridge again even an avocado green one. The ‘mini’ they’d suffered with at the motel could barely hold the doggie bags and leftovers from every restaurant in Merritsville. Charlie lost the coin toss and made lunch, while Meg made a gallon of ‘sun’ tea. When Charlie shot her an inquiring look, she explained, “It makes me feel homey. Remember the great sun tea Sage made for all of us?”
    They took their time over lunch, cracking open a bottle of wine, and the hours flew past, as they shared mutual memories, some good and some they could have done without. “But if we’re happy where we are, it doesn’t matter how many roads it took to get here,” Meg reminded her. Charlie watched her sister babble on, as she often did, and smiled to herself. It was so good to see her happy and excited again. That made everything worth it. At least everything so far!
    The dishes were a mutual effort and then Charlie told her, “Time we unloaded the rest of our stuff and finished upstairs before it gets too late.”
    Meg looked around. It was already late afternoon and the night would follow close on its heels. Already she could feel the atmosphere in the house shift and change. It was beginning to exude a waiting hushed expectancy. Meg hoped, rather desperately, that it wasn’t going to be the “got you now’ kind!
    Bit by bit and bag by bag, they carried their purchases through the kitchen and up the servants stairs that opened on the second floor right outside their doors. Together they dragged up the new area rug for Charlie’s ‘Blue Room’. Spreading it out on the floor, they stepped back to admire it, while Freddie plunked down in the middle and rolled around, making funny little noises in his throat that Meg interpreted as ‘expressions of delight’. “As long as he doesn’t pee on it, I’m happy to share, ” Charlie told her dryly.
    “Just wait. This is only the beginning. Some paint, a few pictures on the walls…. Look at your little balcony and the fireplace is exquisite, not as exquisite as mine, but that’s to be expected. This was a boy’s room after all.”
    “And you needed to remind me of that, didn’t you? Here,” Charlie said, tossing her sister a plastic wrapped mattress cover.
    “You don’t really think this is the bed of a murderer, do you?” Meg asked her, as she ripped off the wrapping.
    “Maybe. “
    “I never like it when you use that tone and scowl like that at the same time. Maybe? What does that mean?”
    “After Devon left town, the killings stopped, remember?”
    “So you do think that Devon is the murderer?” Meg asked.
    “We’re back to ‘maybe’. I’ve seen ‘police evidence’ before. That’s why Rayne was charged with murder. Never mind, let’s finish up here and then do yours. That was all a very long time ago, anyway,” Charlie told her.
    Freddie watched from his rug, as they made the bed and moved on to the bathroom, where a new bath rug and bright turquoise towels made quite a difference. When they opened the door to Meg’s room, they were both surprised to see a tail wagging Freddie push past them and bound into the middle of the four-poster bed.
    “Get down, Freddie!” His tail thumped even harder. “All right. Have it your way. I don’t think you’ll like being a bed lump,” Meg threatened.
    But, apparently he did! Burrowing like a mole under the mattress cover they laughingly tossed over him, he seemed to be enjoying himself way too much. When they had had enough, even if he didn’t, they peeled back the cover. He blinked, owlishly, up at them, then uttered a single ‘woof’, which could have meant anything.
    Meg lifted him down and they finished with the bed, pulling a rose chintz duvet over the top and stuffing the