Free The Ghostly Hideaway by Doris Hale Sanders Page A

and visit
with Mr. and Mrs. Coy. I’m still trying, though. Maybe one day
before it’s too late she’ll ask them to come for a visit.”
    “Oh. I don’t know what to say, Johnny. That’s too
sad and sweet at the same time.”
    “You’re sweet, too." He had already stretched his
arm across the back of the swing behind her and while he was
talking he let it drop across her shoulders. Now he pulled her
around to face him and brushed his lips tentatively across hers.
She hadn’t objected so he deepened the kiss until he felt her hand
come up to tangle softly in his hair. The tickling sensation in her
stomach startled her and made her draw away slightly; but then she
was kissing him back and wishing the moment would never end.
    “Oh, here you are!" It was Devon. “I wondered where
you’d gone. I thought maybe you’d want to play a game with me. The
babies don’t know how to play anything,” he said disgustedly.
    Chrissy and Johnny looked into each other’s eyes and
sighed but went on into the living room and Chrissy got out a game
called “Aggravation” which she thought Johnny would recognize as
her way of saying Devon was an aggravation and they could continue
their experiments later on. They hadn’t played long when Mr. and
Mrs. Tinsley decided it was time to go. Maria was already asleep
and Devon had school the next day. It had been a nice evening,
though, especially for Chrissy. She had stayed awake looking at the
ceiling and daydreaming far into the night still feeling the thrill
of Johnny’s lips on hers. As she was finally dropping off to sleep,
she thought she heard something on the third floor, but she still
drifted off into deep sleep. Ghosts didn’t scare her much anyway
these days.
    The following week, Ed and Penny took the
documentation Penny had found in the old roll top desk and gave it
to a lawyer. After Attorney Horace Lee had looked at all the
paperwork, he asked the Wroes how he could help them.
    “We’d like to be able to have the property in our
name so that we would be responsible for the taxes, the insurance,
and all that. The only problem is I haven’t discovered a way to
actually prove I am Uncle Cliff’s niece. The will says ‘Penelope
Langley.’ Parsons was the last name of my Aunt Genevieve who raised
me after my parents died. They adopted me in order for me to have
insurance coverage under Uncle Jack’s work insurance. I don’t have
anything to show that ‘Langley’ was ever my last name. I go by
‘Penny’ now rather than Penelope, too, and that makes it even more
difficult. If that gets to be too much of a problem, of course, we
can simply let things remain as they are, pay the taxes and other
obligations, and leave it in Uncle Cliff’s name. We’re hoping you
can advise us the best way to handle this.”
    “What I would advise is to go ahead to probate with
the will. If someone else should appear and register a claim for
the property, we’ll start worrying about proof at that point. If
they don’t, the records will show that you inherited the property
from your uncle.”
    “That sounds wonderful Attorney Lee. Can you give us
an idea how long this will take?”
    “Anywhere between ninety and one hundred eighty
days. With no complications, you should have a deed in your name
within the next three months.”
     
     
     

Chapter Five
     
Keeping Up With the Joneses
     
    Things had been going fairly well, he thought. He
had received enough money from the stuff he had stolen from Joe
Mills to buy a half interest in a remodeling business. Moreover,
who on earth would ever think of looking for Norman Jones in
Kentucky? Particularly a small out-of-the-way place like Dundee.
Bill Weedman hadn’t asked any questions at all when he showed up
with the money to invest in the business. They had put the
partnership agreement in the name of Victor N. Jones which was his
full name. He was known as Norman everywhere else but now the
‘Victor’ worked to help hide his