Free Ghost On Duty (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 2) by J. D. Winters

before he aimed that rifle at me again. What else could I do? I had to run.  
    There—the front door was in sight. I pulled on the lever and it didn’t budge. I pulled again. Oh no! I couldn’t get the door open. One more time—this time, a miracle! It gave under my yank and the door swung open.
    I ran out toward my car with my head down and ran right into something large and hard and male.  
    “Ahh!” I yelled, trying to fight my way out of his grasp.  
    “Hold on you little idiot,” a gruff voice said. “What are you doing?”
    I looked up. It was Captain Stone. I sagged with relief.  
    “Oh thank God,” I managed to blurt out. “There’s a man in there. He’s shooting at me.”
    “I’m not surprised,” he said, his face not very friendly. “After all, you’re trespassing. Aren’t you?”
    “I… .”   I turned to look at the house. “I was just…”   No, there was nothing I could say that would fix this. He was right. I was trespassing. “I was only…”
    I pulled myself together and took a deep breath, then looked up into his face.  
    “I mean, the man is probably the one who killed Ned Barlow. Don’t you think? I mean, why is he hanging around here with a rifle? He’s obviously guilty of something.” I thumped my own chest. “Attempted murder if nothing else.”
    The captain looked at me cynically. “Uh huh,” he said, then turned and motioned to two of his detectives. “You boys want to go in and see if you can find a shooter hanging around in there?” he said, looking bored.  
    The men started toward the house, and then I realized one of them was Roy. He was staring at me as though he couldn’t believe I’d been so crazy as to do this.  
    “Mele, are you okay?” he said, ignoring the glare from his boss.  
    I nodded, wishing I could run into his arms and knowing that just wouldn’t be appropriate under the circumstances. “I wanted to take a look at things,” I explained. “Peg called me and wanted my help and….”
    “All this is not any of your business, Ms. Kehia,” the captain snapped out at me. “I hereby order you to stay away from the crime scene. You got it?”
    I stared at him and he stared at Roy.  
    “How about it, McKnight?” he said. “Are you going to go in and look for the man she says was shooting at her?”
    Roy gave me a look, then nodded as he set off toward the house. I looked at the captain. So that was the way it was going to be. The captain didn’t even believe I’d been shot at. Great. Well, once inside, they would find the man who’d done it. And then they’d know….
    But I already knew what was going to come next. They wouldn’t find him. He’d get away—after all, he’d had plenty of time by now. And nobody would believe me.  
    I turned away and looked at the ocean. Why was it that I always seemed to do the wrong thing at the wrong time? And then I sighed. At least I was still alive. I hadn’t been shot, or hurt in any way. So I ought to be thankful.  
    And I was. Really, I was.
    It went down just like I’d predicted. They couldn’t find a sign that anyone else had been there. No bullet holes. No spent cartridges. Nothing.  
    “You didn’t hear the gun shot as you were driving up?” I said in a feeble attempt to find some purchase on this issue. “Did you try kicking around the grass? There should be a shell, or casing, or whatever…” I didn’t like the way people were looking at me and I started to get defensive. “If you take binoculars and look at the siding on the back turret, maybe you can see where the bullet hit.”
    The captain turned his stone face toward me. “Here’s the way I see this, Ms. Keahi. You broke into the house. You went in, looking for loot. Or maybe for something to use to create an alibi for yourself. Or to frame someone else. And there you were on the third floor. You looked out and saw a police car coming on the access road. You thought maybe you could make it before we got here,