Free A Haunting Is Brewing: A Haunted Home Renovation and a Witchcraft Mystery Novella by Juliet Blackwell Page A

her knees. Oscar snorted and nosed under her arm until she hugged him.
    “Sorry, but all of us are, like, so whack by this,” said Riley. “It’s so totally random. I’ve . . . I mean, a couple of kids killed themselves in high school, but not in college. And, not anyone we really, like, knew.”
    “Have any of you seen Preston lately?” Lily asked.
    “He’s coming in a while,” said Tess. “He’s driving the truck with the supplies, so we can start decorating later.”
    “Hey, Mel, Duff was saying that, like, Spooner House might be sold?” said Byron. “Is that true?”
    “Where did you hear that? I haven’t heard anything about selling the place.”
    “I heard a rumor,” said Duff, “that the board is going to have to sell. Guess they’re out of money and someone offered to buy the house. Maybe that’s why they wanted you to fix it up?”
    “That would be . . .”
Scummy
, I thought to myself, but said: “hard to believe.”
    He shrugged. “Anyway, I guess Lurch is determined to go through with this fund-raiser no matter what.”
    “Gaskin told me Adam’s family asked him to go ahead with the party, because Adam cared about the causes. The family’s providing matching funds.”
    Duff shrugged. “The way I heard it was the other way around: Lurch went to Adam’s mom and totally sold her on the idea. Tell you the truth, I mean . . . I don’t think Adam even knew much about the youth center. That was more Riley’s thing.”
    Riley just shrugged.
    “That would totally blow if they sold it,” mumbled Tess.
    “We’re going to go check out the house,” I said. “You guys stay outside, okay?”
    I opened the door, and Dog started barking his fool head off before we’d even entered the building. Oscar, for his part, trotted around on his little hoofs, clacking loudly on the broad plank floors.
    Both animals scampered upstairs right away. Lily and I were about to follow when Annette Crawford appeared in the doorway.
    “You figure out what’s going on yet?” she asked me without preamble.
    “I’m working on it,” I said. “This is Lily Ivory. She owns a vintage clothing shop on Haight. Lily, this is Inspector Annette Crawford.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Annette said. “Are you involved with Spooner House?”
    “No,” Lily said. “I’m . . . trying to help figure out what happened to the young man who died here.”
    Annette raised one eyebrow. “Vintage clothes dealer-slash-amateur detective?”
    “I sometimes give advice on less ordinary situations,” she said. “I’ve worked with Inspector Carlos Romero a few times. Do you know him?”
    Annette nodded. “Yes, I do. Good detective, good man.”
    There was a brief pause while Lily and Annette assessed each other. Suddenly the patter of piggy hooves and dog’s nails clacking overhead on the wood floors sounded like a herd of animals, rather than just two.
    Annette’s eyes moved skyward. “And . . . you decided to bring your pets?”
    “It’s sort of hard to explain,” I said. “But please believe me when I tell you there’s a reason for it.”
    “Okay,” said Crawford, and I imagined she was barely repressing the urge to roll her eyes. But she and I had been through a few homicide investigations before; she was accustomed to my unconventional approach to this sort of thing. “You two do whatever you were going to do with your menagerie, and then we’ll get a cup of coffee and talk. I’ll wait outside.”
    Lily headed up the stairs; I followed.
    The steps creaked as they always did; the curved walls and colorful glass windows appeared as elegant as ever. So why did I feel a sense of dread as we reached the upstairs landing?
    Perhaps it was because I couldn’t stop looking at the chandelier, and the place where Adam had died. It was homicide, not suicide; I felt sure of it now. But who would have gone after the young performing arts student? What kind of enemies could he have possibly had?
    I grabbed the