Free Halloween Hiccups: A Mercy Mares Cozy Mystery Novella by Ava Mallory

also be outside on the grounds.”
     
    He had no idea how sting operations worked!
     
    So, whether I wanted to or not, I'd somehow managed to squeeze a cardio workout into my day. These steps leading up to the house were enough to make me wish I'd stayed in bed.
     
    “Does the city know we're here?” I asked. “Don't they own this house?”
     
    Ernie continued climbing the steps, holding my elbow to help me navigate them. My head was still woozy, but I didn't want him to know that.
     
    “I don't have to let them know. I own this house and the surrounding property.” Ernie said.
     
    I stopped.
     
    “You own this? You bought it from the Andersons? Why?” I asked, surprised that anyone would want to own this creepy structure.
     
    “No, I inherited it. My mother was an Anderson. When she passed away, she left it to me and my wife.” Ernie explained. “You didn't know that?”
     
    Uh, no!
     
    I looked at him more closely. He was a handsome man, by any standards. Not movie star handsome, but pleasing to the eye in a normal person sort of way. Like most men, he improved with age. His once jet black hair had gone completely silver years ago. His dark blue eyes were still his best feature, but the rest of the face attached to them wasn't all that bad. He stood six feet tall, by my estimate. That was a plus.
     
    I didn't see one iota of creepy Anderson in him. As I recalled, they resembled the children from a book I was warned not to read but read anyway. I can't recall the name of the series, but I distinctly remember something about having flowers growing in an attic or something like that. It gave me chills to think about it.
     
    “My mom was a blonde.” Ernie guessed what I was thinking. “I took after my father.”
     
    We continued walking, going in through an unlocked front door.
     
    “Why is it open?” I asked. “Is someone here?”
     
    “Just a security guy I hired. He's keeping watch for me.” Ernie explained.
     
    I had to laugh. “You hired him to keep me out?”
     
    Ernie smiled, but didn't answer. He led me through the front foyer through to the back of the house. A burly gentleman with a face as round as a saucer, sat in the kitchen enjoying a cup of coffee.
     
    “This is my security guard. Apparently, he's on break.” Ernie said, looking at him with a cross look on his face.
     
    I nodded at the man, but he didn't notice. He was too busy trying to look like he was keeping an eye on things. I think the newspaper spread out on the table in front of him wasn't helping his cause.
     
    “Are you going to tell me what you'd like for me to see?” I asked, reminding Ernie why he'd brought me here in the first place.
     
    He opened the back door, leading out to the yard and the field behind it. I followed him, anxious to see what it was and nervous about the prospect of stepping in the same spot I'd nearly gotten arrested in twice this week.
     
    “Here it is.” Ernie stopped under the lone tree in the yard.
     
    “A tree?” I asked, confused by what it meant.
     
    “Look up.” Ernie pointed up into a hole in the tree, just above my line of vision.
     
    I looked at it and thought I'd seen someone looking back at me from inside the tree. I sucked in a gush of air.
     
    “Is someone in there?” I asked as I backed away.
     
    Ernie sighed. “Yes, there's a strange little man, living inside of a hollowed out tree.” He said sarcastically. “It's a camera. There's a camera in there.”
     
    What?
     
    I stepped closer to get a better view.
     
    “Is that part of your new security thing?” I asked.
     
    He shook his head, stepping forward to reach for the camera. It took a few minutes. The camera had been secured in by someone.
     
    Handing it to me, he said, “Look at it. What do you see?”
     
    I didn't want to touch it. For all I knew, he was trying to make me put my fingerprints on it to frame me for something. I wasn't about to let him get one over on me like that.
     
    “No,