Read Online Caroselli's Baby Chase by Michelle Celmer - Free Book Online Page B

and down the stairs. Some hear her crying. I smell her perfume.”
    She couldn’t tell if he was being serious or just messing with her. “Really?”
    “I can smell it from the instant I step in the garage door until I step into the kitchen. Maybe three feet. Then it’s gone. I’ve felt her brush against me, and once I felt a hand on my shoulder.”
    “No way.” She leaned into the doorway and sniffed, but all she smelled was pine cleaner and bleach.
    “You have to actually step inside,” Rob said. “Or it doesn’t work.”
    She eyed him skeptically. Had she honestly just rented a house with a dead lady living in the basement? And wasn’t that sort of thing supposed to be disclosed before the lease was signed? Or was Rob just full of it?
    Of course he was.
    “You’re lying,” she said.
    “I’m dead serious. Try it if you don’t believe me.”
    It was walk in this door or walk around to the front door, which would make her look even more ridiculous than she probably did now. So basically she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.
    Promising herself that no matter what happened she would not react, she lifted her foot and stepped up over the threshold, then followed with the opposite foot, and the second it touched the floor—
    A hand clamped down over her shoulder, and even though deep down she knew it was Rob, a startled screech ripped from her throat.
    Heart pounding, she spun around and gave him a hard shove. “You’re an ass .”
    “And you are way too gullible,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. “I can’t believe you fell for that.”
    “I didn’t think it was possible, but I like you even less than I did before.”
    “It was worth it to see the look on your face.”
    She stomped into the house and switched on the kitchen light, expecting him to follow. And he did, hauling two of her bags inside with him.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Where do you want them?” he asked.
    She was about to tell him she would do it herself, then thought, what the heck. He might as well get used to following directions from her. “They all go in the bedroom.”
    He had clearly been there before, because he seemed to know where all the light switches and the bedrooms were located.
    She shrugged out of her coat, wondering if she might find a box of tea bags somewhere.
    On his second trip through to the bedroom, Rob asked, “Are you sure you packed enough stuff? These things weigh a ton.”
    “You try packing three months’ worth of stuff,” she called after him as he disappeared down the hall. “That’s a long time to be away from home.”
    Two of the smaller bags had nothing in them but shoes. One was filled with casual clothes, though she realized now that much of it was too light for the cold weather. She would have to do some clothes shopping, and soon. The rest was work clothes, some of which were also inappropriate for the season. Living in a warmer climate, it was difficult to imagine how cold Midwestern winters could be.
    “What are you doing here anyway?” she asked on his final trip back to the garage. “And how did you even know where I was?”
    He walked back in with the last two bags. “I talked to Nick.”
    Of course he would know, because Terri told Nick everything. Not that it was some big secret. She just didn’t want Rob thinking it was okay to come by and hassle her whenever he felt like it.
    This time she followed him into the bedroom. He set her bags down with the others by the closet, then turned to her.
    “Which doesn’t explain why you’re here,” she said, folding her arms, giving him her stern look.
    “To give you this.” He tugged his gloves off, pulled a flash drive out of his inside coat pocket and handed it to her.
    “What is it?”
    “The financial reports you asked Elana for.”
    “Oh. She could have given them to me Monday.”
    He shrugged. “I figured you would probably want to get an early start on this.”
    Actually, no, she planned to