Read Online Ghost Wanted by Carolyn Hart - Free Book Online Page A

the air, apparently of its own accord.
    Garza stumbled to a stop, stood as rigid as a lamppost, stared at the moving lid.
    I was behind the librarian. I shook my head, waved my hands overhead signaling
Stop
.
    A red leather-bound book went up in the air, hovered above the box.
    Garza backed away from the table, bumping into me. I steadied her with one hand, pointed thumb down with the other.
    The book was lowered to the box.
    â€œOdd thing, gravity,” I said brightly. “I suppose it was just a tremor. You know, a scarcely felt earthquake, and the book was balanced in some way.” I was turning the librarian toward the door. “Obviously, there’s nothing here for us to see. Don’t worry, Ms. Garza. I’ll find Ms. Hoyt.”
    We were in the hall now.
    Garza faced me, but her eyes kept flickering toward the closed door.
    I was hearty, displaying an “everything is as it should be” demeanor. “I’ll double-check a few things in room 211, then be on my way to Ms. Hoyt’s apartment. We’ll be in touch.”
    I turned, opened the door, closed it behind me, leaned against it. “Lorraine—” I no more than spoke the name when I knew no one listened. The box sat undisturbed now on the table. On either side of the room were connecting doors to adjoining rooms. They were closed.
    I tried to avoid swear words when on earth. I reached back into my memory and pulled out some old favorites that I used as a substitute. “Fish hooks. Denmark. Halibut.”
    A rumble of laughter sounded beside me, followed, however, by a clearing of his throat.
    I hastened to get the first word in, a ploy I’d found useful when Bobby Mac, face furrowed in despair, came across the room, checkbook in hand. His dictum was always:
Please don’t subtract.
That seemed unnecessarily harsh, simply because I’d once transposed some numbers and thought we’d had eight hundred dollars more in our account than was there. On that occasion, I’d looked at him soulfully, and said, as if picking up an earlier discussion, “I know you want to discuss
Finnegans Wake.
Bobby Mac, you are the sweetest man.” By the time he’d stopped laughing, the mistakes in the checkbook were safely in my rearview mirror.
    â€œWiggins, you are just the man I want to see.” Ouch. Poor choice of verb.
    â€œSee?” His deep voice was dour. “Certainly you know the Precepts frown upon emissaries appearing. If you hadn’t been visible”—great emphasis—“that unfortunate scene in the director’s office wouldn’t have occurred.”
    â€œExcuse me, but—” I bit off a tart reply that if Lorraine had kept her mouth shut all would have been well. As Mama always said, “Men won’t believe a word against their honeys.” A bit of throat clearing of my own. “Lorraine has a knack for knowing the tree from the forest.” Admittedly obscure, but proclaimed in a most admiring tone.
    â€œTree from the forest?” Wiggins could be forgiven for not understanding.
    â€œDefinitely. She immediately championed Michelle Hoyt. Of course, Lorraine hasn’t been prepped about observing Precepts. That explains her forthrightness”—which was certainly one way of describing the interlude in the director’s office—“in speaking out. I rather felt I obscured the situation nicely. I believe no harm was done. Ms. Garza will work things about in her mind until she truly believes the contrasting voices came from my cell phone. In any event, it’s obvious now that all this fiddle-faddle about roses and gargoyles was a lead-up to the theft of the book.”
    â€œExactly.” He sounded like a man who has pulled himself from a sticky swamp onto dry land. “That’s why I’m here. The theft of the book, which apparently was taken by a student, proves Lorraine had nothing to do with the distribution of roses or