Read Online The Ghoul Next Door by Victoria Laurie - Free Book Online Page B

of questions about who you are and how you could know so many details about some lady who was murdered in the park. Which brings me to my next question:
What
did you say to her, M.J.?”
    I covered my eyes with my hand and sighed. “Nothing,” I began.
    “Oh, this can’t be nothing. Seriously, what’d you say?”
    “I’m on my way,” I told him, avoiding the question, and clicked off without even telling him about the meeting set for later with Luke, Courtney, and Steven. I found Gilley back on the phone when I walked through the door of the office. My inner suite door was shut and I could hear Heath’s voice waft faintly from inside. I figured he was still in with his client. “Can you hold, please?” Gilley said tightly before putting the phone to his chest. “It’s your new best friend,” he said. “Kendra.”
    I shook my head vigorously.
    Gilley nodded his head just as vigorously.
    We did that back and forth with each other until we were both dizzy. “I’m
not
talking to her!” I whispered.
    “She won’t quit calling!” he whispered back.
    “Tell her I’ve left the country again.”
    Gilley leveled his eyes at me. “I’m
sure
she’ll believe
that
.”
    “I’m not talking to her, Gil.”
    Gilley put the phone back to his ear. “Kendra? Sorry about that. Listen, M.J.’s feeling a little indisposed at the moment and she can’t come to the phone. I’ll have her call you back just as soon as she’s feeling better, okay?”
    I breathed a huge sigh of relief as Gil hung up the phone. “Thanks, honey.”
    Gil reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a nail file. As he inspected his nails, he said, “Spill it.”
    I told him about what’d happened at the park and he stopped filing the second I said that I’d made contact with Bethany. His eyes got wider the closer I got to the end. “Did they record everything you said?” he asked me. I couldn’t tell whether he seemed panicked or excited.
    “I think so.”
    “This could either be really good for our business or really bad,” he told me.
    I sat down in one of the wing chairs that made up our lobby’s seating area. “They might not even air it,” I said.
    Gil cocked an eyebrow. “That reporter has called me three times in an hour, M.J. I doubt she’ll just let it go.”
    I tapped my knee thoughtfully for a minute. “You know what bothers me?”
    “That you picked that blouse to go with those jeans?” Gil said. “Or that you have no sense of style when it comes to handbags?”
    I looked down at my perfectly functional brown pocketbook. “What’s wrong with my handbag?”
    “You got it at a”—Gil paused while he made a choking sound—“discount retailer six years ago.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Who died and made
you Tim Gunn?”
    Gil snapped his fingers. “Make it work!”
    “
Any
way, what bothers me is something Bethany said.”
    “The dead girl?”
    I nodded. “She said that on the night she died, she heard footsteps behind her, but when she turned to look, there was no one there.”
    Gil’s brow shot up. “Another ghost?”
    “Yeah. But, Gil, when I was connecting with her spirit, I didn’t sense anyone else in the ether.”
    Gil shrugged. “Maybe he or she didn’t feel like showing themselves.”
    I agreed but something else was actually bothering me. “You know what’s even weirder?”
    “The fact that you won’t wear a belt even though
clearly
that’s the big thing missing from that outfit and the only way that blouse could possibly work with those jeans?”
    “Will you leave off my wardrobe?” I snapped.
    “Sugar, now that we’re back in the States, you need some help getting your closet in order. I mean, Molly Ringwald called. She’d like her wardrobe from the eighties back.”
    “Gil,” I growled.
    “Sorry. Continue. And then let’s go shopping.”
    I inhaled deeply and let it out sloooow. “The weird thing is that Courtney said her brother heard disembodied footsteps following him