Love Your Entity(50)

Now Ruby was really outraged. “Charlatan!”

“A man with a beard,” Mary continued.

“I do have a beard, but I’m not a man,” a new voice said.

Sierra took a cautious look over Bob’s shoulder. A heavyset woman stood here wearing circus garb. “I have a message for Bruce,” she said.

“You’re Mother,” Sierra said.

Mary looked around. “Whose mother? I’m not sensing any mothers. Just a man with a beard.”

“She’s not very good at this,” Mother said. “Maybe I should come back later. Bring Bruce.” She disappeared as suddenly as she’d appeared.

“I sense a new presence entering the room,” Mary said.

“Who was that bearded lady?” Ruby demanded. “And what was she doing coming into my house?”

Sierra sensed the dark malevolence of Hal’s spirit. An instant later she smelled cigar smoke.

“Great-great-uncle Hal, is that you?” Mary asked.

His darkness faded as he looked at his descendant. Supposed descendant. For all Sierra knew, Mary could be lying through her teeth. But she could see Hal and not Ruby, so that had to mean something. Mary probably was related to the gangster ghost.

“How can I help you?” Mary said.

“Get rid of her.” Hal pointed to Sierra.

“He’s not happy that you’re in his house,” Mary said.

“No shit,” Sierra muttered.

“Why haven’t you crossed over?” Mary asked.

“Yeah, why haven’t you?” Sierra said.

Mary looked at Sierra. “So you sense him too?”

Sierra just shrugged.

“He says he’s protecting the treasure,” Mary stated.

“He does?” Sierra said. She hadn’t heard Hal say that.

“Maybe we can help you with the treasure,” Mary suggested.

That’s all it took for Hal’s rage to return. He flipped the table over and sent the lit candles flying.





Chapter Fourteen

“Shit!” Sierra quickly stood as one of the lit candles almost landed in her lap.

“Shit!” Bob yelped as one of the candles did land on his lap and his wife slapped his crotch to douse the flames.

“That was illuminating,” Ronan said.

“This séance is over,” Sierra said.

“The séance may be over but not the interview,” Bob said.

“You only wanted to interview me to get into this house. It was just an excuse.”

“I was just trying to get information about my great-great-uncle Hal’s life,” Mary said.

“Information about his treasure, you mean. Do you even know what it’s supposed to be?”

“Not the specifics, no. But family legend has it that it is worth a great deal of money.”

Legends occasionally turned out to be true. Like legends about ghosts and vampires. “Did you really think that you could just stroll in here and make contact with your ancestor’s spirit and get a bunch of loot?” Sierra said.

“Of course not,” Mary said.

“I thought it was worth a try,” Bob admitted.

“So what was your plan? To have Hal tell you where it is and then break into my house later?”

“No,” Mary vehemently denied. “We were going to share it with you.”

“Share what?”

“The treasure.”

“Which consists of what?”

“Valuables. Lots of valuables.”

“I think it’s best if you leave now,” Sierra said.

“You don’t want me writing a bad story about you, do you?” Bob said.

“I don’t think your employer would appreciate you threatening to trash me in your article.”

“It would be your word against mine,” he said.

“No it wouldn’t,” Ronan said in a deadly voice.

Uh-oh. Do not piss off the vampire. She put her hand on Ronan’s arm in an attempt to restrain him. Right, like she’d have the strength to hold him back if he went full vamp on them. And then there was the fact that whenever she touched him, she wanted him—even more than she craved Godiva dark chocolate truffles when she was writing the end of a book on deadline and that was saying a lot.

Instead of flashing those impressive fangs of his, Ronan looked deeply into Bob’s eyes. “Sit down.”

He did.

Then Ronan gazed into Mary’s eyes. “Sit.”

She did.

“Tell me everything you know about this treasure.”

Sierra looked around, expecting Hal to throw something at them like furniture or something. But the ghost must have used up his energy for the time being.

“There might be a map,” Mary said. “We don’t know where. My grandmother remembered stories about a map. Her sister didn’t.”