Haunting Danielle 27 The Ghost and the Mountain Man Bobbi Holmes (best pdf ebook reader for android .TXT) 📖

turned off the ignition, he looked toward the cemetery and asked, “Did that obituary say where her grave is located?”

“No.” Danielle unfastened her seatbelt.

Minutes later Danielle and Walt wandered through the cemetery, looking for Josephine’s grave.

“There was a time this was the last place I’d want to be,” Danielle said, taking in her surroundings.

“Yes, I remember. What happened?” Walt asked.

Danielle shrugged. “Since moving to Frederickport, meeting you, I’ve become more comfortable with my gift and with encountering spirits.”

“I wonder if we’ll find a spirit today who can help us.”

“We should probably go to the office, see if it’s open. I assume there’s an office here,” Danielle said as she walked alongside Walt.

“Why?” he asked with a frown.

“They might tell us where the grave is located. I imagine there’s some sort of directory to help us find it.”

“We don’t need to do that. We’ll find it,” Walt insisted.

Danielle stopped walking and laughed.

Walt stopped, turned, looked at his wife and asked, “What is funny?”

“That is such a guy thing, not wanting to ask for directions,” she teased.

“That’s rather a sexist thing to say,” Walt said indignantly.

“Sexist? That coming from the guy who has to do all the driving?” Danielle snickered.

“I do all the driving because you don’t like to,” Walt insisted.

“So you are just being a nice guy?” Danielle asked.

“I’m not a nice guy?”

Danielle gave Walt a grin, stepped closer to him, and then reached up and gave him a quick kiss. “You are an amazing guy. But I suspect my driving makes you nervous. And I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m a woman.”

Walt stared into Danielle’s eyes a few moments and then asked, “You knew?”

Danielle shrugged. “I was pretty certain. No one likes to drive as much as you say you do. Well, maybe some do, but I just don’t get it. And you seem pretty comfortable when Ian drives. You haven’t driven with me enough to know if I’m a crappy driver or not. So I have to assume it’s because I’m a woman.”

“Are you annoyed at me?” Walt asked.

“Don’t be silly. After all, I’m not without sin,” she chirped, taking his hand and leading him down the path.

“How so?” Walt asked.

“I’ve exploited your sexism for my own selfish purpose.” She snickered. “I have my own chauffeur!”

Walt tightened his hold on Danielle’s hand and pulled her closer as they continued to walk through the cemetery. Several minutes later they encountered a cemetery groundskeeper. Danielle asked him which part of the cemetery they might find graves from the early 1900s. He pointed out the direction; they thanked him and walked that way.

“Aside from the groundskeeper, I haven’t seen anyone,” Walt whispered as they read the headstones.

“I assume you’re referring to someone from the spirit realm,” Danielle said.

“I thought that’s why we came. Not sure how finding her grave is going to help us much. Isn’t the point to find a spirit who might have been around during her burial, who knows something? But it looks rather dead around here.”

Danielle giggled.

Walt rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Still walking with Walt, Danielle glanced to the right and then froze. Her abrupt stop brought Walt to a halt. “Bingo. I found one.”

Walt looked over to where Danielle stared. At first glance, one might mistake the spirit for a living woman. What gave her away, she stood in the middle of an upright headstone, her upper body protruding from its top while her feet stuck out of its face.

“Shall we go introduce ourselves?” Walt asked in a whisper.

“I hope she doesn’t disappear on us,” Danielle whispered back.

Plastering a smile on her face, Danielle took a deep breath and, with Walt, turned to the ghost staring at them and began walking in her direction.

“Hello, please don’t disappear,” Danielle called out.

The ghost frowned and glanced around for a moment and then looked back to Walt and Danielle. “Surely you aren’t talking to me?”

“Yes, I am. I have a question I need to ask you,” Danielle said cheerfully.

“You can see me?” The spirit frowned.

“Yes, we both can.”

“Interesting,” the ghost muttered. “I don’t think you’re ghosts. You arrived in a car. I never saw a ghost arrive in a car before. Only in a hearse.”

“No, we’re not ghosts,” Danielle said, now standing about six feet from the spirit. She would have walked closer but didn’t want to walk on the grave.

“I’ve met a few like you before,” the ghost said.

“My name is Danielle, and this is my husband, Walt.” Danielle felt it best not to share her last name, for fear the ghost might recognize Walt’s full name, and it would just confuse matters.

“We’re looking for the grave of Josephine Piller Newsome,” Walt explained. “Would you know where it is?”

“Josephine? Why in the world would you want to talk to her?” the ghost asked.

“She’s here?” Danielle asked.

“I assumed you already knew that since you asked where her grave was,” the ghost said.

“Yes, but we were looking for her grave. Are you saying her ghost is here?” Danielle asked.

“Yes, and I wish it weren’t!” the ghost ranted.

Twenty-Three

“You are…” Danielle began, glancing at the inscription on the headstone; she read off the name.

“Oh, this isn’t mine,” the ghost scoffed, stepping out of the headstone and onto the grave, fully revealing herself.

If the apparition’s appearance reflected her body when last alive, Danielle guessed the woman had been in her thirties when she had died. Considering her style of clothing, the death had occurred in the 1960s. She wore a hot pink miniskirt paired with an orange and pink blouse. Her short pixy haircut sported an orange beanie sitting at a cocky angle. Taller than Danielle by a good three inches, Danielle briefly wondered if the woman had died of starvation considering skinny might be a more accurate description than thin. Yet Danielle determined that wasn’t likely considering the fitted clothes.

“Although, I rather wish it were mine,” the ghost said, glancing back briefly at the headstone. “That cheapskate husband of mine picked out one of those