Hard Rustler. B.J. Daniels

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      Annabelle agreed it did appear that someone had torn into all the boxes and dumped the contents on the floor. Her grandmother before she died? Her sisters when they’d come back for the funeral?

      “Look at the window,” Mary Sue said in a hoarse whisper as she grabbed Annabelle’s arm, her fingernails digging into tender flesh.

      “Ouch.” She jerked free and kicked aside some of the mess to move to the window, which was now half open, the screen torn. “The lock is broken.”

      Behind her, Mary Sue let out a shudder. “Someone broke in.”

      That was the way it appeared, although she couldn’t imagine in her wildest dreams why they would want to. She closed the window and turned to find Mary Sue hugging herself.

      “Whoever broke in isn’t here anymore,” she tried to assure the Realtor. “Let’s look upstairs. Maybe it’s better.” Unfortunately, the upstairs wasn’t any better; both bedrooms were stacked full of clutter, including her grandmother’s old room.

      Back downstairs, she took another look at the front downstairs bedroom. It wasn’t quite as full as the others. She checked the closet, found what must be her grandmother’s clothing and assumed that, as Frannie got older, she’d moved downstairs.

      “Could this be anymore outdated?” Mary Sue called from the kitchen.

      “I think I can clean out one of the downstairs bedrooms so at least I’ll have a place I can stay,” Annabelle said as she joined her in the kitchen. The front bedroom downstairs had been hers growing up.

      Mary Sue didn’t seem to hear her. Instead, she was frowning at the clipboard she had in her hands.

      “What?” Annabelle demanded. “Don’t tell me there is another problem.”

      “No, not exactly. But it is strange. This is a layout of the house I got from the records department at the courthouse,” she said, indicating the sheet on her clipboard. “That wall shouldn’t be there.”

       “What?”

      “This shows an alcove.”

      “An alcove? Maybe it’s back there behind all the junk and you just can’t see it.”

      Mary Sue’s frown deepened. “Do you remember an alcove from when you were growing up here?”

      She was supposed to remember an alcove? Seriously? “No. The plans for the house must be outdated.”

      “Not according to the courthouse. Your grandmother bought this house when she was in her twenties so she had it for...”

      “She was seventy-six when she died, so she had it for more than fifty years.” Annabelle hadn’t realized how long Frannie had lived in Whitehorse until she’d seen it in the obituary that one of her sisters had sent her. It hadn’t been out of kindness that Chloe had mailed it to her. Her older sister had never been that subtle. Both Chloe and Tessa Jane—TJ—had tried to make her feel guilty about their grandmother leaving her the house—let alone Annabelle missing the funeral.

      “Frannie owned this house almost from the time it was built,” Mary Sue was saying. “So if anyone made the changes, it had to have been your grandmother. Why would she wall up an alcove? I wonder what’s behind it?”

      “Okay, you’re giving me the creeps now,” Annabelle said. “Clearly, you have the plans for the wrong house. Aren’t there a bunch of houses along this street with similar floor plans?”

      Mary Sue nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “I can check at the courthouse again I guess. But you have to admit, if the plans are right, then it is more than a little odd to wall up the alcove, let alone—”

      “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. You knew my grandmother.”

      With a lift of one eyebrow, Mary Sue said, “She said her husband died before she moved to Whitehorse, but what if—”

      “Seriously? You think my grandfather’s body is stuffed in there?”

      “Ever seen the play Arsenic and Old Lace?”

      “Frannie Clementine was one of the most kind and generous people in town. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Standing just over five feet, Frannie had been a tiny, sweet-tempered woman who loved kids, garage sales and cooking. She attended church every Sunday, come rain or shine or snow.

      Annabelle could tell that Mary Sue was enjoying trying to scare her. Was it any wonder that they hadn’t been friends in high school?

      “Just sayin’,” the Realtor said, clearly trying to hide a grin. “Did you know that since her death right before Halloween last month, kids are saying that this house is haunted?”

      “That’s ridiculous. Just because she died in this house...” Annabelle tried to hide the shudder that moved through her at the thought. If one of her neighbors, old Inez Gilbert, hadn’t come over to check on Frannie, she would have been lost in all this mess for weeks. That thought did nothing to improve the situation.

      “On Halloween some kids saw what they said was a ghost moving around in the house. They said it looked like an old woman dressed in all white and—”

      “Stop,” Annabelle snapped, having had enough. The house was creepy as it was with all the memories, not to mention being filled to overflowing with collected junk. She really didn’t need this. “It was probably Inez from next door. The woman is a horrible busybody and always has been.”

      If Mary Sue thought she could scare her, then she didn’t know what scary was. Unfortunately, Annabelle did. It was losing a dream job and a fabulous lifestyle, and being forced to do things she’d told herself she would never do, like return to this town and all the memories that came with it.

      “The house isn’t haunted. There never was an alcove—”

      Mary Sue tapped her clipboard. “But the plans—”

      “The alcove isn’t here now so that’s all I care about. I need to get packing and you need to get this house sold. Just get me the names of people who will help clean it out.”

      Right now, though, she needed a breath of fresh air and Whitehorse had plenty of that. She stepped out onto the front porch, letting the door close behind her. She’d known this wouldn’t be easy, but it was turning out to be more difficult than she could have imagined. The memories, the stories, the stupid missing alcove, not to mention all that junk. She definitely had more pressing things to worry about than a bunch of local kids thinking the house was haunted.

      The clock was ticking, she thought, looking at her car, the last vestige of her former life other than the clothes on her back. She had to get this house sold.

      * * *

      MARY SUE GRITTED her teeth. Annabelle annoyed her to no end. “Hasn’t changed a bit,” she muttered. “Get me this, do this for me.” She looked around the house, her gaze going to the kitchen and the missing alcove. “I hope there is a body walled up in there—and a vindictive ghost who hates blondes.” That would serve Annabelle right.

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