“Just what you have,” Ellie said. “I tried incense when the two of you were shopping for throw rugs, but nothing more.”

“Maybe you used the wrong kind for this entity,” Meghan said. “We’ll have to be more careful now that we’re opening the hotel. I really think we should have waited until we had communicated with her.”

“You know that it can take a long time to make any connection. And sometimes it doesn’t ever happen,” Ellie said.

“What if the ghostly figure isn’t of our aunt? What if she died there, but she’s moved on?” Meghan posed the question none of them had wanted to consider.

“If she has, we’ll still need to learn what happened to her, make the place profitable, sell it, and move on.” Laurel removed her boots.

“I wonder if Carol would know of any ghost mediums.” Meghan yawned.

“We don’t believe in most mediums. Many are fakes.” Laurel rose from the sofa, walked over to the window, and eyed the attic window of the hotel. She really hoped nothing would bother CJ there.

“Is he afraid of ghosts?” Ellie joined her at the window.

“He says he doesn’t believe in them,” Laurel said.

“What about that letter on the wall?” Meghan asked.

Laurel bit on her lower lip. “He’s a deputy sheriff, and I doubt he’s inclined to assume any mysterious happenings are the result of a ghostly presence. He probably considers anything out of the ordinary to be the result of someone creating mischief. Yet, I wouldn’t want to be him sleeping in the attic room for the next several days.”

She really hoped CJ wouldn’t have any trouble. He appealed to her in so many ways. He’d always been nice and polite to her sisters, which had also made her appreciate him. But he had eyes only for her. Yet, she couldn’t let him get close.

At least, not yet.

Meghan took a chip and crunched into it. “The letter on the wall—it’s got to be a sign from Clarinda, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know. Why wouldn’t it be something more…irregular? If I tried to draw my name on the wall, it wouldn’t be totally straight or with curved lines or perfectly even in width,” Laurel said.

“It looks like it was stenciled on the wall,” Meghan agreed.

“The three of us always try to explain away mystical happenings. To uncover the reality, rather than conclude that what we’ve experienced is supernatural. Even though we believe in things we can’t explain or that others don’t witness. It doesn’t mean that what we see, feel, or hear isn’t valid,” Laurel said.

Ellie was so quiet that Laurel assumed she had a different opinion. “Ellie?”

Ellie looked up at her. “Mom said Aunt Clarinda loved to quilt.”

“So?” Meghan took a bite of another chip.

Laurel swore her sister could eat a whole bag of them at a sitting and never gain an ounce.

Ellie frowned at Laurel. “Neither of you was interested in sewing. But I took it up when I was a kid. Hooking rugs; cross-stitching; embroidery work; making dolls, bunnies, and bears; and I quilted.”

From their puzzled expressions, neither Laurel nor Meghan was following Ellie’s logic.

“In quilting, I used stencils.”

Chapter 4

CJ had just reached his house in the Wolf Pines subdivision, a cozy development where the homes were spaced out on pine-tree-covered, five-acre lots to give everyone privacy and a woodland feeling. A park had also been created to give the wolves a place to really run. That’s what he loved about the wolf developments. The prices of the properties were kept low for lupus garous, but way overpriced for humans to keep them from living there.

It wasn’t that the wolves in the pack didn’t like humans. They just wanted to give their own people the freedom to run in their wolf coats without worrying about their neighbors seeing them or having to erect huge fences to keep their wolfish nature secret. That felt too much like being confined to a zoo, so except for a couple of neighbors two streets over who had fences for their dogs, everyone kept a naturalistic, open setting.

He was entering his one-and-a-half-story, French provincial home when he got a call. “Yeah, Brett?” In the kitchen, CJ pulled out some leftover spaghetti and heated it up in the microwave.

“I have to cover another news story tomorrow afternoon, so I don’t have time to share the information about the hotel with Laurel and her sisters. Since you’re going to be staying with them for a few days, do you want to fill them in on the details?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m actually going back to the hotel tomorrow to help a little more before they open. Ellie and Meghan are leaving early in the morning on some errand that’s taking them out of state. I’m helping to paint because their painters got spooked.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, what if I run by your place and drop this stuff off tonight?”

“That would be great.”

“Have you eaten?”

CJ looked at his warmed-up spaghetti. “Not yet.”

“I’ll drop by Pizza to Go and grab us a meat-lover’s deluxe.”

“Sounds good to me. See you in a few.” CJ put the spaghetti back in the refrigerator. He and Brett were only a couple of minutes apart in age and had always been the closest of the brothers, pairing up against their older brothers when they gave them grief.

While he waited for Brett to arrive with the pizza, CJ packed a bag of clothes for his stay at the hotel. Brett used the spare key that CJ had given him and called out, “Pizza delivery!”

CJ came out of the bedroom and joined his brother in the dining room. Brett had already placed the pizza box on the table and yanked off a couple of paper towels to use as plates. At the end of the table rested a purple-and-yellow polka-dot photo box. It looked suspiciously like one that Lelandi had given her brother-in-law Jake.

“Why does that box look familiar?” CJ asked.

Brett opened the lid, lifted out six large manila envelopes, and placed them at the end of the table. “Lelandi gave it to Jake for his photos last Christmas. But he either takes digital shots or makes them into large canvas pictures for art galleries, so he doesn’t need it. I thought I’d run over there to get copies of photos he had taken of the hotel over the years.” Brett paused, then smiled. “Okay, so yeah, he did have some that weren’t digital. Anyway, he quickly offered the box to carry the photos in. I’m sure it was a way to get rid of it without offending our pack leader.”

CJ smiled.

“I organized the photos by date.”

“I’m sure the ladies will be thrilled to get all the information. After they finish looking at all this stuff, they can give you their thoughts about the hotel for your article. As for the polka-dot box? Not sure they’ll want it either.”

Brett chuckled. “Surely the women will like it better than Jake does. I should have asked. Are the paper towels all right for plates?”

“No sense in using dishes for just the two of us.” CJ grabbed a couple of beers for them.

“Where are you staying in the hotel? I heard it’s already booked, and I know the women didn’t renovate the maids’ quarters yet.”

“Attic room.”

“Did you go up there? Turn on a light and leave it on?”

Wondering what Brett was getting at, CJ took a seat opposite him and grabbed a slice of pizza. “No, I’ve never been up there. Visited the basement though.”

Brett’s eyes rounded. “See anything?”

“Just the paintbrushes and rollers I had to clean.”

“Well, I went over to take some pictures of the hotel all lit up in Christmas lights. I had taken some earlier before the light faded. But the light on in the attic made the hotel look a little spooky. I’ll take more shots tomorrow night before the guests all arrive. I’ll just ask the women to turn on the lights in all the rooms at the front of the hotel.”

CJ finished a slice of pizza and reached for another. “They’re also decorating the backyard tomorrow, so maybe you can get a few shots out there.”