Bartholomew 02 - How to Marry a Ghost by Hope McIntyre Read Free Book Online Page B

landed the job.

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    I wished it could be me all alone in the pool house instead of Rufus. I needed a place where I could hole up and be on my own for a while. I’d had enough socializing and excitement over the last few days to last me a lifetime and if I didn’t get some space and private time to recharge my batteries, pretty soon I’d begin to freak out.
    I was right about the dust sheets in the mausoleum. The day after the beachfront ceremony, all the furniture on the ground floor had been covered up except for the breakfast room beside the kitchen. I set up my laptop there and settled down to wait. I went for long walks from one end of the sweeping curve of the bay to the other, cursing the fact that I had not brought a swimsuit. I had no car in which to explore the area and while Rufus was an angel, coming back from work in the evening bearing steaming aluminum cartons of delicious take-out food to share with me, during the day I felt somewhat cut off from reality.
    He brought tantalizing bits of gossip about the recent deaths.
    “There’s no freakin’ word on who she is,” he said, plunging his hand into a pile of barbecued ribs with such relish that he evoked a painful vision of Tommy who had a habit of getting more food on his face than in his mouth. “Shotgun Marriott’s place is off limits to the world. There are police lines wherever you look.”
    “Is he there?” I asked.
    “They say he is but no one’s seen him. The press are camped out on Cranberry Hole Road but no one’s given them anything yet.”
    The next day I went for an early morning walk along the beach to the far end of the bay where I caught a glimpse of something yellow in the woods. The mist was still coming in off the water and I thought maybe I had imagined something but looking closer, I saw it was a police line.This had to be the edge of Shotgun’s property. I hung about for a few minutes feeling edgy and

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    then I saw them searching the area, dogs straining at their leashes.
    One man looked up and saw me and said something to another and they started coming toward me. I turned and ran. It was pure instinct and after a few seconds I slowed to a jog, imagining it must look very suspicious.Were they coming after me?
    But when I looked around, the beach was empty. I arrived back at the Stucco House, as Rufus told me they called it—I thought
    “mausoleum” a much more appropriate name—and found a note on the kitchen table from Lucia. “Jenny called.” Who was Jenny?
    Oh, Genny, as Genevieve liked to be called.
    “So,” she said triumphantly when I called her back, “it’s a go.
    You got the job.”
    “I did? But I haven’t even had an interview.” Now that it had happened I was amazed. “He didn’t want Bettina?”
    “Apparently not.You know, I’m not talking directly with him.
    With someone like him, you deal with their ‘people.’ But now I come to think of it, they didn’t mention Bettina. It’s odd. I’ve been calling them every day for some kind of reaction about either you or Bettina and the last time I spoke to them, I mentioned that you were out in East Hampton. I said you’d need two or three hours’ warning if you had to go into the city to meet with him. Anyway, it turns out he’s out there too. They called back pretty quickly and said he wanted you. And he wants to see you right away. Have they buried his son yet? It’s all over the papers in London this morning. Dreadful!”
    “He’s being cremated this morning,” I said, repeating what Rufus had heard on the grapevine.
    “ This morning? Good God, and he wants to see you the same day!”
    “For an interview?”
    “They were talking as if you were already hired,” said

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    Genevieve. “Call his office in the city and they’ll tell you where to go.”
    “What time?” I reached for a pen. My hand was shaking slightly. Going to meet a subject for the first time