Ghost of a Chance by Katie MacAlister Read Free Book Online

good six inches on me. “It’s Marx. Karma Marx.
That’s Pixie, but she prefers Desdemona.”
    “ Deus , do you have to keep saying it
like that?” Pixie glared at both Adam and me.
    “Fine, Karma Marx—would you like to tell me
just why you feel free to rummage around my house without my
permission?”
    I pointed the statue at him. “You keep
saying that. It’s not true. My husband bought this house a few days
ago. I’m sorry if the house went into foreclosure or whatever
happened to cause you to lose it, but ignoring reality isn’t going
to do anything to make the situation change.”
    “You’re lying,” he said, his eyes filled
with disbelief.
    I sighed. “Look, Mr. Dirgesinger—”
    “Adam,” the man interrupted.
    “I beg your pardon?” I asked.
    “Adam. Call me Adam. I seldom use my last
name.”
    How very odd. For a brief moment, I wondered
why he wanted to disown his surname when he was so willing to admit
to his ancestry. “Very well. I’m not lying. I don’t lie. I’m sorry
I don’t have the title papers on me, but I assure you that I am
entirely serious when I say that my husband now owns this
house.”
    “I find that difficult to believe when I
haven’t put the house up for sale.”
    “It’s dirty and run down and looks like it’s
going to fall into the sea,” Pixie said, looking around the room.
“I like it.”
    “Hush, you. You’re not helping.” I took a
firmer grip on the dog statue. “My husband bought the house at some
sort of a foreclosure sale, I believe. A couple of days ago.”
    “I haven’t even been home for the last ten
days, so I don’t see how…” The sentence petered out as a look of
horror crept into Adam’s eyes. Without another word, he ran out of
the room, loud footsteps quickly fading into nothing.
    I sat down heavily on the nearest chair, a
sick feeling of sympathy gripping my stomach. I no longer had on
any blinders to the less-than-sterling morals of my husband. It was
entirely possible that he had bought the house out from under Adam,
without so much as giving him time to clear out his belongings.
    A moment later, Adam burst back into the
room, shaking a paper beneath my nose and yelling in a way that was
anatomically impossible, even for a third-generation polter.
    After allowing him to rage at me for a few
minutes, I managed to pry the paper out of his fisted hand. “That
bastard! That royal bastard.” He stormed, pacing up and down the
length of the sitting room.
    I smoothed the paper on my knee and gave it
a quick once-over before looking up at where he now loomed over me,
his face dark with emotion.
    Pixie leaned over my shoulder to read it.
“Foreclosure. That’s not good, is it?”
    “No.” I watched Adam for a moment. “Where
did you find this?”
    “It was in my mailbox. Look at the
date!”
    I glanced back at the foreclosure notice. It
was dated six months before. “I gather from your colorful
suggestions of what your mortgage company can do with themselves
that this is the first you’ve heard of foreclosure
proceedings?”
    “It is!” He snarled an obscenity and stomped
over ro a small keyhole desk, then yanked a phone book from a
drawer. “This is bullshit. I may have been late on a few mortgage
payments, but not foreclosure late. No one at the bank ever
mentioned that I was at risk to lose the house—no one! I’ve
certainly never had any letters stating the house was going into
foreclosure.”
    The sick feeling in my gut grew. “Perhaps
there’s been some massive mix-up…”
    “Like hell there is,” he said, his eyes cold
with fury as he snatched up the phone. “Meredith had better tell me
what’s going on if he knows what’s good for him.”
    “Meredith?” I asked, the sick feeling in my
belly turning to outright horror. “Meredith Bane?”
    The look Adam turned on me would have likely
sent any sane person screaming from the room, but I was not known
for my rationalness. “You know him?”
    “No, not