Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) by Catie Rhodes Read Free Book Online Page A

out.” I said the worlds jokingly, knowing Hannah would never break into anybody’s house.
    “Yep.” She checked her watch. “Aunt Carly’s weekly hair appointment and manicure starts in twenty minutes. She’s usually at Amanda’s Hair Flair for an hour, longer if she gets to gossiping, but lets depend on an hour. I’ve still got my key. Want to go see for ourselves?”
    She didn’t have to ask me twice.

    * * *
    W e hurried to fold towels in the stifling laundromat, both of us shining with sweat. Whoever decided to call it a glow needed his or her head examined with an ice pick. By the time we loaded the towels into the car, I was soaked and exhausted and ended up letting the hot metal burn the undersides of my arms. I jumped away from the car with a yelp. Using a bandana to protect my hand, I opened the driver’s door, started the car, and turned the air conditioner on high to push out some of the pent up heat.
    “We’ll take the towels by Amanda’s,” I said. “See if Carly’s there.” I leveled my gaze on Hannah. “You sure you want to do this?”
    Hannah bit her lip and twisted her fingers.
    “We don’t have to do this.” I didn’t know how else we’d see if Joey had the Bruce journals and the folk medicine book with the rest of his treasure trove, but I didn’t want to force Hannah into doing something she didn’t want to do.
    “Yes, we do,” Hannah said. “I won’t stop wondering until I know for sure.”
    I took Amanda’s towels into the salon and saw Carly Holze’s sour, lemon face for myself. Her gaze, glowing with hate, followed me as I took the towels into the laundry room and put them away in the cabinets Amanda had set aside for them. She sneered as Amanda paid me, jabbering nonstop about how happy she was to have her new washer. I gave Carly a wave on my way out, and she turned her face away, pretending not to have seen.
    Did I feel guilty about breaking into her house? Not as much as I should have.
    The drive out to Piney Lake took us a good twenty minutes, during which we said little. Hannah took a key off her keyring and fumbled it through her fingers until she dropped it and had to dig on the floorboard for it. I turned into Joey and Carly’s subdivision.
    “No,” Hannah said. “Their house backs up to some woods over by Billy Ray’s Marina. Let’s park there, and we’ll sneak through the woods.”
    I did as she suggested, adrenaline pumping jangly tension through my body, and pulled into a parking place between two super-sized trucks with empty boat trailers hitched to them. The subdivision’s houses peeked through a screen of skinny pine trees and overgrown brush. People loitered everywhere. There was no way we’d be able to walk into the woods without someone seeing. Hannah gazed out the window, probably realizing the same thing I did.
    “The thing to do,” I said, “is act like we belong in those woods. Walk into them like we do it every day.” I glanced at Hannah. “We can call this off if you’re too scared. No shame.”
    She got out of the car without answering. I followed. Together, we strode toward the woods, both of us keeping our eyes straight ahead.
    “Hey. What y’all gonna do in those woods?” A male voice yelled.
    “Can I watch?” Hollered another.
    I half-turned, ready to tell them they could all go masturbate and use sand for lubricant. Hannah grabbed my arm and squeezed hard.
    “Ignore ‘em. They’ll remember us better if you answer them.”
    I grumbled but obeyed, and we stepped into the woods. About twenty feet from us rose a wall of seven-foot wooden privacy fences, the second stories of the houses visible behind them.
    “Uncle Joey’s is the third one from the left.” Hannah started pushing her way through the brush, her face stony. I picked my way after her, wishing I had a machete to cut the thick brush, but knowing it was best I didn’t. The people in the marina parking lot would have remembered a woman carrying a