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

machete.
    Hannah stood in front of the house she’d pointed out, hands on her hips. The problem was obvious. No footholds to use to climb over. The surrounding trees were not thick enough to hold either of our weight.
    “Shit,” Hannah whispered. “I’d hoped we could go in the back, lessen the risk of one of the neighbors seeing.”
    “How about I give you a boost over?”
    Hannah nodded. “On the other side of the fence is the frame work. I’ll climb onto it and help you over.”
    Boosting Hannah over presented little difficulty. She hooked one long leg over the top of the fence and pulled herself into the yard. The fence rattled, and Hannah’s head appeared over the top. She held out her hand. I craned my neck to study the distance between me and the fence’s top. A good two feet. I got ready to tell Hannah I couldn’t do it, but one look at her face stopped me. Arguing would do nothing more than waste precious minutes before Carly came home.
    I jumped up and grabbed her hand, using my feet to walk up the fence. As soon as I could, I used my free hand to grab the top of the fence and used it for leverage instead of pulling Hannah’s arms from her sockets. My shoulders twitched and shuddered by the time I dropped into the yard. I caught Hannah studying where the rough fence boards had scratched her arms and found similar spots on mine. We crept to the back door, both of us looking over our shoulders like the criminals we were. Hannah unlocked the white French door and slipped inside, quickly punching in the alarm code.
    “I can’t believe they didn’t change the locks and the alarm code after they disowned you,” I said.
    “Maybe they figure I won’t come back, and I wasn’t going to. Come on.”
    The huge kitchen Hannah led me through had every possible frill I could imagine. I wondered how Joey and Carly afforded it on a teacher’s and a sheriff’s salary. The laundry room was right off the kitchen. Hannah turned on the light and held the door wide enough for me to follow her inside. To the right was another door. Hannah opened it and darkness faced us.
    “Oh, the light,” she said and flipped the switch.
    I held my breath, ready to see the Bruce family journals, the book of folk medicine, and a bunch of other contraband Sheriff Joey shouldn’t have. We both stared in shocked silence for several long moments. The storage room was empty except for an electric tile floor cleaner.
    From across the house, we heard the front door open and a gruff voice say, “Damnit. Don’t know why I bought this alarm system if she can’t set it.”
    Sheriff Joey Holze was home. My thoughts scrambled into a meaningless roar. I stood paralyzed beside my friend. Joey’s heavy steps thumped up the stairs, his angry grumbles drifting back to us.
    “Let’s go. Right now.” I turned to Hannah and almost lost hope. My buoyant friend stood with her eyes squeezed shut, her hands raised in trembling fists. Was she just going freeze up and let us get caught? I nudged her.
    “He’ll be able to see us from the bedroom window.”
    “Does it look out on the front or the back?”
    “The back,” she hissed as though I should have known.
    “We’ll go out the front then. Hope nobody sees us.”
    “Somebody will, though.”
    “It’s either stay here and wait for him to find us or try to get away.” I doubted our ability to get out undetected, too, but I’d be damned if I stood in this utility room like a lump of shit on a log waiting to get stepped in. I tiptoed out of the room, towing Hannah behind me.
    We crept through the other side of the kitchen and came out in a dining room, which opened onto a massive living room. The front door stood on the other side of it, right by the stairs. I tugged Hannah, motioning at the door. The squeaking sound my sneakers made on the tile seemed to fill the room, hell the whole house. I tried to take my steps differently, but nothing helped. If we could make it to the thick, cream