Page 60 of If I Stopped Haunting You

Neil stopped a foot away from the thing protruding from theground. He brushed his hands over it, exposing the top of a tombstone.

“Of course there’s a grave out here,” he said, leaning closer. Stooping, he swept his fingers over the stone to clear away the last of the snow and dirt, hissing as his fingertips grew numb from the cold. “Nearly there.”

When he was done, he sat back on his heels, surveying his work. Lips barely moving, he read aloud: “Archibald Skinner, Fourth Duke of Skinner Castle.”

Skinner. Like Penelope Skinner.

It was either a strange coincidence or Laszlo hadn’t felt the need to tell Penelope it could very well be a place deeply rooted in her family history.

“No,” he said, nearly falling over.

It wasn’t only the last name. Hadn’t he heard that name whispered in the study? Neil straightened, brushing off his pants as he turned to the castle.

There were simply too many coincidences.

Shivering, he folded his arms across his chest and hurried around the back of the castle. He paused at a side entrance, his eyes going to a flicker of movement in one of the upper windows. By the time he craned his neck, there was nothing there.

Fuck this,Neil thought.

The side door opened into a hallway. Old coats and muddied boots were lined up along the entrance. They looked like they belonged to the groundskeeper, but they were covered in a thin layer of dust as if she’d abandoned them. Neil stomped his boots on the entry rug, brushing off the last of the snow with his aching fingers.

“Where did you come from?” Laszlo asked, peering in from around the corner. “I thought you were a ghost or something.”

If only you knew.

Neil shivered, undoing his coat and kicking off his boots. “I went for a short walk in the snow. Found the side entrance,” hesaid, nodding to the door as he tugged off his scarf and hung it over his coat. “Where’s Penelope?” he asked, eyes wide and searching as he craned his neck to look around the corner.

“She’s inside.”

“That’s good.”

Laszlo nodded slowly, chewing on his lip.

“What?”

“Nothing, just—”

“The Wi-Fi is down and we are doomed!” Daniela yelled from the other room.

Laszlo pressed his lips together before turning and disappearing down the hall. Neil followed him. The mudroom was around the corner from the kitchen, and as he stopped just inside the large room, he found Penelope and Daniela seated at the long table, phones, computers, and tablets out. Annoyance, frustration, and exhaustion were written across their features.

Penelope sat hunched forward, expression pained as she turned away from him, studying the itinerary before her like it was the most interesting thing in the room.

“I mean, aren’t we here to write?” Neil offered as he leaned against the counter. His knee bounced nervously as his gaze clung to Penelope. He needed to tell her about the grave.

Daniela scoffed. “I have a process, Stormy—”

“That’s not my name,” he interjected, annoyed.

“And it includes,” Daniela continued, ignoring him, “opening my computer, staring at my screen for about an hour, giving up, closing my computer, opening it again, checking my phone for twenty minutes to an hour, closing my computer, and eventually giving up altogether before moving to the couch and watching something.”

“How do you get anything done?” Penelope asked, leaning forward.

“At some point or another, I actually write. But I go throughspouts of writing where I do five thousand to ten thousand words in one hit and then nothing for a week straight.”

“You baffle me.” Laszlo laughed, shaking his head.

Clearing her throat, Penelope pushed her chair out and stood. “I’m going to wander a bit,” she told Laszlo quietly. She ignored Neil’s pointed stare as she moved past him and down the hall to the study.