Page 55 of It'll Always Be Her

The women laughed again. Adam pulled himself out from under Clyde’s arm.

“We don’t actually hunt for the ghost, though,” the brunette told him. “If we see him, that just means we got lucky.”

“I, on the other hand, use a number of scientific methods in my investigations,” Clyde said, gesturing to the bartender for another beer. “Electromagnetic field meters, also known as EMF meters, Geiger counters, EVP recorders and sensors, ion detectors, full-spectrum cameras, ghost boxes…all totally state-of-the-art. I follow every lead and leave no stone unturned.”

“So what proof have you found of ghosts so far?” An attractive older woman seated at the end of the bar eyed Clyde and his groupies.

Adam recognized her as Marilyn Lawford, the real estate agent apparently gunning for the closure of the Bliss Cove Library.

The woman was Bee’s nemesis.

“A fluctuation in energy fields is the most common evidence of a ghost,” Clyde said. “Along with cold spots and audio abnormalities.”

“I’ve seen that on other shows too.” The redhead nodded vigorously. “The meters go crazy when the ghost is nearby.”

Clyde smiled at her indulgently. “Other showsdon’t have our level of scientific rigor.”

“Or scientific experts,” Marilyn remarked, lifting her glass in Adam’s direction. “Dr. Powers has an impressive résumé.”

“Doesn’t he?” Clyde clamped a hand hard on Adam’s shoulder and pushed in front of him. “We couldn’t do it without him. But I’m the one who actually investigates.Hiswork is mostly behind the scenes.”

Adam took a few steps back to extricate himself from this whole thing. Marilyn slid off the barstool and approached him.

“Leaving so soon?” She tilted her head toward the bar, her blond hair falling like a curtain. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“No, thanks. I gotta get back to work.” Though he hardly knew Marilyn, he had no reason to dislike her—except that her actions were hurting Bee. Even if it wasn’t intentional harm, he knew whose side he was on.

“Look.” Marilyn stepped closer, and he caught a whiff of her perfume. “We both know you’re not going to find proof of any ghost. No one ever does. No one everhas, either at the library or anywhere else in the world. So we can let Clyde ramble on about his pseudoscientific techniques, but you and I both know the truth, don’t we? Ghosts don’t exist.”

Though Adam had never apologized for his belief in evidence, for the first time, he didn’t want to be known as the guy who was out to debunk all the Gardenia House ghost sightings.

“I’m just here to direct the episode.” He shrugged, like he had no say in anything else.

“And as the director, you must already have an angle,” she remarked.

Irritation tensed his spine. “Like you do?”

His voice came out sharper than he’d intended. Marilyn lifted her eyebrows.

“I have a plan, yes,” she said. “A good one that will benefit this town.”

“But one that puts a historic part of Bliss Cove at risk.” He narrowed his gaze. “What happens to the Gardenia House if the library is shut down?”

She took a sip of her drink. “That will depend on whoever purchases it.”

“Which means it could be torn down. Apparently there’s not enough money to allocate for the house’s upkeep, it’s not protected by historical preservation regulations, and it would cost a fortune for anyone to buy it and turn it into a restaurant or a retail shop.”

“Clearly, you don’t know anything about real estate.” Marilyn’s lips compressed. “Or you’d know that the location is terrible for either retail or a restaurant. In fact, its accessibility is one of the reasons I’ve proposed moving the library.”

“That house is a lot more than just a library.”

A gleam appeared in her eyes.

He stepped back, suddenly wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. He also didn’t need word spreading that he was on Bee’s side—but she obviously needed more allies. Not even Marilyn knew what would happen to the house, or Bee, if the library was closed.

And what about the cat? What about the telescope in the cupola, and Bee’s signpost pointing the way to Treasure Island and the display of high school poetry and the colorful drawings with all the book characters?

“For someone who just arrived in town, you seem to know a lot about the Gardenia House,” Marilyn observed. “And Bliss Cove.”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com