Maybe her sister had a history of not repaying loans and Courtney was fed up with it?

  Had Heather expected to inherit money when her father died? Did she think getting Jolie out of the way would accomplish that?

  Monica really wished she could see Richard Spencer’s will. It would answer a lot of questions. She contemplated it as she wheeled Teddy to the car. Maybe she would be able to think of a way.

  • • •

  Teddy had been fed and was napping while Monica made herself a burrito topped with cranberry salsa. She plunked into a chair at the kitchen table and sighed. She envied Teddy his nap. She could do with one herself. She hadn’t expected motherhood to be quite so tiring. Teddy still needed feedings during the night and even though Greg changed his diaper and brought him to her, it still kept her from getting a good night’s sleep.

  Her head began to droop and she jerked awake. She needed air. That would wake her up. It was the perfect time to walk down to the farm kitchen and check on things. She heard Teddy beginning to stir in his crib. He would probably enjoy being outside as well.

  The temperature had dropped, although Monica knew there would still be a few warm days at the end of September and heading into October. She bundled Teddy into one of the handmade sweaters he’d been gifted, pulled on her own fleece and in no time they were out the door.

  There was a distinct autumnal chill in the air and it smelled of drying leaves and apples from a nearby orchard. Monica immediately felt refreshed and Teddy began cooing and kicking his feet in his carriage.

  She bent to readjust his blanket then continued down the path toward the farm kitchen.

  A feeling almost like homesickness washed over her as she pulled open the door and maneuvered the carriage over the threshold. She stopped for a moment to inhale the intoxicating scent of sugar, cranberries and yeast.

  She had been hesitant to face Mick, but the feeling vanished as soon as she stepped inside.

  The normality of the scene—Mick at the counter cutting out scones, Janice next to him kneading dough and Nancy at the table tying ribbons around jars of cranberry compote—put her at ease. As soon as they saw her, Nancy and Janice immediately deserted their positions to lean over the carriage and admire Teddy.

  “He’s getting so big. Aren’t you my special boy,” Nancy said.

  Janice frowned. She called to Monica, “Is it windy out?”

  Monica raised her eyebrows. “No, not terribly, why?”

  “A windy day can give a baby wind,” Janice said with an air of satisfaction.

  “A baby isn’t going to get gas because they’ve been outside in the wind. That’s an old wives’ tale.”

  Janice shook her head. “I don’t know. You can’t be too careful.”

  Monica took a steadying breath and smiled. There was no arguing with Janice. She parked the carriage near Nancy and went over to the counter.

  “Everything going okay? I feel so guilty not being here to help.”

  “You need to be with your baby.” Janice stuck her hands in the lump of dough on the counter in front of her. “Besides, we’re managing just fine.” She looked at Mick.

  “Yes. No problems.” He smiled.

  “Good.” Monica knocked on the counter. “I’m going to check on our stock.”

  She strolled around the stockroom but everything was neat and tidy and there were plentiful supplies of everything they would need for the foreseeable future.

  Nancy was holding Teddy when Monica reemerged and having a lively conversation with him. He followed her movements with his eyes and tried to grab her hair.

  Monica slid into the seat opposite her mother.

  Nancy jiggled Teddy. “You know, I’m convinced I have a ghost in the house.” Monica opened her mouth but her mother held up a hand. “No matter what you say, I know I’m right.”

  “Mother, simply because that clock fell off your mantel doesn’t mean you have a ghost. Ghosts don’t exist. It’s your imagination. Something perfectly normal caused it to fall. A truck rumbling by or . . .”

  Nancy was already shaking her head. “No. It’s true. There’s a ghost. That’s not the only strange thing that’s happened.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I left my glasses on the coffee table and when I went to get them, they were gone!” Nancy said triumphantly. “And do you know where I found them?” Before Monica could reply, she continued. “I found them in the pocket of my robe.”

  “Maybe you put them there and forgot.” Monica said it as gently as possible.

  Nancy was already shaking her head. “No. I never put them in my robe pocket. That’s not all. I was watching the news on television when a cold wind swept through the room—cold enough to make me shiver when I’d been perfectly comfortable a moment before. And yesterday when I walked into the living room, I distinctly smelled a strong perfume in the air. It smelled like gardenia. There’s a poltergeist in the house, I tell you.”

  Meanwhile, Janice had wandered over and was listening to their conversation. “This is the time of year when the veil between the two worlds is at its thinnest.” Monica glanced at her but her expression was serious. “No wonder you’re hearing ghosts.”

  “See?” Nancy pointed at Janice. “She believes me.”

  Monica was about to retort that Janice believed a lot of things that were myths or old wives’ tales that had long ago been disproven, but not without some difficulty she managed to hold her tongue.

  “It’s probably the previous owner haunting the place. Maybe there was some unfinished business at the end of their life or some unresolved trauma.” Janice put a hand to her mouth. “Perhaps they were murdered and the killer was never brought to justice. Ghosts have been known to haunt their previous residences in those cases.” She frowned. “Do you know who owned the house before you?”

  Nancy shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t. It was an estate sale.” She grabbed Monica’s hand. “Will you check into it? The thought of living in a house where someone was murdered . . .” She shivered.

  Monica knew it was useless to argue. Nancy and Janice would hound her until she’d done what Nancy asked. And if it would put her mother’s mind at ease and put paid to this whole notion of ghosts, it would be worth it.

  “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  • • •

  Gina appeared at Monica’s door early the next morning. She was wearing leggings, a cropped top and a light zip-up jacket. Monica wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be what fashion magazines had taken to calling “athleisure” wear or if Gina was planning to go to the gym later.

  Greg’s eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline when he saw Gina’s attire and he choked on the coffee he was drinking.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” Gina said as she took a mug from the cabinet and poured herself coffee. “But I’m glad you are.” She nodded at Greg. “Will you be here for a while?”

  Greg swallowed his mouthful of coffee. “For a bit, yes. I’m going to an estate sale but it doesn’t open until eleven o’clock. Fortunately, the store is busiest in the afternoon so Wilma should be able to handle things by herself.”

  “Good,” Gina said again. “I’m going to borrow your wife.” She turned to Monica. “I’m taking you to my exercise class at the Soul Spring Spa.” Gina inhaled deeply and threw her hands in the air. “It will release your endorphins and you’ll feel wonderful. Kiran is a brilliant teacher.”

  “What sort of exercise?” Monica was leery.

  “I’ll tell you about it in the car.” She made a shooing motion. “Hurry. Go get changed.”

  Monica peered at Teddy in his baby seat. He had fallen asleep with his head lolling to one side.

  Greg smiled. “Don’t worry. I can cope. You go ahead.”

  Monica dutifully climbed the stairs to their bedroom and rummaged through her drawers. She knew she had an old pair of leggings somewhere left over from when she used to take yoga classes in Chicago. They had a small hole in them but it wasn’t that noticeable. She didn’t have a fancy top like Gina, and besides, she wanted a bit more coverage. She pulled out an old T-shirt that had faded lettering saying Monica’s Café on it and wiggled into it. It was a little tight but it would have to do.

  She pulled her hair back into a ponytail with an elastic and headed downstairs, where Gina was waiting.

  What was she getting herself into, she thought, as she got into the passenger seat of Gina’s Mercedes.

  “So, tell me about this exercise class we’re going to. What do we have to do?”

  Monica crossed her fingers that it wouldn’t involve things like mountain climbers or jumping jacks or be named something like Boot Camp.

  “It’s something brand new. It was created in Australia and it’s called Zuu.”

  “Zoo?”

  “Yes, but with two u’s instead of o’s.”

  A sense of dread crept from Monica’s toes to the top of her head. “How do you Zuu?” She laughed. It sounded as if she was saying how do you do.

  “The exercises are based on animal movements. They’re quite natural.”

  By now they were heading down Beach Hollow Road and within moments Gina was pulling into the parking lot in back of the Soul Spring Spa.

  Gina led the way into the facility and motioned toward a wall of cubicles. “You can leave your shoes and purse over there.”

  “My shoes?”

  “Yes. Zuu is performed barefoot. It’s more natural and gives you a better grip.”

  Monica reluctantly yanked off her sneakers, peeled off her socks and stashed them in one of the cubbies.

  Gina took her arm. “Over there are the massage rooms, meditation room and sauna.”

  They passed a towering pyramid of plastic bottles with Thermodynamics in large letters on the label.

  Gina pointed at them. “We’re going to get you selling those as an ambassador for Soul Spring Spa.”

  Monica was about to protest, but they’d entered a room with a mirrored wall and yoga mats stacked on one side. Soothing music was being piped in and a diffuser scented the air with lavender.

  “Kiran buys his essential oils from me. That’s how I met him,” Gina said.

  Kiran himself sat cross-legged on the floor with his eyes closed and his hands on his knees. He was wearing a dark blue jumpsuit and was barefoot. A bit of light-colored stubble was visible on his head.

  Other women had begun to filter into the room and Monica was surprised to see Courtney chatting with a tall blond in leggings patterned in several vivid colors.

  Monica looked around, but it was too late to bolt. Besides, she had no way to get back to the farm so she might as well go through with it. How bad could it be?

  It wasn’t bad, it was worse, Monica decided within the first five minutes. She would have welcomed mountain climbers or jumping jacks instead, when Kiran began to demonstrate the first move—the frog squat. Monica thought that was bad, but then they moved on to the bear crawl. She felt her face getting red and sweat was dripping down her spine. The other women seemed to be having a good time, whooping it up and making animal-like noises.

  The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness but finally the class was over. Kiran headed to a stack of fluffy white towels, all neatly rolled and precisely arranged on a set of shelves. He went around the room and handed them out.

  Monica groaned as she dabbed at her face and neck. “That was something,” she said to Gina, who appeared to be invigorated and glowing. “No wonder you lost weight.”

  They began to move toward their cubbies to collect their things. “You should come again,” Gina said. She hung her towel around her neck. “It would be good for you.”

  When pigs fly, Monica muttered to herself. She reached for her shoes and sat on the bench to put them on.

  A woman, whose arms and legs revealed the remains of a summer tan, sat next to Monica and began talking to the woman on the other side. Monica glanced at them out of the corner of her eye. The woman’s companion was Courtney Spencer.

  “They can’t do that. You need to get a lawyer. A good one. My friend Daphne used Elizabeth Brennan. She said she was worth every penny. I’ll get her contact info for you if you’d like.”

  Monica had finished tying her sneakers and Gina was waiting for her by the door and she had no choice but to get up.

  A cool breeze was blowing and it felt heavenly on her overheated face and neck as she followed Gina out to the car. What did Courtney need a lawyer for? she wondered. It was frustrating not to have heard more of the conversation. Did it have something to do with Richard Spencer’s will or was it something else?

  Chapter 7

  Her phone rang as Monica was pulling into her driveway. She and Teddy had made a quick trip to the farm stand down the road for some sweet potatoes and a head of lettuce for that night’s dinner.

  She pulled the phone from her purse and quickly peered into the rearview mirror. Another mirror affixed to the backseat allowed her to see Teddy in his backward-facing car seat. His eyes were closed and his mouth was slightly open. It didn’t look as if he was going to wake up anytime soon.

  Monica swiped her phone open and answered the call. It was Nancy.

  “Have you had a chance to look into what we discussed?”

  Monica’s mind momentarily went blank. “Discussed?”

  “Yes. About the ghost in my house and how it might be the previous owner haunting the place. You promised to look into it for me.”

  Monica stifled a groan. “Of course. Teddy’s sleeping so I’ll see what I can do now.”

  “Thank you, dear.”

  Monica sighed and ended the call. She’d been looking forward to putting her feet up and relaxing for a bit. Instead, she carefully moved Teddy from his car seat to his crib and settled at the kitchen table with her laptop. She did some googling and finally found the property records for her county in Michigan.

  She typed in her mother’s address and quickly found what she was looking for. The house had previously been owned by an Ada Visser. Monica typed her name into a search engine and links to several Ada Vissers came up.

  She read through the brief descriptions and clicked on the link to an obituary for an Ada Visser who was born in South Bend, Indiana, and died in Cranberry Cove. She read through it quickly. It was brief and didn’t offer much information beyond the details of her funeral service and burial. Monica moaned in frustration. If her death had been at all traumatic or suspicious as Janice had suggested, there ought to be an article somewhere.

  She finally found a brief entry in the Cranberry Cove Chronicle about a Mrs. Ada Visser who had been found dead in her bathtub of a heart attack. Foul play was not suspected. Was it the trauma of having had a heart attack that was causing her to haunt Nancy’s cottage?

  Monica slapped her forehead. Now she was acting as if the ghost was real and not simply a figment of her mother’s imagination. She knew Nancy wasn’t going to rest until Monica did everything possible. She might as well get on with it.

  She wondered if it was possible to give someone a heart attack on purpose? Scare them, maybe?

  She typed causes of a heart attack into her search engine. Opinion was divided, but it seemed it was possible to scare someone into having a heart attack but the person would already have had to be suffering from advanced heart disease.

  There was no way she could access Ada Visser’s health records. Or figure out who might have wanted to kill her. Perhaps the best course of action was to find a way to rid Nancy of her ghost—whether that was Ada Visser or someone else. And she knew just the person to ask.

  • • •

  Monica fed Teddy and then fixed herself some lunch. She finished her turkey sandwich, gave the crusts to Hercule, tidied the kitchen and bundled Teddy into a blue sweater and a knit cap that she tied under his chin. He gleefully pulled on one of the ties and undid the bow Monica had just made. She tied it again and carried him out to the car.

  He made gurgling sounds and kicked his feet happily as she drove back into town. The wind had whipped the lake into frothy white-capped waves and a few people walked along the edge, holding their jackets and sweaters closed against the gusts, their faces lifted to the sun.

  Monica knew winter was around the corner but right now, she was going to relish the glorious weather.

  She pulled into a parking space in front of the Cranberry Cove Diner. The door was cracked open and the scent of hamburgers frying on the griddle and fries sizzling in hot oil drifting out smelled enticing despite the fact she’d already had her lunch. Through the window, she saw Gus at his accustomed spot flipping burgers and eggs with practiced dexterity. Gus was like the mail service, neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night kept Gus from his position at the diner’s grill.

  Twilight, Monica’s destination, was next to the diner. She wheeled Teddy to the door and opened it. Tempest’s crushed velvet tunic rustled as she rushed over and helped Monica maneuver the carriage inside.

  Tempest immediately bent down to smile at Teddy and stroke his head. She was delighted when Teddy grabbed her finger and tried to put it in his mouth.

  Monica laughed to herself. When she was pregnant, all the attention was lavished on her, but now that Teddy was here, he was the star of the show. Frankly, she was relieved. She’d never been comfortable being the center of attention.

  “What a sweetie he is,” Tempest said as she straightened up. The amulet hanging from a silk cord around her neck swung back and forth. “Such a good baby. I know just what you need.”

  Monica was startled. Had Tempest divined the purpose of her visit? Did the crystals give her some sort of superpower?

  Tempest bustled behind the counter and began opening various drawers in the tall cabinet that held the crystals she sold. “Here it is!” She placed an opalescent stone on a velvet pad.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s moonstone,” Tempest said, handing Monica the stone. “It’s for protection, strength and growth. Place it in a corner of the baby’s room.” She pointed at the crystal in Monica’s palm. “See the play of light?” she said, as Monica tilted the moonstone this way and that. “That’s called adularescence.”