The Ghost and the Leprechaun Read online

  The Ghost and the Leprechaun

  Bobbi Holmes

  Illustrated by

  Elizabeth Mackey

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  The Ghost Who Lied

  Haunting Danielle Newsletter

  Haunting Danielle Series

  Bobbi Holmes

  Unlocked Hearts Series

  The Coulson Series

  Also by Bobbi Ann Johnson Holmes

  The Ghost and the Leprechaun

  (Haunting Danielle, Book 12)

  A Novel

  By Bobbi Holmes

  Cover Design: Elizabeth Mackey

  * * *

  Copyright © 2017 Bobbi Holmes

  Robeth Publishing, LLC

  All Rights Reserved.

  * * *

  This novel is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to places or actual persons,

  living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  * * *

  www.robeth.com

  To Scott & SeAnne,

  whose Oregon inspired me.

  I love you both.

  One

  He sat cross-legged, hovering in midair beside Danielle’s bed, watching her sleep. Propped atop his shaggy strawberry blond hair was a green derby hat, it sat cockeyed on his head. The boney fingers of his right hand absently twisted the ends of his long red beard. He wondered who she was—why was she at Marlow House?

  With a reluctant sigh, he planted his feet on the wood floor and walked the perimeter of the room, looking for clues. The window shades were open, enabling the moonlight to spill into the room and provide ample lighting for his exploration. The contents of a nearby wicker trash can caught his attention—it held a pair of shoes. Who throws away shoes?

  Reaching into the container, he pulled out one of the discarded shoes and noticed its broken heel. I can fix this easily, he thought, giving his leather apron a pat. Just as he sat down with the shoe to begin the repairs, he heard the bedroom door squeak. Looking up, he watched as it slowly opened. And then he saw it, golden eyes peering curiously in his direction. And then he heard it, a loud high-pitched, “Meow!”

  “A cat!” he shouted, jumping up and dropping the shoe on the floor. He disappeared just as the cat dashed into the room and pounced on the spot he had been sitting on.

  Rudely jerked from slumber, Danielle bolted upright in bed. Rubbing her eyes with one balled fist, she glanced around the dimly lit room and yawned. Light from the hallway slipped in through the partially opened doorway.

  “Darn, I forgot to lock it,” she mumbled. There were guests staying in the bed and breakfast, and she felt more comfortable sleeping with her bedroom door closed and locked. With a groan, she climbed out of bed and headed for the door. En route, she tripped over a shoe. Muttering a curse, she paused, reached down, and picked it up. With a frown, she examined it a moment and then tossed it toward the wicker waste can. The shoe missed its objective, landing on the floor next to her small desk.

  Ignoring the missed target, she stumbled to the door and heard a meow. Looking down, she found Max staring up at her, his black tail swishing back and forth.

  “Aww…so it’s you who woke me up?” she whispered. Leaning down, she picked up the cat and then proceeded to close and lock her bedroom door. Max began to purr as he nuzzled his forehead into her chest.

  “Cheeky brat.” She tittered, returning to her bed. Climbing back under her sheets and blankets, she snuggled her furry pet and promptly fell back to sleep.

  Walt watched in fascination as Danielle’s slender fingers adeptly wove her brunette tresses into a tidy fishtail braid. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly and efficiently she performed the task each morning. Just weeks earlier she had discussed cutting her hair and leaving behind her trademark braid, to which Walt had expressed a hearty objection. It wasn’t that Walt was particularly fond of the braid—but he did appreciate what it did to her long hair when she released it from its restraints. He wasn’t sure if she had abandoned the notion of cutting her hair—or if her life had recently been so chaotic that she simply had no time to consider a new hairstyle.

  Danielle sat at her dressing table, her attention fixed on its mirror and her reflection as she wove together her braid.

  “Did your mother teach you to braid your hair like that?” Walt asked.

  Startled, Danielle turned to Walt. “How long have you been standing there lurking?” She then turned back to the mirror.

  Walt chuckled and stepped closer to the dressing table, standing behind Danielle. He stared at her reflection in the mirror—Walt didn’t have one. “I don’t lurk.”

  “You do seem to have a habit of sneaking into a lady’s room uninvited,” Danielle said primly, quickly finishing her braid.

  “Only yours.” Walt grinned.

  Danielle smiled and then explained, “As for your question. No, my mother did not teach me to braid my hair like this. I learned it from YouTube.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” he muttered under his breath.

  Now finished with her hair, she turned around on the bench and faced Walt. Behind him was her bed, and on the bed was Max, who was just waking up. He let out a loud meow.

  Walt turned to the cat and studied him for a moment. “Really? Are you sure?”

  “Is he sure about what?” Danielle asked, reaching down and grabbing a pair of shoes she had set by the dressing table earlier.

  “According to Max, you had some sort of visitor last night. He scared him away.”

  “Visitor?” Danielle frowned. She slipped on her right shoe. “What kind of visitor?”

  Walt shrugged. “Not really sure. He’s not making a lot of sense.”

  “Well, he is a cat.” Danielle slipped on her second shoe. “I suspect he’s just trying to cover for himself. He woke me up last night. Crazy animal. I think he was playing in my trash.”

  Walt arched his brow. “Your trash?”

  “You know that shoe I broke yesterday? Well, I threw the pair in my trash can last night, and when Max woke me up, one of the shoes was on the floor in the middle of the room. I tripped over it.” Danielle stood up.

  Walt glanced to the trash can and noticed one of the shoes resting on the floor next to the desk.

  “That one?” The shoe floated up in the air and then dropped into the wicker basket.

  “It was in the trash last night when I went to bed. Naughty cat.”

  “Your guests are already at breakfast. Are you going down?” Walt now sat on the edge of the bed with Max, who had closed his eyes and gone back to sleep.

  Danielle glanced at the clock sitting on her nightstand. “Remember, I’m
going to the bank this morning.”

  “Aww, that’s right. The gold coins. So, you really found a buyer for them?”

  “Chris did. He’s meeting me at the bank before it closes—and it closes early today so I need to get going.”

  “Chris is meeting you at the bank?”

  “No, the buyer. One less thing to worry about.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to just keep them?” Walt asked. “It’s not like you need the money, and gold can be a good investment.”

  “You’re right. I don’t need the money. But the money I can make from selling those coins can do a lot of good.”

  Walt let out a sigh. “You can’t keep giving all your money away, Danielle. I’m beginning to think Chris is a bad influence.”

  Danielle chortled. “Yeah…right.”

  “I didn’t think you worked on Saturdays anymore,” Danielle Boatman asked Susan Mitchell as she followed her down the dimly lit hallway leading to the vault room housing the safe deposit boxes. In her right hand Danielle held her key ring—the key to a safe deposit box—poised and ready to open its lock.

  Susan opened the door to the vault room, stepping aside for Danielle to enter first. “Ever since Steve’s death, I had to take on more hours. I was hoping I’d get my Saturdays back after the new bank manager settled in.”

  Danielle stepped around Susan and entered the windowless room. She turned to the left, walking toward her two safe deposit boxes. Glancing over her right shoulder at Susan, she asked, “How do you like your new boss? I haven’t met him yet.”

  Susan whispered, “I guess he’s no worse than Steve.”

  Danielle sniggered. “Well, that doesn’t sound promising.”

  Susan looked sheepishly to Danielle and cringed. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Danielle grinned. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

  Coming to a stop in front of the safe deposit box they intended to open, Susan put out her hand for Danielle’s key.

  “I hope you get your Saturdays back,” Danielle said as she handed the key to Susan, its ring and ring mates dangling from its end.

  “Thanks. So does my husband.” Susan turned her attention to the safe deposit box, kneeling slightly so that she could reach it.

  Danielle watched as Susan used the key she had given her, along with the bank’s key, to open the lock. Before removing the metal box, Susan handed Danielle back her key ring. She then knelt down and slid the metal box from its vault.

  As soon as Susan removed the storage box entirely from the wall unit, she turned to Danielle and said with surprise, “I thought this held the gold coins? Is this the one with the Missing Thorndike?”

  “You know better than that.” Danielle reached for the metal box, anticipating the weight of its priceless contents. Remembering how heavy the box had been after filling it with the gold coins, she was prepared to use both hands to maneuver the hefty container. Exerting more energy than was necessary in handling the box, it practically flew out of her hands.

  Danielle managed to regain hold of the metal container before it landed on the concrete floor. Hunched over, hugging the large safe deposit box to her bosom, she looked up at Susan, her eyes now wide. Slowly standing up straight, still clutching the surprisingly light metal box in her arms, Danielle now understood what Susan was talking about a moment earlier when questioning if they had opened the correct safe deposit box.

  Without saying another word, Danielle—standing in the middle of the vault room—hastily flipped open the lid of the large metal container and looked inside.

  “It’s empty!” Danielle gasped, turning the opened end to Susan so she could see inside.

  Confused, Susan gazed into the box. “What’s that?” she asked with a whisper before reaching into the open container and picking up the only item it held. Removing her hand from the box, she stared at the green foil object now between her fingers.

  Wrinkling her nose, Danielle studied the object. “What’s that?”

  “It looks like a shamrock—like the kind in the storage room,” Susan muttered, turning the shamrock from side to side as she examined it closer.

  “Storage room?”

  “Yeah, near the bathrooms,” Susan explained. “That’s where we keep the holiday decorations. This looks like one of the shamrocks from last Saint Patrick’s Day.”

  Danielle handed the box back to Susan. “This isn’t mine. There must be some mistake.”

  Before shutting the box’s lid, Susan dropped the foil shamrock back inside. “I don’t understand. It has to be yours. Your key fit.”

  “Then where are my gold coins?” Danielle demanded, sounding harsher than she intended.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Susan muttered.

  Danielle hastily located another key on her key ring and shoved it at Susan. “Open the other box. I want to see if the Missing Thorndike is there.”

  It was another five or ten minutes before Danielle’s second safe deposit box could be opened. First, she needed to sign the ledger—again. When the box was opened, she was relieved to find it was not empty. It held a velvet pouch—and inside that, the Missing Thorndike, an antique necklace of diamonds and emeralds, valued in excess of a million dollars. Without hesitation, Danielle slipped the pouch with the necklace into her purse and told Susan they needed to talk to the bank manager. Susan agreed.

  Two

  They sat in the bank manager’s office with the door closed. The only sound was that of Alan Kissinger turning the pages of the safe deposit ledger—flipping back and forth between two of its pages. He sat behind his desk, examining the book, while Danielle and Susan sat silently in the two chairs facing him.

  On Danielle’s lap sat her purse, which she protectively clung to with both arms. There was no way she was returning the Missing Thorndike to the safe deposit box—at least not until they discovered what had happened to her gold coins. She waited anxiously for him to say something.

  Danielle guessed the new bank manager, Alan Kissinger, was a few years younger than Steve Klein had been at the time of his death, maybe in his mid-forties. Conservatively dressed in a blue suit, its jacket hanging on the nearby coatrack, Kissinger was clean shaven with shortly buzzed hair reminding her of a marine—or of those two FBI agents, Wilson and Thomas.

  Kissinger might be attractive if he smiled, she thought, yet he had been scowling since Susan had introduced him to her, which Danielle understood, considering the introduction had been made after Susan had informed her boss of the missing gold coins—gold coins that might actually be worth more than the Missing Thorndike.

  Glancing around the small room, Danielle noticed the changes to what had once been Steve Klein’s office. Its walls had been repainted—now in shades of mauve and beige instead of browns and beige. There were no longer any pictures or paintings hanging on the walls—nor were there any personal photographs sitting on the desk or nearby bookshelf. If Kissinger was married, one couldn’t tell by what he had on display in the office.

  Danielle was fairly certain the office furniture was the same Steve had used, yet it looked as if it had been recently polished. Although spotlessly clean, the office felt impersonal, as if it were vacant, waiting for someone to move in.

  Still clutching her purse, Danielle recalled the first time she had been in this office—not long after moving to Frederickport and finding the Missing Thorndike. That had been a year ago. It was also her first meeting with Police Chief MacDonald. The two had been brought into the bank manager’s office to decide what should be done with the Missing Thorndike until its legal ownership could be determined. They had agreed to place it in a safe deposit box—where it had remained after it became clear she was in fact its rightful owner. It had only been removed once—when she had worn it to her open house last July fourth. She prayed removing it a second time wouldn’t bring on another disaster.

  A moment later, Alan Kissinger closed the ledger and looked up to Danielle. “If anything is mis
sing, you obviously removed it.” He pushed the ledger to the side of the desk.

  “Excuse me?” Danielle leaned forward, still clutching her purse. “I certainly did not remove it! That box was filled with gold coins the last time I was here!”

  Alan let out a weary sigh and opened the ledger. He turned the book around so Danielle could see it.

  “Ms. Boatman, is this your signature?”

  Danielle glanced at the ledger, noting her signature and the date next to it. “Yes. That’s the day I opened that safe deposit box—the day I put the gold coins in it—for safekeeping!” Under her breath she muttered, “Some safekeeping!”

  He turned the book around so he could see it again. After a quick glance at the page, he closed the book and set it back on his desk. “As you can see, Ms. Boatman, you are the only one who has ever been in that safe deposit box. The day you opened it and today. No one—and I repeat—no one else has been in it. I’m not sure what exactly you’re trying to pull—”

  “Mr. Kissinger,” Susan interrupted, “Ms. Boatman rented the safe deposit box from me. If you will note on that ledger, my signature is next to hers.”

  “Yes, I saw that,” he said, dismissively waving to Susan. “But we aren’t responsible for what our customers put into their safe deposit boxes.”

  “Mr. Kissinger,” Susan said emphatically, “I saw Ms. Boatman put the coins in the box. In fact, the first box she rented wasn’t big enough, so I had to rent her another one. I saw her fill the box with gold coins.”

  “And she could have removed them when you weren’t looking. As I said, the bank is not responsible for—”

  “Mr. Kissinger!” Susan snapped. “When I put the safe deposit box back in its vault the first time, it was heavy. It wasn’t empty. I know it wasn’t. And I locked it up. Danielle never touched it again until today. Obviously, someone has broken in to our safe deposit boxes!”