Read A Wild Ghost Chase for Free Online

a floral pattern, they might have been truly disturbed.
    Luckily, people like me can’t gasp in air, so I made sure not to betray my concern about her suspicions with my voice or expression. “What are you talking about?” I asked.
    “I’m saying, there’s something going on in the house,” Alison repeated. “Liss barely talked to me before she left for school today, and I think it was because she’s afraid she’ll blurt something out she’s not supposed to say. So tell me what it is. I’ll keep your name out of it.” She folded up the sheet I had left on the kitchen table. “By the way, you might have told me you were going into my bedroom for props.”
    “It was an ad lib.”
    “So, what’s going on that I don’t know about?” she continued, undeterred.
    “Nothing. You’re mistaken.” I rose up toward the ceiling. If this was going to progress, I might want to make a hasty exit.
    Alison’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so. You’re acting funny, too.”
    “I’m Canadian,” I reminded her. “I don’t act funny.”
    “Martin Short is Canadian.”
    “Touché.”
    I heard something clatter in the direction of the game room. Was Antinanco checking back in, as he’d promised? I needed to get inside to find out, but couldn’t appear suspicious. Mentally, I tried to summon Maxie, but I was distracted, and it’s very difficult to do when I’m not concentrating completely on the task.
    Worse, Alison’s head turned at the sound, too. “Did you hear something?” she asked.
    “What?”
    “I don’t know. I thought I heard a noise down the hall. Game room, maybe.” She started toward the kitchen door.
    “I’ll check!” I said, swooping past her and (literally) through the door. Alison had no time to argue, but I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t follow me. She was right. I
was
acting suspiciously. “Don’t come—you don’t want to know!”
    That didn’t really seem to help much, but I moved on. Antinanco was indeed back in the game room, sitting on (or more accurately, hovering over) the pool table that barely anyone ever uses except Melissa and her grandmother, Alison’s mother, Loretta. Loretta is a very accomplished pool player, but she often lets Melissa win.
    “Was this not the time we had agreed I would return?” the boy asked as soon as I was in his line of sight.
    Maxie dropped down out of the ceiling. “Man, the two of you are lousy at being sneaky!” she scolded. “You’re being loud enough to wake, you know, me.”
    I ignored that comment, since no one could hear us, and turned toward our young client. “Now then, Antinanco,” I said, although Alison has pointed out that “now then” is contradictory. “I’m glad to see you back.” It’s always best to start by making the subject of an interrogation feel comfortable; they are more likely to divulge useful information that way.
    But when I looked back at Maxie, I noticed she had changed her clothes—which she does at an alarming rate—into a trench coat, a wool skirt, a pair of uncomfortable-looking pumps, and both a fedora
and
a green visor. Clearly, she thought she was in a 1940s Edward G. Robinson film, playing the tough cop who would attempt to drag the information out of the even tougher gangster. I was relieved she hadn’t chosen to also smoke a cigar.
    “Okay, kid, spill it,” she began. “What’s the real deal on this mother of yours?”
    “Maxie . . .” I tried to admonish.
    Antinanco didn’t look either of us in the eye, but it was clear he was addressing me when he asked, “What does the woman mean?”
    “You don’t need me to get the bright lights out, do ya?” Maxie went on. I honestly don’t think she knew what she was talking about.
    I knelt down, which took some adjustment when I first took on this form, since there is nothing on which to lean for a ghost. But it made me appear to be sympathetic to the boy, and brought my face down to his level, even if he wasn’t looking at me,