Read Rocks & Gravel (Peri Jean Mace Ghost Thrillers Book 3) for Free Online Page B

between the two largest washing machines in the place and went outside to sit on the curb and smoke.
    I hated to call Hannah and voice my thoughts about her uncle and cousin-in-law. Even though she told me they were no longer on speaking terms—and I was dying to know why—it somehow felt wrong to butt into other people’s family business. I sure hated it when people did it to me.
    It wasn’t like Joey or Felicia would tell Hannah they’d stolen the journals. Talking to her might result in no more than hard feelings between us. Despite my refusal to play paranormal investigator when Hannah demanded it, I loved our friendship and would do just about anything to keep it.
    If I didn’t figure out someone who might be behind the theft, my next course of action was to conduct an informal séance to contact the ghost who did the stealing. That settled it. I decided to send Hannah a text instead of putting her on the spot with a voice-to-voice phone call.
    I’d like to talk some more about how Joey and Felicia reacted to Hooty’s reading at the board meeting. I pressed send and went inside to put the towels in the dryer. My cellphone buzzed, signaling the arrival of a text message, as I put the last quarter in the dryer’s coin slot. I hurried back outside before viewing the message.
    I think we do need to talk.
    I quickly tapped in a reply. I’m at the laundromat on San Jacinto Street.
    Be there in 10 , came her answer.
    Seven minutes later, Hannah marched up the sidewalk. I couldn’t believe she’d opt to walk even two blocks in the dog days of summer. Invisible waves of fiery heat rose from the asphalt, rippling over Hannah’s approaching form, her face turning redder by the second. I met her with a bottle of cold water I took from the cooler I kept in the backseat of my car. She guzzled the water and held the bottle to her face.
    “Why walk?”
    “The little high-schooler I hired for summer help is nosy as all get out. Her mother and Felicia are big buds. I didn’t want her to know I was meeting you.” She sat down on the curb next to me, still gasping from her trek and holding the sweating water bottle to her cheek.
    “I guess the big question is whether you think, from what they said at the meeting, Joey or Felicia would steal the journals.”
    “And I guess my big question is why you won’t contact the ghost we saw in the video. How hard could it be?”
    “This why you agreed to come down here?”
    “Okay, okay. I think they were pissed enough to do something stupid.” Hannah drank the rest of her water, staring out at the hellish landscape.
    “My one problem with this theory is the surveillance video,” I said. “It shows a ghost breaking into the museum. I know how the Holze family, especially Felicia, feels about anything they consider satanic.”
    Hannah snorted. Her snort turned into laugher, which rang over the empty street and bounced off the brick buildings. At first, I worried she might be suffering heat stroke. I pushed myself to my feet, the combination of the extreme heat and the sudden movement making me unsteady, and hurried to my car, where I dipped a paper towel in the icy water in my cooler and took it back to Hannah. She held it to her face and closed her eyes.
    “You ever hear of those people who protest in front of abortion clinics all the time but go in the back door to get abortions?” She glanced at me. “Then the next day they’re right back out front protesting again?”
    I shrugged, wondering where this was going.
    “The Holze family—my uncle’s family—would do that.”
    I squinted at her, trying to reconcile the abortion clinic to our current conversation.
    “What it means is they’ll do whatever they need to do so things’ll go their way, which brings me to why we’re no longer speaking.” She stood from the curb, went to my car, and helped herself to another bottle of cold water. “I’m embarrassed to tell you this stuff about my family. Are you sure