2 The Ghosts Upstairs Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Blurb

  Acknowledgements

  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

  The Ghost at the Farm ~ Excerpt

  Excerpt ~ Chapter 2

  Author’s Note

  Backlist

  Author’s Bio

  THE GHOSTS UPSTAIRS

  The Kane Family Ghosts: Book 2

  by

  Sue Fineman

  The Ghosts Upstairs

  Copyright © 2012 Sue Fineman

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from Sue Fineman.

  Published by Amazon KDP

  Seattle, WA

  Electronic KDP Edition: January, 2012

  This book is a work of fiction and all characters exist solely in the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any references to places, events or locales are used in a fictitious manner.

  Billy Kane, a teacher in a private academy, inherits his grandfather’s mansion in River Valley, but he doesn’t expect to find three ghosts there. His mother and grandmother made his childhood a living hell, and he wants their ghosts gone, but his grandmother’s ghost won’t let his mother’s ghost leave.

  His grandmother’s heir, Kayla Blanton, arrives from Memphis with a hound dog. Since she can see and communicate with the ghosts, he invites her to stay until she gets her inheritance. She’s crazy about Billy, but knows she can’t have him. He’s a teacher in a school with a morals clause, and her last job was in a topless club. She doesn’t want him to lose his job.

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank all the people who helped me with my writing in the past fifteen or so years. My wonderful writing group in Gig Harbor, Washington – Colleen, Joanne, Marci, and Maureen, and others who drifted in and out of the group over the years. Jo Nelson, a writing teacher, mentor, and friend. Jo is gone now, but the lessons she taught have stayed with me. Jeanne, Dee, and Vonnie – you’re wonderful!

  In the past few years, I’ve been fortunate to have the help of a great group of friends and fellow authors. Carolyn, Aileen, Tessy, Robin, Judythe, Tessy, Becky, and the folks at Elements of RWA, I love you all. Without you I would have given up a long time ago. And Sandy, who has helped me with all the technical aspects of getting my books published. I couldn’t have done it without you. I wouldn’t have known what to do or how to do it, and I wouldn’t have had the courage to try.

  To all of you who have been there for me when I needed you, a big THANK YOU!

  Chapter One

  “William Goodman left his family home to you, Billy,” said Thornton Clapp, an attorney in downtown River Valley, Ohio.

  “I thought my grandfather died years ago.”

  The attorney nodded. “Yes, he did, but he gave a life tenancy to his wife, Eleanor Ainsworth Goodman, and she lived in the house until she passed away last month.”

  So his grandmother was dead, too. He should be sad at his grandmother’s passing, but the woman was a stranger to him. He hadn’t seen her since Maggie’s funeral, when she stood in front of everyone and announced her precious daughter died from breast cancer because Dad forced her to have a baby she didn’t want. Harsh words for Maggie’s seven-year-old son to hear, although even at that young age, he knew his mother didn’t want him. She’d never wanted him.

  “Eleanor’s estate is to be split between her Ainsworth cousins, but according to William Goodman’s will, the house and furnishings go to his only grandchild, William Goodman Kane. To you, Billy.” Mr. Clapp handed him a set of house keys and a card with the address of the house and the code to open the gate across the driveway. “If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  Billy thanked him and shook his hand. He didn’t want the damn house, but he wouldn’t turn down the profits from a quick sale. If he could find anyone who wanted to buy a house that looked like a transplant from Transylvania.

  Twenty minutes later, Billy sat in his pickup outside the black iron gate and stared at his grandfather’s monstrosity of a house. The gray stone mansion loomed before him like something out of a gothic horror movie.

  He glanced at the card on the visor and then punched in the gate code and watched the gate roll back. Driving down the winding drive and around the loop, he stopped by the front door. The double front door was made of rustic wood planks bound together with heavy metal strips and square-head nails. The doors must be twenty feet tall and so wide he could drive his pickup through them. It looked more like a drawbridge than a door.

  He unlocked the door and stepped inside. The house smelled musty and stale, as if it had been closed up for months, so Billy left the door open while he checked out the house. His skin crawled just being here. Although his mother grew up in this house and his grandmother lived here since Billy could remember, he’d never been welcome in this house. Now he owned it.

  The wide formal foyer was bigger than his entire apartment. It was anchored by a massive curving staircase, and huge tapestries of bloody hunting scenes hung on the walls.

  Everything in the formal living room, including the light blue velvet furniture, was covered with a thick layer of dust. Pictures of his mother adorned every wall and every flat surface in the room. The young woman in the pictures was a beauty, a delicate blue-eyed blonde, but his memories of her weren’t warm or even pleasant.

  Without touching anything, he wandered through the living room and into the formal dining room, then walked through a butler’s pantry and into a kitchen that looked like it belonged in a restaurant. He couldn’t remember his mother ever cooking anything, but then he couldn’t remember her ever doing anything but complaining. And shopping. Maggie loved to shop, spending money Dad didn’t have, building debt Dad couldn’t afford to pay on a cop’s salary. The whole family suffered because of those bills, but she didn’t care. Maggie had never cared about anyone but herself.

  A smaller dining room and a big sunroom angled off the other side of the kitchen. A withered branch from the maple tree lay on the floor of the sun porch, and the floor was covered with mildew, broken glass, and dried leaves. He felt like walking out the front door and saying to hell with it. He didn’t have the money to renovate this place, and nobody in their right mind would buy it like it was.

  Walking through another living room, this one with a television and sound system, he found himself back at the foyer. A table in the curve of the staircase held a statue of his mother. “Who else?” he muttered.

  On the other side of the foyer, the library was lined with bookshelves filled with old books. The leather furniture looked well-used and comfortable. And dusty. An adjoining study was anchored by a beautiful old desk. These must have been his grandfather’s rooms. They didn’t feel as ominous as the rest of the house.

  Too bad his grandfather didn’t live longer. William Goodman was the one person on this side of the family Billy would like to know.

  Down a narrow hallway near the back of the h
ouse, he found the laundry and maid’s apartment. And behind the massive staircase in the entry hall, several sets of double doors led to a big, open room with a dark wood floor. A grand piano sat on a raised dais on one end of the room. French doors across the back led to a stone patio overlooking the gardens, which must have been nice at one time. In early May, the flowers should be blooming, but the grass had gone to seed and the flower beds were filled with weeds. The murky water in the fountain needed to be drained and the whole thing cleaned. The pool didn’t look much better.

  Walking upstairs, his feet left prints in the dusty dark red runner. The rooms on the right looked like the master suite. A huge four-poster bed dominated the bedroom. The bed was a rumpled mess, and there were bottles of pills on the nightstand. Whoever was taking care of Eleanor Goodman had probably escaped from this house right after the old woman died.

  He backed out of the room. It smelled bad, and from the stains on the bedding, he wondered if Eleanor had died in that bed. The mattress and bedding would have to be taken to the dump and the room aired out. But not today. He couldn’t deal with all this today. He felt overwhelmed at the enormity of the work that had to be done here.

  The first room on the other side of the grand staircase was set up as a nursery, and there were pictures of his mother as a baby all over the room. An adjoining room was filled with toys, as if his mother would ever play with them again. Another suite must have been his mother’s as a child. It had a frilly white bedspread on the canopy bed and stuffed toys piled on top. Every wall had pictures of her growing up. There was one of her on a pony, another on a merry-go-round, and others of her in the house, in the garden, or by the pool.

  Maggie grew up in luxury, yet because of her excessive spending, Dad lost their house and Pop sold his to help Dad get the credit card bills under control. Billy and Dad and Pop lived in dumpy apartments while Dad tried to pay off the hospital bills the insurance didn’t cover. Eleanor could have helped with the bills, but she refused. She didn’t care if her only grandson lived in poverty. She was too busy feeling sorry for herself because she’d lost her precious daughter.

  Billy glanced down the bedroom hallway and back at the staircase to the third level, but he didn’t want to see any more. The whole house was a shrine to his dead mother. It felt like a damn funeral parlor. He didn’t see any pictures of his grandparents anywhere. There weren’t any pictures of him either.

  No surprise there.

  <>

  Dinner with Billy’s family was always a noisy affair, and that night was no exception. Dad helped Hannah put dinner on the table. He’d recently been appointed police chief, and Hannah took care of the house and the family. Dad’s second wife had never treated Billy like a step anything. She was more of a mom to him than Maggie had ever been.

  Billy’s grandfather slid into a chair at the table. Pop turned eighty-seven last month, and although his body had slowed down, his mind was still sharp.

  His three younger siblings came into the kitchen, the boys teasing their little sister about something, as usual. Fraternal twins Charlie and Andy were in high school. Charlie was into sports, girls, and trouble, not necessarily in that order. Andy spent his spare time building things in the basement workshop or playing in a garage band.

  Ginny had just become a teenager last week. She was turning into a real beauty, but she was still a tomboy, always in a tree or playing football with the neighborhood boys. One of these days, those boys would figure out she was a girl and stop treating her like one of the guys. When they did, they’d better look out for Dad. Nobody messed with his little princess.

  Trevor Ames, Hannah’s ex-husband, came to visit years ago and stayed. He lived in an apartment in the attic.

  Although the two houses were only a few blocks apart, this old house was nothing like his grandmother’s cold stone mansion. The Kane home was filled with warmth and love and laughter. The Goodman mansion was about as inviting as a castle with the drawbridge up and alligators in the moat.

  As they passed the food around the table, Dad asked, “Billy, did you see that attorney today?”

  “Yeah. He said William Goodman had divorced Eleanor, and part of the divorce agreement was that he got to keep the house his parents left him.”

  Dad stabbed a green bean. “I didn’t know they were divorced, although I’m not surprised he wanted out. Eleanor was a witch.”

  “Yeah, I remember. My grandfather put the house into a trust for me after the divorce, but he gave Eleanor a life tenancy.”

  “What’s that mean?” Ginny asked.

  “It means she got to live there for the rest of her life or until she moved out. Now she’s dead and the house belongs to me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Eleanor’s estate is to be divided among her cousins in the Ainsworth family, if the attorney can find them. She had family in Virginia or Tennessee or somewhere in the South. They’re blood relations and I’m not, so I didn’t expect my grandparents to leave me anything.”

  “You’re not related to Eleanor by blood,” said Pop, “but you are to William Goodman. He was Maggie’s natural father.”

  That explained why his grandfather gave him the house, but Eleanor couldn’t have been happy about it.

  “Who’s Maggie?” Ginny asked.

  “My birth mother,” said Billy. “Dad’s first wife. She died when I was seven.”

  “Since you’re only a half brother, does that mean you can only be half as bossy?” Charlie asked.

  Billy thumped him on the side of the head. “Did you win your basketball game today?”

  “Damn right we did. We wiped the floor with them.”

  Dad pointed his fork at Charlie. “Don’t swear.”

  “Do I only have to mind Billy half the time?” Ginny asked.

  “When did you ever mind me?” Billy muttered.

  The banter continued and the food on the table quickly disappeared. Mom and Dad gazed at each other and smiled. After seventeen years together, they were still crazy about each other. And Billy loved the whole quirky family.

  He’d moved out after college, but he didn’t go far. He lived in the apartment over the garage in back of the house and ate dinner with his family at least twice a week. Hannah said she wanted to make sure he didn’t go hungry. Fat chance of that happening. He liked to eat, and Hannah was a good cook.

  “What’s the house like, Billy?” Hannah asked.

  “It’s big and ugly and dirty. The yard is overgrown and the pool is downright skuzzy.”

  Ginny’s mouth dropped open. “You have a pool?”

  “The pool isn’t fit to use until it’s cleaned and resurfaced, and I don’t plan to keep the house anyway. I intend to clean it up and put it on the market.”

  Dad pushed his empty plate back. “I can’t believe Eleanor let everything go like that.”

  Hannah stood and started clearing the table. “Maybe she was too sick to notice.”

  “Sick in the head,” said Dad. “The only thing she ever cared about was Maggie. She was obsessed with her precious daughter.”

  Billy cocked his head. “Did William have blond hair and blue eyes?”

  Dad nodded. “His hair was so blond it was almost white. He died when you were three or four years old, before Maggie got sick.”

  “Of what? Why did he die?”

  Dad shrugged. “I have no idea. There’s probably a death certificate somewhere in that house.”

  “Are you sure he was Maggie’s father?”

  “I’m sure,” said Hannah. “Her birth mother told me.”

  Confused about how Dad’s second wife would know this about his first wife, Billy asked, “Do you know my natural grandmother?”

  “I knew her at one time, yes.”

  “Is she still alive?”

  “I have no idea.” Hannah turned away, and Billy knew the topic was closed. Why did he get the feeling she was hiding something?

  <>

  Benton Ainsworth III drove home
swearing to himself. He’d been so sure that Sonny guy was bluffing, he’d bet everything on that last hand. And lost. Poker wasn’t his game, so why did he bet so damn much? He always did better at the tables in Vegas. Monte Carlo was out of the question. He couldn’t afford to go there again.

  Not this year.

  He flipped through the mail and found an envelope from Thornton Clapp, an attorney in River Valley, Ohio. He ripped it open and read the letter. Apparently a distant relative had died and left him something in her will. “Yes!” he yelled into the room. He didn’t remember Eleanor Ainsworth Goodman, but at that moment, she was his favorite relative. A decent inheritance could wipe out all his gambling debts and replenish his trust fund.

  Benton walked across the library and pulled a book from the shelves. His grandfather, the first Benton Ainsworth, had made his fortune in the coal mining industry. All the mines had since been sold, but Benton’s father, the second Benton Ainsworth, had done well in business himself, well enough to send Benton to the best private schools and set him up with a trust fund that should have lasted him for most of his life. But Benton’s father drank himself to death years ago, his mother lived in Florida with her fourth husband, and Benton was broke. This inheritance couldn’t have come at a better time.

  He opened the book to the page with the family tree and found Eleanor Ainsworth’s name. She was his father’s first cousin, the only child of Walter and Margaret Ainsworth of Richmond, Virginia. Walter Ainsworth was a wealthy man at one time. Benton wondered just how rich cousin Eleanor was when she died and how many other heirs she’d mentioned in her will. “Maybe I’ll get it all.”

  He fixed himself a stiff drink and walked upstairs to his bedroom. His mortgage payments were three months overdue, and now he owed another forty grand in gambling debts. Add that to the thirty he already owed before tonight and the second mortgage with the balloon due next month, and he was in deep trouble. He needed a half-million to break even.