Grave Demands (A Maddie Graves Mystery Book 14) Read online

  Grave Demands

  A Maddie Graves Mystery Book 14

  Lily Harper Hart

  HarperHart Publications

  Copyright © 2018 by Lily Harper Hart

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  1. One

  2. Two

  3. Three

  4. Four

  5. Five

  6. Six

  7. Seven

  8. Eight

  9. Nine

  10. Ten

  11. Eleven

  12. Twelve

  13. Thirteen

  14. Fourteen

  15. Fifteen

  16. Sixteen

  17. Seventeen

  18. Eighteen

  19. Nineteen

  20. Twenty

  Mail List

  Acknowledgments

  Books by Lily Harper Hart

  One

  Maddie Graves surveyed the overstuffed boxes sitting on the floor in what was once her magic store and would soon be a standard living room and dusted her hands on the seat of her pants before wiping her brow.

  The decision to say goodbye to the magic store hadn’t been an easy one, but she knew in her heart it was right. Still, a current of unease ran through her belly when she realized the room looked nothing like her mother left it.

  “What are you doing, Maddie?”

  George Hunter, Maddie’s father, shuffled in from the kitchen. He had two glasses of iced tea gripped in his hands and he looked momentarily worried when he saw the weary look on his daughter’s face.

  “Just thinking.” Maddie mustered a smile as she accepted the beverage and held the sweating glass to her forehead before taking a sip. “Is it just me, or is it getting really hot?”

  “It’s a little stuffy,” George conceded, returning to the stack of boxes he’d been toiling over. He wasn’t interested in complaining. The fact that Maddie wanted him to help — even if it was a boring and menial task — was enough to keep him moving for another few hours … despite the fact that he sometimes wondered if they were sitting inside a heating oven. “Have you considered getting central air in this place? I know it would probably be expensive to run given the house’s size, but it would also be a godsend on days like today.”

  Maddie’s smile was rueful. “The house is old. Nick says we would need a complete electrical overhaul to do it. We’re not ruling it out — Nick wants to upgrade the electrical regardless — but it’s not happening this year.”

  “No, I guess not.” George leaned back and focused on his only child. He wasn’t always in her life. In fact, he’d spent the bulk of her life hiding because he made the wrong choice when her mother Olivia announced she was pregnant. He walked away, and would forever regret that decision. The one thing he cared about above all else was making amends. “Still, you need to get some air circulating in here.”

  “We have window units,” Maddie supplied. “They’re heavy, though. Nick has them stored in the basement. We plan to get them out this weekend ... although it might be sooner if this heat keeps up.”

  George did the math in his head. The old Victorian home would require a lot of window units to make a dent in the oppressive heat. “How many window units are we talking?”

  “Living room, Granny’s apartment in the garage, our bedroom, kitchen, the office we’re sharing.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “It’s a pain, but sometimes it’s the only relief we get during the summer.”

  “I can put them in.” George made the offer even though he wasn’t keen on the idea of lifting that many units himself. Still, she was his daughter. He would do whatever it took to make her feel comfortable.

  “That’s thoughtful, but I’m not even sure where he stored the units. I don’t like going into the basement. The temperature is much more manageable down there, but it’s one of those older Michigan basements.”

  “Which means it’s dark and dank,” George surmised. “Maybe some spiders and other bugs?”

  “In a nutshell. Nick can get the units, and once they’re on the main floor I’ll help install them. We did it last year ... although, now that I think about it, we weren’t technically together when we were installing the units last year.”

  George arched an eyebrow, amused at the whimsical expression on her face. “That seems weird to me. Seeing you guys together now, one would think you’d been together forever.”

  “Maybe in some ways,” she conceded. “In others, though ... .” She trailed off before shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re together now. We got together a few days after he helped install the air conditioners, in a weird twist of fate.”

  “Ah.” George nodded knowingly. “You’re saying that putting the air conditioners in the windows is something of a bonding exercise, huh?” His eyes twinkled as Maddie’s cheeks flushed. “You’ve got a sentimental streak, Maddie. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Your mother had it, too.”

  Speaking of her mother, Maddie straightened her shoulders as she turned her full attention back to the shop. “She worked hard on this place, and I’m tearing it apart. She says she’s fine with it but ... I’m not sure that’s true.” Her expressive blue eyes filled with worry, Maddie glanced around the store to see if she could catch a glimpse of her mother’s ghost. “She’s been scarce for the past two weeks. It makes me nervous.”

  George eyed her with overt interest. He was well aware that Maddie had certain abilities — a flash of psychic power coupled with the ability to see and talk to ghosts — but she didn’t often talk about what she could do unless she was knee-deep in a case. She’d taken to helping the police with investigations more than focusing on the store, which was one of the reasons she’d decided to close it.

  “I’m sure your mother is okay with your decision, Maddie,” he started. “It’s your house now. It’s your life. Even though your mother and I didn’t end on the best of terms, that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the fact that she would want the absolute best for you. This shop is no longer what’s best for you.”

  “You sound like Granny.”

  George made a face. Maddie’s “granny,” Maude Graves, wasn’t exactly his favorite person in the world. They had something of a tempestuous relationship. “There’s no need to get nasty,” he teased. “I was being serious.”

  “I was, too.” Maddie’s eyes flashed with mirth. “Granny says that Mom is fine with this, although Mom and I have only spent five minutes talking about it. She seemed fine when I told her, even laughing because I was worried she would be upset. I haven’t seen her since, though.”

  George wasn’t sure how to respond. He wasn’t magical, which meant understanding her abilities was often a chore. He was determined to do it for her benefit, but he was out of his league when it came to giving advice about how to handle a ghost ... even if it was one he was married to for a brief time. “Have you talked to Nick about this?”

  Maddie pursed her lips and shrugged as she smoothed her loose bun, tucking a few stray tendrils of blond hair back into the tie as she debated how to answer. “Nick was worried about me closing the store from the start, even though he thought it was a good idea.”

  “Why was he worried?”

  “Because it’s a whole thing.” Maddie felt strange dumping this on her father, but she needed someone to talk to. Her best friend Christy had other problems — pregnant
problems — and her grandmother was caught up in her ongoing quest to make her arch nemesis Harriet Proctor cry. Since Nick was at the center of her emotions, she couldn’t talk to him, and her mother’s ghost was AWOL. That essentially left George. “He was excited at the prospect of reclaiming the living room because it’s inconvenient to have part of the house open to the public.”

  “I can see that.” George was calm as he rested his hands on his knees. “You guys will have kids eventually. An open-door policy on a house full of kids is probably a scary prospect.”

  “Yeah. I get that. It’s not like when I was a kid. Mom had the store back then, and Nick and I were always in and out — mostly out because we were playing in the woods behind the house — but we always came and went without Mom making much of a fuss about it. She built the window seat for us so we could read in the store while she worked. It’s not like that today, though. There are more things to worry about and letting kids wander while I work in the house seems dangerous.”

  “I think the same worries were out there when you were a kid,” George countered. “People simply didn’t talk about it as much. The news cycles were different, so you didn’t hear about all the horrible things that could happen to children. I don’t think the world has changed as much as people like to pretend.”

  “Yeah, well ... .” Maddie scratched an invisible itch on the side of her nose. “Anyway, when I first came back last year, all I could think about was running the store because it was Mom’s legacy. Somehow, throughout the months, that fell by the wayside.”

  George was understandably sympathetic. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are you going to do for money?”

  “I make very little from the store. I make most of my money doing readings at various festivals. I’m going to keep doing that, even increase my frequency by hitting some of the closer towns to offer my services. I’ll actually be working less and making more.”

  “So ... what’s the problem?”

  Maddie held her palms out and shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Well, have you considered talking about it with Nick?”

  As if on cue, Nick Winters, the man in question, strode through the open doorway that separated the living room from the rest of the house. He had a stack of mail in his hand that he was steadily searching through. “Talk about what with Nick?” he queried, never raising his eyes from the envelope on the top of the stack.

  “Um ... nothing.” George’s cheeks turned red as he mentally searched for a way to extract his foot from his mouth. “I just ... um ... .”

  Amusement washed over Nick as he flicked his eyes to Maddie. “Were you talking about me, love?”

  Maddie still went warm all over when he unleashed the endearment. “Actually, we were talking about several things,” she conceded, her lips curving. “For starters, Dad was asking about the air conditioning units and I happened to remember that last year when I bought them, we weren’t together, but you still helped install them.”

  Nick snickered. “I remember that night well. You were sweaty, and I was in your bedroom. All I could think about was how I wanted to do something else in that bedroom.” He lobbed an apologetic look in George’s direction, forgetting the man was present until it was too late to take back the offhand comment. “Sorry, George.”

  George waved off the apology. “I didn’t hear a thing.”

  “I remember thinking that you had a girlfriend,” Maddie said pointedly. “You made my heart pound and my stomach do little flips, but you had a girlfriend so I couldn’t do anything about it.”

  Nick scowled. “I had a girlfriend for like five seconds. Did you have to bring that up?”

  “You were with her for weeks after I came back.”

  “Only in name.” Nick dropped the stack of envelopes on a nearby table before opening a letter that had piqued his interest. “I tried to get her to break up with me. She refused to take the bait so I had to break up with her.”

  Maddie’s giggle was light and warmed Nick to his very soul. “I forgot about that. You didn’t want to be the bad guy so you tried to force her to break up with you and it backfired in your handsome face.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s over now.” Nick furrowed his brow as he read the letter. “I cut her loose, professed my love, and begged you to make an honest man out of me. After a long time — like ... a really long time — Cassidy let go and we’re all exactly where we should be.”

  Maddie wasn’t sure she believed Cassidy had completely moved on, but she wasn’t in the mood to talk about the bitter woman who caused her endless pain over the course of several months. “Anyway, we’re coming up on our air conditioning anniversary. We should do something to mark the day.”

  “That’s a fine idea. I’ll haul the air conditioners out of the basement, install them, and then you can fawn all over me.”

  Maddie made a face that Nick secretly found adorable. “I was thinking that we would get an ice cream cake or something.”

  “However you want to be perverted is fine with me.”

  “I’m definitely not here,” George muttered. “In fact … why can’t I turn invisible? That would be so welcome right now.”

  “Um-hmm.” Nick’s full attention was on the letter. “Ice cream cake it is,” he murmured.

  Maddie tilted her head to the side as she regarded him. “Have you lost interest in dirty talk already? I’m crushed. I thought that was your thing.”

  Nick returned to the land of the living quickly and flashed a chagrined smile. “No, it’s not that, Mad.” He worked his jaw as he debated how to proceed. “You know what? We can talk about it later.” He dropped the envelope on the table. “Let’s get the air conditioners into the windows, huh? This place is legitimately stuffy.”

  Maddie had no intention of letting him flee from the conversation that easily. “Nicky ... come on. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing is going on.”

  “Son, I’m on your side when it comes to protecting her, but even I can tell you read something in that letter that upset you,” George offered. “If you don’t tell her now, I predict things go off the rails and you miss out on that cake for the foreseeable future.”

  Nick frowned. “Maddie, it’s nothing that you need to get worked up about.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that.” Maddie’s expression was fierce. “What is it? I’m really starting to worry.”

  “I don’t want you to worry.” Nick crossed the room and lowered himself to the floor so he could look into the sea-blue depths of Maddie’s eyes. “That was a letter from the prosecutor’s office.”

  “Am I being charged with a crime or something?” Maddie’s eyes were as big as saucers, causing Nick to chuckle.

  “Have you broken the law, love?”

  “Um ... yeah. I’ve broken into houses and spied on people. Maybe I can’t serve as a fortune teller without a license. I didn’t even consider that before. Oh, man. Am I going to get a big fine?”

  “No, love, you’re not.” Nick grabbed her hand before she could wipe her grimy fingertips against her forehead. “You’re perfectly fine. In fact, you’re perfectly perfect. You’re not in trouble.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Nick bit back a sigh at her earnest face. “We’ve both been given notification that our testimony is necessary for another case, Mad. It’s not about us. It’s about someone else.”

  “Who?” George asked the question before he could think better about it. He had no idea why Nick was so worked up about telling Maddie her testimony was required, but he was curious all the same.

  “Yeah, who?” Maddie echoed.

  “Todd Winthrop.”

  Maddie’s shoulders stiffened. “Oh.” She had no idea what else to say.

  “It’s okay.” Nick’s hands weren’t dirty, so he didn’t leave behind a trail of grime as he fluttered his fingers over her cheek. “It’s not a big deal. It
’s one day of testimony and then we can put it behind us forever.”

  “Right.” Maddie lowered her eyes.

  “Who is Todd Winthrop?” George asked, the change in Maddie’s happy demeanor setting his teeth on edge. “What is going on?”

  “Todd Winthrop is a guy we went to school with,” Nick replied, sitting cross-legged on the floor and tugging Maddie so he could cuddle her into his side. Her reaction worried him, although he wasn’t altogether certain why. “When Maddie first came back, things between us were tense. We weren’t together.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” George hedged. “Why does that matter?”

  “Because Todd was Mr. Popular when we were in high school and he always wanted to date Maddie,” Nick explained. “When she came back to town, he couldn’t get to her fast enough. She wasn’t even settled yet and he was asking her out.”

  “You’re still bitter about that, huh?” Maddie found her voice in time to tease him.

  “You have no idea.” Nick smoothed her hair. “The problem is, Todd was not a nice guy. He partnered with a local high school guy and they killed a woman. They’re actually suspected of killing more than one woman, but they’ve only been charged with the one murder.”

  “That’s enough to put them away for life,” Maddie stressed.

  “It is,” Nick agreed, internally thankful that Maddie seemed to be returning to her normal self after being knocked for a loop. “The additional charges filed against both are important, too.”

  George asked the obvious question. “What charges?”

  “Well ... .” Nick wasn’t sure how far he should push things. It was Maddie’s story to tell.