Haunted (A Bishop/SCU Novel Book 15) Read Free Page A

in the parsonage much this time of year?” Trinity asked, referring to the other Baylor sister, now a widowed Lana Price; the two sisters did not live together, and Lana, according to her sister, was out at the mall near the highway, shopping.
    “Oh, we go in with the cleaning crew every other week,” Edith replied comfortably. “Janet and her girls don’t really like being in the house without us. Same thing with the church, really. We don’t mind, Lana and me. Even though the church belongs to the town, it was Baylor land for generations, so we feel a duty to make sure everything is kept as it should be.”
    “No more ghost-hunting crews asking to stay overnight?”
    Edith smiled. “No, and only two groups came through back in the summer. I gathered from their disappointed faces that they didn’t find anything of interest.”
    “Did you expect them to?” Trinity asked curiously.
    “Not really,” Edith confessed. “They keep coming back year after year, trying to find ghosts or some evidence of the supernatural, but all their little gadgets never show anything unusual.”
    Trinity had the odd notion that whatever the ghost hunter’s “gadgets” had failed to show, Edith Baylor knew very well that the old parsonage was haunted—and was not the least bit disturbed by it.
    And Trinity wasn’t quite sure how
she
felt about that.
    “Okay,” she said finally. “I had a report that someone saw lights coming from inside the church the other night. Know anything about that?”
    “Afraid not, Sheriff. I can’t see either the church or the parsonage from here, obviously, and I seldom go out walking at night, especially this time of year.”
    They were standing on the front porch of Edith’s small cottage-style house just a few streets back of Main, and Trinity knew without looking that neither the church nor the parsonage was visible from this point.
    “Except for the steeple, of course,” Edith added. “You can see that from just about anywhere in town.”
    That was true enough, and something that had always bothered Trinity just a bit. Her father had told her that they’d built the church up high, to watch over the town, but if they had expected any special protectiveness, that isn’t what they’d gotten.
    “Sheriff, would you like a cup of coffee? Tea?”
    “Oh, no, thank you, Miss Edith.” Trinity realized guiltily that she’d kept the older woman standing on her porch for some time now in the chilly January air and hastily apologized. “I’m sorry to keep you so long. Just wanted to check in and let you know I’m going to drive up to the church and parsonage and take a look around. Just to make sure everything’s okay up there.”
    Edith Baylor nodded, still placid. “Probably just as well you’re checking. I haven’t been up there since the cleaning crew was, and that’ll be two weeks on Monday. You know where the key is; if you want to go inside, feel free. I’ll give Lana a call on her cell—if she remembered to take it with her—and tell her you’ll be up there.”
    Trinity had been about to turn away. “You think she’ll object?”
    “Oh, no, of course not, Sheriff. She mentioned back last summer that we should probably invest in some kind of security system in the parsonage. But it didn’t make any sense to me, not when we’ve never even had a window broken.”
    Which, now that Trinity thought about it, was a bit odd in and of itself, considering how the kids in town viewed both the church and the parsonage.
    “Here you go, Sheriff.” Miss Edith reached into the pocket of her apron—she wore one always except in church—and produced what looked like a bone-shaped cookie. “For Braden.”
    Trinity knew her dog was visible sitting in the front seat of her Jeep only a few yards away, but she wondered just when the elderly lady had acquired the dog treat to give to him. When she had seen the Jeep pull into her driveway? Then again, perhaps her capacious apron pockets held