The Haunted Bones (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 3) Read Free

salad and put some leftover lasagna into the oven to warm.
    Viv poured a glass of wine for herself and opened a bottle of craft beer for her cousin. They perched on stools in front of the kitchen island sipping their drinks. Lin told Viv about the unusual discovery in the rear yard of her new client’s home.
    “A bone?” Viv scrunched up her nose. “You mean like a chicken bone or something?”
    “No. Like a big bone.” Lin lifted her beer glass to her lips.
    “How big was it?”
    When Lin described the length and heft of the bone, Viv looked horrified. “What could that be? A deer leg?” Her blue eyes flashed.
    Lin didn’t say anything for a few moments, and then she looked her cousin in the eye. “I saw Emily Coffin there. Right after Nicky found the bone.”
    The wine glass almost slipped from Viv’s fingers and a few drops of liquid plopped onto the countertop. “Emily? Oh, no.” She wiped her spill with a dishtowel.
    On their mothers’ side, the two girls were descended from the same branch of the Witchard family, early settlers of Nantucket, but paternally, Lin was a descendant of Sebastian Coffin while Viv came from a different branch of the Coffin family.
    Viv knew that her cousin could see ghosts and readily accepted it, but sometimes it frightened her when spirits showed themselves to Lin. With the help of the ghosts, Viv and Lin had recently solved two mysteries on the island. Viv told her cousin that two mysteries in a lifetime were plenty for her and she hoped never to be involved in another case.
    “Why was Emily Coffin there?” Worry lines creased the corners of Viv’s eyes.
    Lin sighed. “Leonard is sure the bone belongs to an animal. But when I saw Emily there, I pretty much knew it was a human bone.” She gave a slight shrug. “Why else would Emily appear?”
    “Oh, no.” Viv’s voice trembled.
    Lin couldn’t help the corners of her mouth turning up. “Nothing’s happened yet,” she offered, trying to calm her worried cousin. “Maybe Emily just came by to say hello.”
    Viv leveled her eyes at Lin. “Right.” She picked up her wine glass and shimmied it a little to swirl the red liquid around. “If it is a bone from a person … why is it there? I suppose it could be old. Maybe there was a person a long time ago who was buried in the backyard after he or she passed away. Maybe there isn’t anything horrible about it. No murder, nothing like that.”
    “Maybe.”
    “But you don’t think so?”
    Lin raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think people were buried in their backyards. Even years ago, there were burial grounds on the island. If someone was buried behind their house, then I’d think foul play was involved. And, honestly? I think that we might have bumped up against something today that’s going to turn out to be trouble.”
    “Oh, no,” Viv said for the third time in five minutes.
    “We’ll just have to wait and see.” Lin got up and removed the lasagna pan from the oven. The girls scooped out portions and placed them on plates. They added salad and dressing and carried everything out to sit at the table on the deck. Lin lit some candles that stood in glass containers in the center of the table.
    “I was glad you hadn’t had dinner when I texted.” Lin sprinkled some ground Parmesan and Romano cheese on the top of her meal. “It was so late. I thought you would have eaten already.”
    “The bookstore was really busy today, so I stayed later than I planned to.” Viv owned a bookstore-café in the center of Nantucket town. “When I was walking home, John called and asked if I could meet him at a house showing.” Viv’s boyfriend was an island Realtor and last month when he was showing a house to a couple, he opened the door to the first floor bathroom to discover a dead body. Ever since the gruesome discovery, John had been having problems showing unoccupied real estate and he would ask Viv or a friend or his brother to accompany him to a showing that he