Page 62 of The Ghost and the Graveyard (Knight Games 1)
"Huh. That's why she was like "find the key" blah-blah-blah."
"Uhuh."
"Crap. I haven't been able to find it. I'll have to look later. I'm really late." I strode toward the staircase.
Logan rippled next to me. His ghostly hands balled into fists. "You need to ask the caretaker to tell you the truth."
I paused in the foyer. "What would Rick know about any of this?"
"Listen, I can't say any more than I have. But there's something I want you to know."
"What?"
"The caretaker has a story about how things are and how things will be. I just want you to know that, as far as I'm concerned, you have a choice about how this story ends. You should choose what's best for you."
"What? What choice? What is Rick going to tell me?"
Logan shook his head, looked at the floor, and dissolved without uttering another word.
"That was childish," I yelled at the ceiling. "If you have something to say, just say it. Enough with these cryptic messages." Arms crossed, I stomped my foot. "See you later, Logan. Much later. Maybe then you'll give me a clue what you're talking about."
I tucked my purse under my arm and headed out the door toward Rick's place. Of all the houses in the world, I had to move into the one with some wicked ghostly mystery. If I didn't get some answers soon, I was going to wig out. I mean, I think I'd been more than patient with the supernatural in my life. What was this big secret? Logan said that Rick would tell me, but as far as I knew, Rick didn't even know about Logan. And how did Prudence play into all of this?
Beyond the bridge, I could hear the wind chimes singing in the evening breeze. I stopped in front of the door to Rick's stone cottage but was distracted by a faint glow moving behind the cemetery gates across the street. It looked like someone walking with a candle in the distance.
"Rick?" I called toward the cemetery.
"I'm here," Rick said from behind me.
I turned around to face a work of art in the frame of the doorway. His white shirt stretched across his chest as if the fabric itself enjoyed the feel of him. The denim of his jeans hugged his narrow hips and hung to his bare feet. The material looked silky, maybe something designed in Europe that you'd see a movie star wear. For someone who worked with his hands, Rick was oddly fashionable.
"I thought I saw someone in the cemetery. I thought it was you."
Rick looked over my shoulder toward the gate. His face hardened, his gray eyes turning black and as cold as ice. I blinked twice, thinking it must be a trick of the light.
As quickly as his expression had changed, he warmed again and escorted me into his home. "I am sure it's nothing. Come in and make yourself at home."
As he swept his hand toward his living room, for the first time I noticed how graceful he was. Rick didn't move like a man who planted trees and repositioned headstones for a living. He moved like a ballet dancer, muscles long and lean. I tried not to stare, but the word sexy was an understatement and his cologne, the smell of a walk through the forest, had wrapped itself around me. My reaction was an instant and illogical lust.
"Sorry I'm late. I would have called you, but I didn't have your number," I said, moving into the room.
"I don't have one," he said.
"Huh? You don't have a phone at all? Not even a cell phone?"
"No." He shook his head.
"Isn't that inconvenient?"
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. "I've always found that handling things in person is more effective."
I frowned. No phone. Rick was a mystery.
"May I get you something to drink?" he asked.
"Maybe a glass of wine?"
"Of course."
