Chapter 1
Angie Roseland and her twin sister, Jenna, sat in the living room of the Victorian mansion admiring all the gifts stacked in two corners of the room. Blue, pink, green, and yellow balloons decorated the space and vases of flowers had been placed on the side tables. The baby shower guests had just left and the four Roseland sisters, Jenna’s husband, Tom, Angie’s husband, Josh, and their family friend, Mr. Finch, relaxed in front of the fireplace before cleaning up. The family’s two cats, Euclid, a big orange Maine coon, and Circe, a sweet, small black cat, rested on the rug by the fire. Snowflakes were gently falling outside the window.
“What a great time.” Angie lifted her teacup to her lips. “It was really wonderful. Thank you so much for hosting it.”
Jenna agreed. “It was great to see everyone and you made such a terrific luncheon buffet.”
Courtney, the youngest of the family, and Ellie, the middle sister, had put on a feast including homemade omelettes, waffles, home fries, fruit salad, calzones, sweet and tangy meatballs, ham and cheese rollups, individual tomato tarts, and mini mac and cheese cups. Angie, a baker, created a beautiful three-layer cake with pink, white, and blue frosting, and decorated it with ribbons and flowers made of marzipan. Jenna, a jewelry designer, made pretty bracelets for all of the guests as shower favors.
Euclid opened his mouth in a wide yawn before slowly blinking his green eyes and then placing his head on his paws.
“I’m tired, too, Euclid.” Angie stifled a yawn of her own.
“I can’t believe the babies will be here in a month,” Courtney told them. “The time has flown by. I can’t wait to meet Gigi, and Jenna’s mystery baby.”
Everyone knew that Angie and Josh were having a daughter, but Jenna and Tom didn’t want to know what they were having, preferring a surprise.
“And both babies due within a week of each other.” Mr. Finch rubbed his hand over the top of his cane. “It will be a happy day when the two new additions to our family arrive.”
Circe looked to the man and meowed her approval.
While Finch and the sisters started to clean up, Josh and Tom began the task of moving the gifts out of the living room and into their homes. Angie and Josh lived in an apartment on one of the upper floors of the house and Tom and Jenna owned a house two doors down from the Victorian.
“We’ll load the truck with your presents first and drive them over to the house,” Josh suggested pulling on his coat.
“Then we can carry your gifts upstairs,” Tom said. “You should put in an elevator one of these days.”
“We’ll put it on the list for the next renovation.” Angie’s blue eyes sparkled.
The Victorian had recently gone through some construction to add-on an apartment to the back of the house for Mr. Finch. Finch had owned a home whose property line abutted the Roselands’ land, but he’d sold it to friends and the sisters added onto the Victorian so the older man would be close to them and would only need to leave his suite of rooms connected to the family room whenever he wanted to be with the family. Tom’s construction company had handled the expansion and Finch now had a living room, kitchen-dining area, a four-season sunroom, a bedroom, and a bath. Finch and Courtney co-owned a popular candy store in the quaint center of Sweet Cove, a seaside town of stores, shops, restaurants, museums, and beautiful white-sand beaches on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
“Are you sure you two don’t want to go have a nap?” Ellie asked. “Courtney, Mr. Finch, and I can handle this mess.”
Jenna and Angie thanked their sister, but were willing and able to pitch in and started to clean off the buffet table in the dining room with Mr. Finch while Ellie and Courtney carried dishes to the kitchen.
Euclid and Circe jumped up on the China cabinet to watch the cleanup.
“I’m not sure I should bring this up,” Finch said. “It may be nothing at all.” He let his voice trail off.
Angie turned to the man. “You feel it, too?”
Finch looked relieved. “Ah. I should have known you were aware of the sensation, Miss Angie, but there’s so much going on, I didn’t want to say anything.”
Jenna leaned against the dining table with a sigh. “I was hoping it was my imagination.”
“Any ideas?” Finch asked the sisters.
“None.” Angie pushed a strand of her dark blond hair behind her ear. “I’ve felt like I’m on pins and needles, a worried feeling washes over me every once in a while. I wish whatever it is, would leave us alone until after the babies are born.”
“No such luck.” When Jenna shook her head, her long brunette hair moved over her shoulders. Jenna and Angie were fraternal twins and did not share many physical characteristics. Angie was the oldest by a few minutes and looked more like Courtney, and Jenna was taller than her twin and had darker hair, but all the sisters shared the same big, blue eyes they’d inherited from their mother.
Courtney and Ellie returned to the dining room and when Courtney saw the look on the three family member’s faces, she stopped in her tracks. “What’s wrong with you?” Understanding quickly showed on her face. “Oh. I guess what I’ve been feeling the past few days hasn’t been my imagination.”
As Ellie stared at her siblings and Finch, her shoulders dropped. “Oh, come on. Not now. Really? Something’s going to happen now?”
“It seems so, Miss Ellie.” Finch pushed his black-rimmed eyeglasses up the bridge of his nose as the cats let out howls from their perch on the cabinet.
The Roselands and Mr. Finch each had paranormal skills that they’d used to successfully assist the Sweet Cove police chief, Phillip Martin, in many crimes that had taken place in the area over the past two years.
Courtney, the one sister who loved her special abilities, rubbed her hands together. “Good. We haven’t had a case in a few months. We’re due, and I’m ready. Does anyone know what it’s going to be about?”
The others shook their heads.
Ellie turned and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll put coffee on. Chief Martin will be here in a few minutes.”
Angie’s eyes widened as she watched her sister leave the room. “She’s doing it again.”
One of Ellie’s skills was her ability to know when someone was coming to the house. She always mentioned it in a nonchalant manner thinking that everyone else knew the person was on his or her way and that it had nothing to do with any paranormal talent. When the family pointed out that she was the only one who had any advance notice of an arriving friend or guest, Ellie always denied it.
The two cats released howls, and then the doorbell rang.
“Here we go.” Jenna shook her head and went to open the front door.
“Hi, Jenna.” Chief Martin stood on the porch. “When Lucille came home, I knew the baby shower was over. She had a great time. Sorry to come by right after the festivities, but I was wondering if I could talk to all of you about something.” In his late-fifties, the police chief was tall and stocky and had a bit of gray showing at his temples. He and his wife, Lucille, were good friends with the Roselands and Finch … and the sisters’ grandmother, Virginia, who also had paranormal abilities, had worked with the police department for years in a special capacity before she passed away.
Courtney hurried over. “We knew something was up. Come on in. Ellie put coffee on.”
“I didn’t tell her I was coming.” The chief’s eyebrows went up, remembering Ellie’s special skill. “Oh, right. I didn’t need to tell her.”
Angie greeted the man and took his coat. “Let’s sit at the dining table. There are lots of desserts left from the party.”
When they were all settled around the table with coffee and dessert and had talked about how the baby shower went, Courtney addressed the chief. “Okay. Let’s get on with it. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Well, something is, but it’s something odd, not exactly wrong. Although, I suppose it is,” the chief beat around the bush.
“Has there been a murder?” Courtney asked.
“No.” Chief Martin sat up straighter. “Nothing like that. There was a break-in.”
“Where?” Angie questioned, feeling a prickly sensation run over her skin.
The chief set down his coffee mug. “Over at the nonprofit in Silver Cove.”
“Brighter Days?” Ellie asked.
Euclid and Circe hissed.
Brighter Days was a community nonprofit organization that helped house and feed those in the area who were in need, assisted with health care costs, legal aid, and anything else that was warranted. The organization also taught personal finance classes for free to anyone who wanted to understand how to buy a home, save and invest, or get themselves out of debt. The organization was well-loved in the North Shore communities for its devotion to the residents and to the newly-arrived who needed a helping hand.
“Was money stolen?” Jenna’s voice was tinged with worry. She’d volunteered with the organization in the past and knew that at times, there could be a quite a lot of money in the safe from donations that had come in.
“No, nothing was stolen.” The chief shook his head.
“Vandalism?” Mr. Finch asked.
“No vandalism.”
“What happened then?” Courtney asked the chief.
“Someone broke into the offices the other night and was caught on security tape.”
“Have you arrested him?” Angie asked. “You know who he is since he’s on the tapes?”
The chief shook his head. “He was wearing a mask.”
Ellie groaned.
“He was wearing army fatigues, boots, the mask, a knitted hat, gloves. Not much of anything is showing that could be used to identify the person.”
“If he didn’t steal anything and he didn’t vandalize the place, what did he do?” Jenna questioned uneasily.
“He walked through the hallways and the offices, around and around, for about two hours,” the chief revealed.
“Doing nothing?” Finch questioned.
“Just looking around.”
“Two hours? Just looking at stuff?” Courtney asked. “What in the world was he doing that for?”
Chief Martin sighed. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Chapter 2
The sisters and Mr. Finch bundled into their winter coats and drove in Ellie’s van to the police station. Chief Martin led them to a small conference room where they gathered to watch the security video of the break-in at the Brighter Days Community non-profit.
The black and white picture on the television screen looked foggy and unclear as they watched someone appear in the hallway and walk slowly past the doorways. The person opened the unlocked doors, looked inside the rooms for a few seconds, and then kept walking, in no hurry to make progress on his inspection of the spaces.
“I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman.” Courtney’s eyes were pinned to the screen. “So I’m just going to call the person a he. He’s nonchalant in his behavior. It’s like he’s strolling through the building, making his rounds like he’s the security officer.”
Chief Martin agreed. “The security footage has been copied to show the person in the different places he visited in the offices. There are several cameras positioned in different hallways and we’ve gathered the footage that shows the person moving through the non-profit.”
The person had on a dark winter jacket, a dark knitted hat, a black mask that covered his entire face except his eyes, and he wore heavy boots and a pair of gloves. His lumbering gait made him seem awkward and uncoordinated.
“His clothing makes it impossible to see any identifying features.” Angie gazed at the screen watching the person move through the hallways. “The fuzziness of the picture makes it hard to see the clothing in detail.”
“It’s creepy.” Ellie voiced what everyone else was thinking. “He broke in and wandered around for two hours? Brighter Days isn’t that big. He must have patrolled the hallways over and over.”
“He did.” Chief Martin nodded. “He looked into the offices from the hall, but never entered any of them. At least, none of the rooms that lead off the hallways that are seen on the tapes.”
“What was he looking for?” Jenna wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” the chief said. “He didn’t leave the place carrying anything. He spent the entire time looking around.”
“Was he familiarizing himself with the layout of the place?” Finch’s index finger tapped his chin.
Chief Martin made eye contact with the older man. “The same thought occurred to me.”
“Why though?” Courtney questioned. “For what purpose?”
“What goes on in the offices and rooms there?” Angie posed the question. “The activities at the non-profit could be a clue to what the intruder was looking for.”
“Or,” Jenna said ominously, “what he intends to do in the future.”
A shiver ran over Angie’s skin. “You think he might be planning something?”
“Why walk through the place for two hours unless you were looking for something or you were planning something?” Jenna asked.
“They hold fundraising events there,” Ellie said. “I’ve been to a few of them.”
“They hold language classes for new English-speakers. They offer different kinds of seminars like Buying Your First House, Saving and Investing, How to Pay for College, How to Manage Retirement, stuff like that,” Jenna told them.
“They meet with people who need help with child care, who can’t afford health services, who have lost their jobs and need help with retraining,” Mr. Finch said.
“They do food drives and clothing drives, too,” Ellie said. “There’s also a small shop there selling used clothing and household items for very low prices. They do a lot of good for people.”
“I don’t like the idea that the intruder is casing the place,” Jenna said. “He might be planning to make trouble.”
“We’re assigning an officer to be stationed daily at the non-profit for the next week,” the chief said. “Unfortunately, we can’t spare an officer any longer than that.”
“Maybe the person will give up whatever he’s planning to do when he sees a police officer is there during working hours,” Finch said.
“I hope so.” Chief Martin had a worried look on his face.
“Have you spoken with the employees and the volunteers who work at Brighter Days?” Angie asked. “Did anyone mention a disgruntled worker?”
“We’ve spoken with them.” Chief Martin fiddled with a spoon, twirling it between his fingers. “None of the workers have recently given notice and gone to other jobs. No one can remember anyone who seemed disgruntled, not an employee, not a volunteer, not a client. So far, there’s no theory as to what the intruder wanted or why he entered the offices.”
“The intruder might not have wanted anything at all,” Ellie speculated. “He might not have even known what sort of office he was in. Maybe he only wanted the thrill of breaking and entering.”
“If that’s the case, that would be the best reason of all,” Jenna said. “The person was only looking for a thrill, not to cause damage, not to steal anything, not to hurt anyone.”
“Why dress like that though?” Angie asked. “He put a lot of thought and effort into his clothing. He made sure nothing about his features could be distinguished. He might have known there were working security cameras there. If he was looking just to break in for a thrill, would he have been so meticulous about disguising himself so well?”
“Could he have been looking for someone?” Finch asked. “Did he think the person he was searching for heard him enter the offices and hid somewhere? Was he walking around trying to flush out the person?”
Angie’s eyes widened. “That’s an awful thought.”
“It scares me,” Ellie said with an involuntary shake of her upper body. “It’s like a horror movie."
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