Ghost On Duty (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 2) by J. D. Winters Page A

else. By now, I was pretty sure it was a gunshot. I’d heard one earlier that day and this sure sounded like the same thing. My heart was pounding madly. What now? What if Roy had been hit? I had to go help him.
    I wasn’t thinking about how in the world I was going to find him in the dark. That sort of thought was over now. I was in a cold panic. If Roy had been hit….
    I got out of the car and started going in the direction he’d gone in. In no time at all, I couldn’t see the car any longer. I stopped, thinking I should mark my way somehow so that I could come back to it. But how was I going to do that in the dark?
    I went a little further, pushing my way through branches that caught at my face, and then I began to see something looming through the night ahead. Whatever it was, I could use if for a marker. As I got closer, I realized it was Ned’s house. There were no lights on, but the white paint of the outer walls seemed to glow in the dark.  
    I stopped and listened hard. Nothing. I stood there for a moment, not sure what to do, and then the sound of a twig being snapped shot my heart practically out of my chest. I jumped behind a nearby tree and clung to the side away from where I’d heard the sound, and a few seconds later, a man came walking through.  
    I don’t know how I knew it wasn’t Roy, but I was sure of it. I stuck like glue to the side of the tree, holding my breath as he passed. I could just make out the fact that he was tall and broad-shouldered, and I could see the outline of the gun he was carrying, but I couldn’t have identified the man at all.
    I waited, heart in my throat, grateful for the noise the man made walking through the underbrush, because if it weren’t for that, he would surely hear me gasping for breath. I stayed where I was until I couldn’t hear the man any longer. And then I turned toward where he’d come from and went in that direction, trying to step lightly, yet quickly, praying that I would find Roy safe and sound—somewhere.
    I thought I heard something and I froze, looking around for someplace to hide. I was in a clearing. Should I make a run for it? Wouldn’t that make too much noise and draw whoever it was right to me? But what if it was Roy?
    It was coming closer. No time for mulling this over—I headed for a stand of trees to the side of the clearing, slipping on leaves as I went. I reached the edge of the forest and ducked in among the trees, then stood very still, listening. Could it be Roy? Or someone else? There were definitely steps coming toward me, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out who it was. I turned and started deeper into the trees, but before I’d gone very far, I stumbled onto something long and thick and human that was in my way. I lost my balance and went sailing into the bushes. A body. It had to be.
    “Oh!” I tried to stifle it, but the gasp came out, and the person I’d heard moving was still coming toward me. I scrambled, trying to get to my feet, as much to run from the body I’d found as the pursuer.  
    “Mele,” Roy called out, and the beam from a flashlight came right nearby. “Is that you?”
    “Roy!” I nearly fainted from relief. “Oh Roy! Are you okay?”
    And then he was there and I threw myself at him.  
    “Hey,” he said, pulling back to avoid me as though in pain. “No hugging. I got shot.”
    “What?” I gasped and backed away. “Where? Who did it?”
    He shook his head. “I didn’t see him. But he saw me. Luckily, not well enough to aim for the heart. He just grazed my arm. But it hurts like hell. And it’s bleeding like a son of a gun.” He leaned against a tree with his good arm. His left one was hanging a bit limply. He was trying to pull his shirtsleeve around the wound. “So, you okay?”
    “Yes. I heard the shot. I…I couldn’t stick to the car after that. I had to come look for you.”
    He smiled crookedly. “Yeah. Well, good thing you came along. I’m going to need some