Page 22 of Ghost Hunters 1

Jillian used the moment when Claire turned her back to shove the plans inside her shirt.When Claire turned around to face her, Jillian told her, “I can’t help you with that.Each of us must face the unknown when we depart this world.I hope that you can find your salvation one day and that you can also find your courage to face what must be faced.I don’t want to die here when the Inn burns down again.”

Claire nodded sadly.“I would have chased you out somehow anyway.I caused the death of one innocent man.But I haven’t taken anyone else’s life but my own and Tilly’s.”

“And just how are you going to do that?”

Claire shrugged.“I don’t know.All I do know is that you can’t be here in three days, girl.”

Jillian thought for a moment then had to ask, “Do you know where Tilly’s body is?”

Claire stared at her for a moment and then shook her head.“George said it didn’t matter where she was, only that she was still here.”She walked to the door and turned to look at her, “By the way, George isn’t happy you are here and especially Matthew.For your own sake as well as Matthew’s, please leave; before you can’t anymore.”Claire then walked through the closed door and disappeared.

Jillian ran to the door, opened it and rushed out of the room.She knew they didn’t have much time.

Dino and Matthew were in the kitchen waiting for her.

“Where have you been?We were worried about you,” Dino told her.

“I ran into Claire,” Jillian explained as she opened the file and spread the blueprints out on the table.

Dino shook his head.“She’s quite the social ghost, isn’t she?So what did she want?”Dino quipped sarcastically as he began looking the blueprints over.

“She told me that she couldn’t allow us to find her sister.If we found Tilly then her time here would be over and she would have to leave.She’s more afraid of leaving here than she is of the burning hell she herself created when she burned the Inn to the ground.She relives that hell every year.”

Matthew shook his head.“Poor Claire, it didn’t have to be that way at all.If she’d only let us be happy, all of us could have lived a good life.”

“I can’t find the root cellar on this,” Dino said.

“What do you mean you can’t find it?”Jillian exclaimed.“It has to be there.”

“Well, it’s not.”Dino looked them over carefully.Then he threw them down on the table.“These are useless anyway.They were drawn up in 1992.”

“What?”Jillian whispered as she sat down in her chair.“How could that be?No one’s lived here since the 1980’s and the couple that tried to remodel the place didn’t come here until 2,000.”

Dino picked up the plans again and looked at them.“These plans were drawn by a George Walker.”

“How could that be?”Matthew asked.

“What do you mean?”Jillian asked.

“George Walker lived here when I came here in 1988,” Matthew told them.

“So why would it be so odd if he was the one that drew the plans for the house?”Dino asked him.

“George never said anything but I don’t think he knew how to read,” Matthew explained.“And there’s always the fact that he burned to death in 1989.”

Jillian shook her head.“Well, that would make it difficult to draw plans if you can’t read and you died like three years before the plans were drawn.Wouldn’t it?”

They all looked at each other in confusion.