UnPacking the Ditto House (A Get Haunted Tale, #2)

Denise Pack squeezed her husband's hand a bit tighter when they rounded the corner in their car as the two-story boxlike house emerged into view.

"You okay?" Ernie Pack asked, not eyeing his wife in the passenger seat but keeping his focus on snaking to the right and around the corner, then taking an immediate left into the only empty space in a three-car-wide driveway.

Denise leaned forward to see the entirety of the house through the windshield. "Do you think it's true?"

"Do I think what's true?" Ernie slipped his hand from Denise's grip and turned the ignition key to shut off the engine.

Without taking her gaze from the gray house-three rectangular widows adorning the top row and two windows, with the door to the far left, comprising the bottom row-Denise swallowed hard. "That it really is the most-haunted house in Kentucky?"

Ernie sighed and regarded his wife. "I hope so. That's why we just drove almost six hours for this showing, right? If it's all a bunch of hogwash, I'm gonna send my gas receipts to the realtor. um. What's her name again?"

Denise spied the For Sale sign on the front lawn and bit the inside of her cheek in nervous excitement. "LeAnne."

"Looks like she's here already." Ernie motioned to the two vehicles in the wide yet shallow rectangular driveway.

"I wonder whose other car that is," Denise said and pulled the latch to open the passenger door.

When he heard another vehicle approach, Ernie looked in his side-view mirror to watch the car park on the other side of the narrow street. He watched a woman exit the gray SUV and smooth out her skirt. "Now we have four cars here."

Denise exited their car and waved at the blonde across the street. "That's LeAnne," she said to Ernie.

The middle-aged woman trotted across the empty roadway-not looking either way for traffic, as the house sat on a short dead-end street-and proffered her hand to Denise in the driveway. "So glad you guys could make the trip."

Ernie cleared his throat as he exited from the driver's seat and closed the door. "Ernie Pack," he said to LeAnne, shaking her hand.

"How was the drive?"

"Pretty straightforward," Ernie said, then beheld the front of the house again, noticing four white decorative stars in a horizontal line below the second-story windows. "So, this is it?"

LeAnne flashed a wide smile. "Welcome to the Ditto House."

Denise squealed from the back of her throat. "I'm so excited."

LeAnne swept her hand to head them up the skinny pathway to the front door. "This house is steeped in history. I'll go over some of it as I give you the tour of the house."

"Ernie is the history buff," Denise said, then hesitated before she added, "but I'm the paranormal nut."

LeAnne turned without slowing her pace to make eye contact with Denise. "I'm pretty certain this house will have what you are both looking for." She winked at the Packs before turning front-facing again.

The trio reached the front door, and Denise tucked a wayward strand of her naturally red hair behind her ear.

"Another showing is taking place right now," LeAnne said, surveying the other two cars in the driveway, "but I know how far you drove and are probably anxious to see the house. We'll make sure we stay out of their way."

"So, other potential buyers are inside the house right now?" Denise eyed Ernie with furrowed brows, her expression almost panicked.

"Oh, Mrs. Pack, it has been a revolving door of showings this week. We've had so many inquiries that the real-estate company has assigned two of us, just so we can keep up with all the bookings."

Ernie raised a skeptical eyebrow at Denise. "This is a sales tactic. Don't start signing away our life savings yet."

LeAnne chortled. "I assure you, Mr. Pack, that I don't need to apply any used-car-salesman techniques for the Ditto House. It will sell itself."

"How many offers have you had already?" Denise asked.

LeAnne gripped the front doorknob and sighed. "None yet."

"So, nobody wanted the house so far?" Ernie asked, followed by a sarcastic chuckle.

LeAnne turned to glare at Ernie, her lips pursed, her eyes wide. Her face was stoic, as all color drained from it. "No, Mr. Pack. The house hasn't wanted any of the potential buyers."

Ernie waited for the realtor to turn around before spinning his index finger around his right ear, then whispered to Denise, "Cuckoo."

Denise scowled at him and slapped his chest with the back of her hand. "Stop it," she whispered back. "Be nice."

Ernie intertwined his fingers with his wife's hand as LeAnne opened the door to reveal a hallway that led to the bottom of a staircase pressed against the left-hand wall. They entered the pre-Civil War residence, their soft-soled sneakers still making loud footfalls on the real-wood flooring.

Denise peeked through the first doorway on the right into the front sitting room, noticing a fireplace on the far wall. She then gazed the length of the room to see two more rooms in a row.

"LeAnne?" a woman called out from somewhere on the second floor.

"It's me with my three o'clock appointment," she yelled up the stairs. "Do you want us to wait outside?"

"Nah, I think we're done. Coming down in a sec," the woman answered.

Denise took a half step into the front room to get a better view of the middle room, noting another fireplace against the right-hand wall between two windows and two small steps that led into the third room.

The doorframes of each were just crooked enough to notice yet not crooked enough to bother her. She surveyed the old wood flooring, the vintage wallpapering, the period furniture. Each room sat at a slightly different height than the one next to it, giving it a topsy-turvy funhouse feel. The ethereal echoes of the past seemed to come from just beyond the veil. When she heard movement upstairs, Denise stood alongside her husband and their realtor.

LeAnne's colleague descended the wooden staircase, holding onto the banister. A twentysomething couple followed behind her. The realtor smiled at LeAnne, then faced the man and woman with her. "See? I told you this house is the hottest thing on the market right now." She inclined her chin toward the Packs. "Our showings are even starting to overlap."

Ernie leaned down to Denise's ear. "Man, they are really good at hyping up this place."

The young woman glanced at the Packs, then focused on her realtor. "Thank you for being so thorough in the tour. We will be in touch." She and her partner exited the Ditto House, hand-in-hand, walking toward their car.

"I'll talk to you back at the office?" LeAnne asked the other realtor.

The woman nodded and placed her hand on the front doorknob. "Do you want me to close this?"

"Thanks."

Once the door clicked shut, Denise felt more comfortable fully entering the front room and beholding a few pieces of furniture spread throughout the three aligned rooms. Ernie followed her, and LeAnne stopped in the doorway that separated the hallway and the front room.

"Are the owners still moving out?" Denise asked, rubbing her hand along a large rectangular desk near where LeAnne stood.

"Nope. They have been gone since the end of last month and left behind some furniture that they felt belonged to the house."

"You talk like the house has its own identity," Ernie said. "Not belonged in the house but belonged to the house. Interesting way to put it."

LeAnne chuckled. "Mr. Pack, no other house in the state has as much personality and self-identity than the Ditto House."

"Will we get to meet the previous owners if we buy the house?" Denise asked.

Ernie shot his wife a Not so fast, Speedy Gonzales look.

LeAnne stepped fully into the front room. "They moved to Parkview, Massachusetts, right outside of Salem, so my office will handle the transaction."

Ernie kneeled to inspect the fireplace on the far wall. "That is Denise's favorite vacation destination."

"Salem? Or Parkview?" LeAnne asked.

"Salem. Never heard of Parkview." Denise rubbed her index finger across a large dark stain on the left-behind desk and spoke without looking up. "What's the story behind this desk?"

"During the Civil War, General Sherman took up residency here at West Point a few houses down. His command staff moved into the Ditto House to hold all their war-room meetings about the Union invasion into Georgia. Sherman and his command staff used that exact desk to draw up the plans for the July 22, 1864, Battle of Atlanta. That large stain may be spilled ink from when they were finalizing or signing off on the attack plans."

Ernie rose from in front of the fireplace and approached the desk.

"This is right up your alley, huh?" Denise asked, stepping aside so Ernie could get a wider view of the piece of furniture that held so much significance in a turning point in the war.

"Wasn't West Point a Confederate-sympathizing town?" he asked, gazing across the desk.

LeAnne crossed the room and stopped in the doorway that led from the front room into the middle room. "The Guthrie family owned the Ditto House during the Civil War. They were Southern...