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Daddy placed crispy strips of bacon onto a paper-towel-lined plate to drain. “You both didn’t know Jenny Jane very well, did you?”

Not well, no. Jenny Jane and her family had lived in a cabin out in the country, too far off to pop in for a visit. Her kids, three in all, were now grown and scattered across the South, and her husband had remarried this past summer and relocated to Florida. There were no more Booths remaining in Hitching Post.

Except Jenny Jane.

Shaking my head, I said, “I knew her youngest son some from school, but that’s all.” Glancing at Delia, I added, “You?”

“Just in passing,” she said. “Why?”

Daddy pulled the biscuits from the oven. “When her kids were very little, she used to bring them for the library’s story hour every day like clockwork. She’d wanted them to learn to love books and knew she couldn’t give them the skill of reading. She was illiterate.”

It took a moment for that to sink in before it became very clear why Jenny Jane hadn’t responded to the note I’d written. It wasn’t because the stroke had affected her brain even after death . . . it was because she never had the ability to read in the first place.

That struck me as terribly sad, and my heart ached for her.

“I offered to teach her how to read more than once,” Daddy explained. “But after a time, you have to learn to let go in the face of refusal and let people keep their pride. She did right by her kids, ensuring they had a proper education. Her oldest daughter, Moriah, became a librarian in fact.”

“Mmmmrrhh!”
Jenny Jane exclaimed, surging forward.

“No!” I shouted, shooing her back.

She stopped suddenly, then tentatively crept forward before halting again.
“Mmmrrrh!”

“Moriah?” I asked her.

Slumping visibly, she nodded. She rested her arms atop each other and made a swinging motion.

No, a
rock-a-bye
motion.

“A baby?” I asked.

Yes.

“What baby?” Delia asked.

“Moriah’s baby?” I guessed, looking at Jenny Jane.

Yes!

“Does Moriah have a baby?” I asked my father.

“I’m not sure,” my father said. “I can ask around.”

“We don’t have long to find out.” I couldn’t help but feel the pressure of the approaching deadline. The ghosts would be sent back to their graves Tuesday night.

“I’m on it.” He kissed my forehead and set the bacon and griddled potatoes on the table. “I’ll make some calls when I get to the shop today.”

“I can ask around town, too,” Delia said. “Someone around here is bound to know something.”

A strained voice came down the stairs. “Is it safe to come down yet?”

“Define safe,” I called back.

“Ghost-free?” Mama said tentatively.

I glanced at Jenny Jane, who hadn’t budged. “Yes, it’s safe!” Then I said to Delia and Daddy, “What Mama doesn’t know won’t hurt her none. You want to stay for breakfast?” I asked my cousin.

“I’ll grab a plate,” Delia said with a grateful smile. “Smells wonderful, and I’m suddenly starving.”

Mama came tiptoeing into the kitchen, whipping her head this way and that. In her hand, she held a bottle of room deodorizer at the ready, apparently in case a ghost was in need of a good freshening with a lavender-and-vanilla scent.

Laughing at her antics, I set out some napkins and moved aside all the Ezekiel house papers.

Delia leaned over my shoulder. “What’re those?”

“A long ghostly story,” I said.

“No more ghost talk!” Mama ordered, sliding into a chair and setting the deodorizer next to her juice glass. “I’ll lose my appetite, and ain’t no one here wants that. I get a touch cranky when I’m hungry.”

Daddy gave her a double stack of waffles. “A
touch
?”

She swiped his arm playfully. “Go on with you.”

Delia leaned in and whispered to me, “A ghostly story, you say?”

Reluctantly, I nodded. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”

As she reached for a biscuit, she smiled and softly said, “Welcome back, Carly Bell.”

•   •   •

An hour later, my parents had said their good-byes, I’d cleaned and put up the breakfast dishes, and Delia was upstairs taking a nap in the guest room. By the time she had finished eating, she could barely keep her eyes open, and I’d insisted she stay and rest a bit. Roly and Poly were keeping her company.

Before he left, I remembered to tell my daddy to expect a visit at the shop today from Mr. Butterbaugh. Both Mama and Daddy had chuckled about Eulalie’s reaction to her date with the caretaker and promised to keep an eye out for any potential suitors for my aunt. I’d also sent Daddy off with all the papers Dylan and I had copied at Haywood’s house. If there was anything fascinating in all that information, Daddy would ferret it out in no time.

I hadn’t received any updates from Dylan, and I was starting to get nervous. His being upset about what was going on with his mama made me upset, too. Which had nothing to do with me being an empath and everything to do with being in love.

Parked on my couch, tucked under an afghan, I searched the Internet looking for anything and everything about Avery Bryan.

It was proving to be a futile search. It was as though she was a ghost herself.

I truly had enough of those in my life already. Jenny Jane was staring out the front door, and Virgil had returned and was now camped in front of a window. Fortunately, both were a good distance away from me, so I physically felt relatively normal for the time being.

Haywood still hadn’t returned. His avoidance of me was odd, considering the time crunch we were under.

Strange.

Very strange indeed.

I glanced at Virgil again. His car accident was weighing on my mind, and I took a quick moment to access the digital newspapers on file at the Hitching Post Public Library’s Web site. I recalled his death being a big news story, not only because it had been a hit-and-run, which was unusual around here, but also because it had happened on Founder’s Day, a local holiday. Its festivities rivaled that of a Fourth of July celebration around these parts with a parade, a pageant, a fair, and fireworks.

Unfortunately, I’d forgotten the sheriff’s office had no leads at all in the case. I skimmed a few articles and found very little helpful information. Virgil had been hit just after eleven at night while walking Louella. There had been no witnesses.

Trying to refocus on Avery, I reached over to the coffee table for the cordless phone, and dialed a number I knew by heart. I leaned back, waiting for my aunt to pick up, and kept thinking about the conversation I’d overheard between Hyacinth and Avery earlier.

“Your anger is misplaced, Hyacinth. If you recall, I am not the one who dragged myself into this.”

“So says you.”

“I do say. Haywood got a letter, same as you did.”

There was clearly much more going on between them than met the eye, and I suspected it was why Haywood was keeping his distance. He didn’t want to tell me about it.

“The Silly Goose, this is Eulalie.”

“Hi, Aunt Eulalie, it’s Carly,” I said. “Do you happen to have a home address for Avery Bryan?”

“Are you going to see her?” Eulalie asked eagerly. “I can clear my afternoon schedule if you want some company.”

I smiled at her exuberance. “Not today I’m not. I’m just trying to figure out her connection to Haywood,” I explained, “and I can’t find anything online about her. I thought if I had an address that it would be a good starting place. See if she owns a house, who might live with her. That kind of thing.”

The tax and census forms from Haywood’s paperwork had given me the idea as property records were viewable to the public. Eulalie undoubtedly had a billing address for Avery in her files, and I hoped she’d share it with me.

“As long as you don’t breathe to a soul where you got it,” she said.

“Cross my heart.”

She rattled off an address, and I jotted it down. “Thanks, Aunt Eulalie.”

“Anytime, darlin’.”

After hanging up, I’d just started typing the address into my computer’s browser when I heard a knock. I glanced up, found Ainsley peering through the glass panel on the front door. I waved her inside.

Dressed in leggings and a thigh-length sweater, she rushed inside carrying a grocery sack. She hadn’t seemed to realize that she’d just walked straight through Jenny Jane, so I didn’t enlighten her.

She dropped the sack on the coffee table. “Carter has Clingon duty, so I’m yours for the rest of the day. I’ve got microwave popcorn, cheese puffs, Twizzlers, peanut butter cups, Almond Joys, a family-size bag of tortilla chips, a jar of extra-hot salsa, and enough Diet Coke to float us to the Gulf. I’ve got DVDs of
Meet Me in St. Louis
,
Jurassic Park
,
Good Will Hunting
, and
The Great Gatsby
, the Tobey version.”

In Ainsley’s mind, the star of the most recent remake of
Gatsby
hadn’t been Leo DiCaprio. It had been Tobey Maguire. She adored him. His role in
Spider-Man
was why she’d nicknamed my witchy warning tingles “witchy senses.”

She motioned for me to move my legs aside and sat down on the sofa. “We, my friend, are ready to do hibernation up right and proper, but first, tell me what you know about Haywood’s death and why you ran out of the ball last night. I need details. I’m dying. Rumors were flying at services this morning despite Carter’s homily about the sins of such nattering.” She rolled her eyes. “The man means well, but he hasn’t quite grasped that around here, gossip
is
a religion. Just don’t tell Carter I said that okay? I’d never hear the end of it.”

There were some days I loved her more than words could say. Today was one of them. “My lips are sealed.”

I reached for the bag of peanut butter cups. Peanut butter was my weakness. I unwrapped a two-pack and handed one to her. “If gossip is your religion, brace yourself for a spiritual bombshell. Do you want the good news first or the bad?”

Drawing her legs up onto the couch, she pulled her sweater over her knees. Her amethyst eyes flashed brightly with eagerness. Around a mouthful of chocolate, she said, “Good!”

I set my laptop on the table next to the heart attack–inducing smorgasbord and sat cross-legged style, leaning in close to her. “Patricia Davis Jackson was arrested this morning.”

She shoved me back against a throw pillow. “Shut your mouth!”

“It’s true. Dylan’s with her right now at the courthouse. They convinced Judge Wilfork to come in on his day off for a bail hearing.”

Ainsley fanned her face. “Lord-a-mercy! Did she admit to killing Haywood?”

“No.” I relayed what Patricia had said happened.

“Do
you
think she did it?” Ainsley asked, her gaze narrowing on me.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. She didn’t like Haywood, but no one knows why, not even him. Do you know?”

“Not a clue, which is strange, because as a pastor’s wife, I’m pretty sure I know the status of all social interactions within this community. You wouldn’t believe what people openly tell me.” She smiled suddenly. “Or maybe you would.”

Being the owner of the Little Shop of Potions, I was a bit of a mystical bartender. Customers talked. A lot. I listened. “I do hear a lot, but I’ve never heard anything about Patricia and Haywood.”

“I’ll put out some feelers,” Ainsley said. “Now tell me the bad news. You and Dylan didn’t break up, did you?”

“What? No!” Heat flooded my cheeks. “Why would you think that?”

“Sorry!” she said quickly. “It’s just that Patricia’s a lot to handle. I thought you showed great restraint in not pushing her down the stairs last night when she stepped on your dress. Dylan loves you . . . but she’s his
mama
.”

Leave it to Ainsley to know my worst fear and not be afraid to talk openly about it. “I know. Up until now it’s been easy enough to separate her from our lives, but her arrest highlighted the lone crack in our relationship. Which isn’t so much a crack as a . . .”

“Chasm?” she guessed. “A gorge? A deep endless abyss?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. “I was going to say a scar, but yeah, those work, too.”

“You two will figure it out, Carly,” she said, shoving another peanut butter cup toward me.

“That’s the thing. It isn’t about the two of us. It’s about the
three
of us.”

Dejectedly, Ainsley glanced at the coffee table and frowned at the Diet Coke. “I might need tequila to deal with all this.”

I agreed.

“So, what is the bad news?” She peered at me with only one eye cracked open as though bracing for the worst.

“This year’s hibernation has been canceled, due to an unfortunate run-in with Haywood Dodd’s ghost.” I paused a moment. “Then with Virgil Keane’s ghost.” I paused another moment. “And also Jenny Jane Booth’s ghost, though technically she belongs to Delia. Except for Haywood, they’re here now. Delia’s upstairs napping on account of Jenny Jane putting Delia through the wringer.”

Jenny Jane shot me a sharp look.

“What?” I said to her. “It’s true.”

She gestured wildly.

“Okay,” I amended. “She
unintentionally
put Delia through the wringer this morning.”

Jenny Jane nodded and went back to staring out the front door.

Ainsley flicked a glance in that direction. Her eyes looked about to pop straight out of her head. “I love you, I truly do, but that’s just plain freaky.”

I laughed. “Welcome to my world.”

“Where’s Haywood?”

“He’s run away. Floated away?” I shook my head. “You know what I mean.”

Fanning herself again, she stood up, went into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of vodka under one arm, a bottle of tonic water under the other, and two glasses half full of ice cubes. “You’re out of tequila.”

“I’ll be sure to go shopping as soon as possible.”

As she poured, she said, “Tell me everything.”

I did, ending with how Jenny Jane Booth came to be in my living room. “My daddy mentioned that Moriah’s a librarian now, and he’s planning to make some calls to find out where. We don’t even know for certain why Jenny Jane wants to find Moriah so badly, but can only assume it’s about a grandbaby.” I explained the rock-a-bye arm gesture Jenny Jane had made.