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It was a small miracle.

I’d tried to get Louella to eat, but she only growled and nipped at me, and she had zero interest in any of the toys I’d bought for her the day before.

Roly and Poly had quickly appropriated her doggy bed for themselves, and Louella couldn’t have cared less. She lay listlessly on the area rug in the living room, her head on her paws.

She was mourning, and I didn’t know what to do about it, other than to give her time to process losing Virgil all over again.

I let her be.

Dylan had gone off to fetch some scones and coffee from Dèjá Brew, and I hoped he hurried back, as Delia would be here in fifteen minutes, and I was in desperate need of a caffeine fix.

The phone rang while I was tidying the kitchen. My mama.

“Baby girl,” she said breathlessly, “I was at Dèjá Brew this morning and heard from three people—three!—that you were seen talking to yourself on street corners, and that you were crying on the floor of To Have and to Cuddle in the company of some mangy-looking dog. Crying! You rarely cry. Is this about them ghosts? Do I need to kick some ghostly booty? I will. I’ll do it. Just watch me.”

Glancing at the kitchen table, I had a flashback to the night before and it was easy to recall the scornful look that had been in Patricia’s eyes. I shuddered and thanked my lucky stars for the crazy mama I had. “I love you, Mama.”

“Sweet Jesus!” she exclaimed. “Are you dying? Did that smoke inhalation cause more damage than the doctor let on? I need to sit down. Hold on.” A second later she said, “Okay, I’m sitting, but now I’m not breathing real well on account of my shapewear being a size too small. So tell me quick. Have you seen a doctor? I thought your daddy said that potion he made up worked on you just fine.” Her voice rose. “Hell’s bells, what good is your magic if you can’t use it on yourself?”

“Mama, breathe.”

“I can’t. Damn tummy cincher! I should have known not to buy it from one of those infomercials.”

“Mama!” I laughed. “I’m fine. Daddy’s potion healed me right up. I’m having a bit of a rough time emotionally with the ghost thing, but I’m dealing with it. I said I loved you because I had dinner with Patricia last night, and it reminded me of how lucky I was to have you and I wanted to let you know. I can’t imagine a better mama out there. That’s all.”

She sniffled. “Well, if Patricia is your standard, then I’m a peach compared to her. A peach, I tell you.”

“Compared to anyone,” I said.

She sniffled again. “Now I can’t breathe and my mascara’s running. I’m a hot mess and I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”

“Then you’d better go.”

Through the window, I saw Dylan pull into the driveway and watched him as he hopped out of his truck carrying a white bag and a cardboard drink tray with three cups stuck into it. The sun hit his face just so, highlighting his strong jawline and the darkness under his eyes.

My heart bumped around in my chest.

This stuff with his mama wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, but as I still didn’t know what I could do about it other than do the same as I was doing with Louella.

Let him be.

He had to work through this on his own, and all I could do was be there to support him.

“I’d better,” Mama agreed.

Dylan came in the back door, kissed my cheek noisily. I said to my mama, “Give my love to Daddy, too, and tell him thanks again for getting that information on Moriah I needed.” He’d called last night with the name of the library where she worked, her hours, her home address, and her phone number. I owed him big-time.

“I will. By the way, you’re doing a damn fine job keeping him busy,” Mama said. “I’ve barely seen hide nor hair of him since Saturday. Blessed peace. Sweet blessed peace.”

I smiled. “’Bye, Mama.”

“I love you, Carly Bell. You keep that in mind when you’re dealing with ghosts and Patricia or anyone else. And don’t think I won’t kick her skinny booty, too, if I find out she’s done you any kind of wrong. I’ll do it. Just watch me.”

There’s nothing fiercer than a mama protecting her baby. “Watch? I’d video it and play it on special occasions.”

Mama laughed. “That’s my girl.”

She made kissy noises into the phone and hung up.

Dylan said, “Everything okay?”

“My mama’s been hearing things about my erratic behavior and offered to kick some ghostly booty.”

“I’d pay to see that,” he said, tugging a coffee out of the tray and handed it over.

“Me, too.”

He went to the plate cabinet, pulled open the door. “I bought a coffee for Delia, too. I wasn’t sure what she liked, but I figure she probably likes what you like since you two are so similar.”

“You think so?” I asked, testing the lid on my cup. It was tight, and I figured it was the first thing Dylan had checked before leaving the coffee shop.

Taking down two plates, he said, “Except for the hex thing and her obsession with the color black, yeah. I never realized how much until you two became close.” Smiling, he said, “Two peas.”

The notion made me oddly happy.

He set two blueberry scones on the plates and handed one to me. “I’m planning to see what I can find out about the Harpies’ financial situation today.”

His shift started at eight thirty, so he was dressed for work in pressed black slacks and a white button-down with a dark tie. The clothes skimmed his body, hugging his muscles, and
dang
he looked good.

I stuffed a piece of scone in my mouth. I had to leave soon. There was no time to throw myself at him.

“Good,” I said, catching a crumb as it fell from my mouth. “Because none of the Harpies other than Hyacinth knew Haywood was the heir to the house, and I know she didn’t kill him because I asked, and her energy was truthful. Which means he wasn’t killed because of that house. That leaves us with only the blackmail angle to explore. The money trail will reveal a lot.”

“The only trouble is I don’t know if warrants have already been executed for the bank information. If not, it’s going to take time. Time you don’t necessarily have when it comes to Haywood.”

I glanced at the clock. It was almost eight, and I took a deep breath. “We can only do what we can do. Maybe Avery Bryan will have some answers for us.”

Because Haywood still hadn’t come back. For a ghost who wanted my help so badly, he hadn’t made my job easy. It would serve him right if I sicced my mama on him.

Dylan pinched the bridge of his nose. “What’s my mother got to do with her?”

“I don’t know.” I rubbed my hands over the sink to rid them of crumbs and set my plate in the dishwasher, then Dylan’s. “It’s not so much Avery, though, as her mama that has Patricia all fired up.”

“Twilabeth Morgan?”

“Patricia’s energy was off the charts panicked when I mentioned Twilabeth’s name last night.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “Do you know anything about her?”

“Never heard of her before this week.”

“Same here.” I looked at the clock again. “I have a couple of minutes before Delia comes by. I think I’ll pop over to Mr. Dunwoody’s to see what he might know about Twilabeth.”

“I’ve got to get to work. You’ll let me know?”

“Yep. You’ll let me know about the money trail?”

“First thing.” He pulled me into a hug, holding me tight. His heartbeat thudded against my collarbone as I snuggled against him. “Be careful today.”

I wasn’t sure if he meant because of the ghostpocalypse, because someone had already tried to kill me, or because I was taking Louella on the road trip. I supposed it didn’t matter much. “I will.”

He kissed me long and hard and walked out the door.

A moment later his truck roared to life and he backed out of the driveway. I gathered up my tote bag, Delia’s coffee, and sneaked up on Louella to clip a leash on her sparkly pink collar.

Sneaking hadn’t helped. She still managed to get a piece of my thumb.

As I locked the house and headed over to Mr. Dunwoody’s to see what I could learn about Twilabeth Morgan, I couldn’t keep my thoughts from drifting to Avery Bryan.

Like Hyacinth, had Haywood told her that he was the heir to the Ezekiel mansion?

Because all this time I’d been thinking a Harpie had something to do with Haywood’s death. But what if it hadn’t been a Harpie at all?

What if it had been his own daughter who killed him?

It was possible his murder had been about the house after all.

Chapter Twenty

I
t was an absolutely beautiful November morning as I practically dragged Louella down the sidewalk. A Carolina wren sang a sweet song, the sun was shining, and the wind was calm.

I left my tote and the coffee on my front steps because Louella was hard enough to handle without my hands full. I’d found my spare pair of sunglasses and had them on, but so far hadn’t needed them to evade any ghosts. My street was clear.

Mr. Dunwoody, as usual, was on his front porch, his glass in hand, a newspaper on his lap. “Morning!” he called when he looked up and saw me cajoling Louella to follow me up the path. His tee-hee-hee echoed in the quiet morning as he said, “Looks like you found Louella.”

“You want her?” I asked hopefully.

“No ma’am. No way. No how.”

She stubbornly refused to climb his front steps, and there was no way I was going to attempt to pick her up. I looped her leash around the banister and left her where she was.

Sinking into a rocker, I eyed his flask. I was tempted. Sorely tempted.

“What did you get yourself into?” he asked, studying the dog.

“Hell,” I answered. “Walked straight into it, following a ghost with kind eyes.”

He tee-hee-hee’d again.

I quickly told him about Virgil’s wanting Louella to have a home, and how right now I was the only option. “Unless you know of any candidates?”

He folded his paper and set it on the table between the chairs. “No one I know is as brave as you.”

For some reason I heard “brave” as “bat-shit crazy.” I wasn’t sure which was accurate. Most likely, the latter.

He gave me a quick once-over. “How’re you faring, Carly Bell?”

I couldn’t be anything but honest with him. “I’m okay.”

“It’s been a rough couple of days on you.”

He had no idea. “I’m ready for a vacation. I should have gone on that cruise with Marjie, then none of this ever would have happened.”

“You don’t like deep water,” he reminded, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

“A pesky detail.”

His soft tee-hee-hee buoyed my spirits.

After taking a sip from his mason jar, he asked, “The sheriff have any leads on the fire?”

A pair of cardinals flitted between the branches of a poplar in his side yard. “They were waiting on fingerprints, the last I heard. Could take weeks.”

Slowly, he rocked. “It’s a bad business you’re mixed up in.”

“Sure enough. No one knows anything, saw anything, had anything to do with anything.”

His beard was starting to come in nicely, but I liked his face clean-shaven. For a skinny man, he had full round cheeks that jiggled when he laughed, and I missed seeing them.

“That’s a lot of anything,” he said.

I smiled. “Don’t I know it.”

He had on a red, white, and blue checkered bow tie this morning and blue suspenders paired with his white dress shirt. Oh so casually, he said, “Saw Patricia Davis Jackson tearing out of your house last night ’bout eight or so.”

“Yep.”

Nodding thoughtfully, he said, “Sometimes people make certain choices and think they need to live with those decisions, not realizing that they have the power to make another choice altogether.”

Undoubtedly there was wisdom in his words I was supposed to embrace, but I was having trouble deciphering the message. “What kind of choices? To be a mean-spirited woman intent on making her son miserable?”

His brown eyes shined with sympathy. Rocking rhythmically, he said, “She’s intent on no such thing, and you know it. A long time ago, for whatever reason, she made a choice to not accept you in Dylan’s life, and she’s a stubborn pigheaded woman. Her choice is making
her
miserable, and yet she can’t see that there’s another option. She’s blind to it, terrified.”