“There she is.” Deputy Alicia Wallace strode across the cafe floor and set her brimmed hat on my table. She tucked her thumbs into her belt, tugging her utility pouches and holster forward.
With her tall, sturdy frame, Wallace towered over me even when I wasn’t sitting down. That stature, combined with her ever-present firearm, had intimidated me since our very first meeting. Now, even though I considered us friends, her presence still made me a little nervous.
“Donn’s Hill Body Magnet Strikes Again,” she said, dragging her hand across the air in front of us like she was revealing an invisible newspaper headline. “I can’t wait to hear what you were doing in Raziel Santos’ hotel room at five-thirty on a Sunday morning. Aren’t you with Graham Thomas?”
“Yes.” Heat rushed into my face, heat that had nothing to do with the chai tea in my hands. “And this isn’t what it looks like.”
She chuckled and clapped me on the shoulder. “It never is. Look, I still need to go check out the scene and conduct some interviews. The sheriff is taking the lead on this case personally, due to the high profile of the victim. And when he does something ‘personally,’ it means I do it.”
I stared up at her. “What?”
“Never mind. Bad time for a joke.” She patted my shoulder again, more softly this time. “I know finding a dead body isn’t easy. Do me a favor: stay here. I’ll come back and go over your statement once I’ve been upstairs.”
I nodded, and she left me in the company of my own thoughts. The flush faded from my face, and I pulled out my phone to text Graham. The last thing our fledging relationship needed was him hearing about this from someone else, especially anyone who might’ve made the same insane assumption as Deputy Wallace.
He called immediately. “I’m coming to get you.”
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Stay there. Go back to sleep.”
It took several minutes of arguing back and forth before I finally convinced him there was nothing he could do here apart from getting in the way, and he agreed.
“Call me if you change your mind,” he said. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I murmured before hanging up.
From my table in the cafe's corner, I watched as the lobby filled with chaos. A line of people waited at reception as a frazzled college student checked them out. The other guests in the café, most of them holding suitcases or rolling luggage, sat in somber silence until their travel companions had paid their bills. Then, barred from leaving by the Driscoll County deputies who controlled the area, they sat over steaming cups of coffee and whispered to each other. The collection of low voices blended together into an irregular hum, and I let my eyes close.
“Mackenzie, you’re going to spill that.”
Penelope’s voice startled me back from the edge of sleep. My mug of tea rested in my lap, barely upright. I gingerly lifted it back up to the table as the older woman sank into the chair beside me with a deep sigh.
“What a morning.” She signaled the barista for a cup of coffee then eyed the line of guests at the registration desk. Her eyes were bright and alert, and she looked sharp as always in a flowing silk blouse. Only the slump of her shoulders hinted how tired she must be.
“I guess this is pretty bad for business,” I said.
She shrugged. “Most of my guests were weekenders and would have checked out in a few hours, regardless. I’ve offered those that are here for longer stays a steeply discounted rate. Most of them seem to be fairly understanding of the situation.”
The situation. It was such a mundane way to describe what had happened. Raziel was dead. Someone had killed him.
I felt numbed by those two facts. I’d seen him less than twelve hours before; how could he be dead? I searched my teacup for answers as I remembered our last conversation and recalled the flash of pain in his eyes just before he’d stormed off. He’d died before I’d had time to clear the air between us. It was an uncomfortable truth that made my stomach hurt.
“Oh, is Kit here to collect you?” Penelope asked.
“Hmm?” I raised my head; Kit was indeed walking toward us across the inn’s lobby. “Oh. Graham must’ve told her.”
“Hey, Mac.” Kit locked her eyes on me, pointedly ignoring Penelope. “What are you doing here?”
I frowned. “Waiting to be interviewed by the deputies.”
“What? Why?”
“She found Raziel’s body,” Penelope put in.
Kit’s eyes went wide, and all color drained from her face. “No,” she whispered. “Again?”
When I nodded, she swore under her breath and bent down to pull me into a hug.
“Holy crap, it’s like you’re cursed,” she muttered into my hair. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine.” I pulled away from her, studying her face. She was wearing a glossy nude lipstick that brought out the warmth in her olive skin, and she smelled faintly of mandarin oranges. I raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing here?”
“Um…” Blood surged into Kit’s face from her neck. “I heard about… well, Raziel… and everything… and I called Amari.” She cleared her throat and jerked her head toward the barista’s counter. “I thought I’d take her some coffee.”
Penelope nodded. “Good idea. Coffee is on the house today, for everyone. Please be my guest.”
Still refusing to acknowledge Penelope, Kit squeezed my shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’ve been through this before,” I reminded her. “I’ll be fine.”
As Kit left us to hustle away toward the barista’s counter, Penelope sighed. “She’s still upset.”
It wasn’t a question, nor did it need to be. Kit broadcasted her emotions more clearly than anyone I’d ever met. When she was angry, an invisible black cloud formed around her, casting a shadow on everything around it. On the flip side, her good moods were as contagious as the flu.
“She’ll be okay,” I said.
We sipped our drinks in silence for a few minutes, watching the ebb and flow of activity in the lobby as guests finished checking out and giving their statements to the deputies. Before long, the tall figure of Deputy Wallace appeared at the bottom of the stairs and she made her way toward us, dropping into the chair across from me with a clunk.
Wallace shot Penelope a meaningful look, one eyebrow raised.
Penelope took the hint and stood. “I’ve got to go check on some guests. Excuse me.”
As the innkeeper left us, Wallace turned to me, her expression darkening. She flipped to a new page in her tiny notebook and examined my face with narrowed eyes. “Okay, Mac,” she said. “Let’s hear it.”
The story spilled out of me in a rush. I was eager to share it, to get the memory of finding Raziel’s body out of my mind by way of my mouth. “We had an argument at the old Franklin cabin last night. Things got heated, and I said some hurtful things. I came here to apologize, and that’s when I found him.” I described the attic suite as I’d found it that morning, with the door ajar and Raziel on the ground behind the folding screen.
Wallace nodded as I spoke, jotting down notes and asking no clarifying questions. When I finished, she folded her hands in her lap and exhaled slowly through her nose. “Did you see anything else up there? Take anything?”
“No, why?”
“Some of his personal effects are missing.” She narrowed her eyes. “I hope you understand that we’ll need to verify your alibi with Graham Thomas and talk to the rest of the crew you had at the cabin.”
“Alibi?” I repeated. “Am I a suspect?”
Wallace waved a dismissive hand. “Suspect is too strong a word, but I’ll be frank. You’re a person of interest, and with Mr. Santos’ celebrity status, this is a high-profile case. The Sheriff has made it clear we’ll be sticking to the book on this one.”
“As opposed to?”
“We won’t be using any outside consultants this time. Because of your involvement with the deceased prior to his death, I can’t share any information with you.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Wallace believed in the paranormal even more than the average Donn’s Hill resident. She hadn’t batted an eye when I’d told her about seeing the ghost of a murder victim in the spring. Instead of calling me crazy like I’d expected, she’d encouraged me to reach out to the ghost for information to help find his killer.
She was making it clear now that this time, things would be different. She wouldn’t be sharing any inside tips with me the way she’d done before. If I was being honest with myself, I didn’t care. The fact that Raziel was dead still hadn’t permeated my consciousness; it still felt unreal, like a rumor I’d heard but couldn’t verify. Had it really been his body upstairs? Had I really found it? Was I even awake?
These were the questions that pressed against my forehead, not “What can I do to help solve this case?”
Wallace stood and placed her felt hat back atop her head. “Let me know if anything else comes to mind. Don’t talk to the press. And don’t leave town.”
She left me, and I stared stupidly after her for a few seconds. After a while, her last sentence finally made it through the mess of confused information that cluttered my brain. Don’t leave town.
I swallowed drily, forgetting the tea that sat on the table in front of me. She’d called “suspect” too strong a word. So why did I feel like that’s exactly how she thought of me?
The media circus descended on Donn’s Hill within twelve hours. Camera crews arrived from every major station in the state, and even a few cable news channels were represented. The Driscoll County Sheriff’s Department was being tight-lipped about Raziel’s death, refusing to even call it murder, but that didn’t stop the press from speculating about everything from possible motives to reasons Raziel might have taken his own life. Penelope warned us to steer clear of the Oracle Inn, where journalists had checked into most of the rooms.
“I can’t tell if she’s happy or upset at how busy the inn is,” Graham admitted to me over dinner the next evening.
We’d taken advantage of the good weather while it lasted. Graham had built a picnic table out of leftover lumber from around the house, and he’d dragged it onto a patch of asphalt in front of the garage. He grilled while I sat backward against the table and let the sun warm my face. It was chilly enough in the shade to want a hooded sweatshirt, but on this little impromptu patio, it felt warm enough for a T-shirt. Music drifted through the open garage doors, and I tapped a hand against the table to the beat of a Silversun Pickups song.
“Not to mention the national attention Donn’s Hill is getting,” I added, lifting a hand and squinting at him. I regretted leaving my sunglasses inside, but I was far too comfortable to go get them. Plus, Striker had taken up residence on my lap the instant I’d sat down. Her black fur baked in the sun until it was hot to the touch.
“Oh, Penny’s thrilled about that.”
Graham set a pair of plates onto the table, and I scooted around to face the proper direction, careful not to dislodge Striker. She sat up anyway, her little nose twitching at the scent of freshly grilled fish and veggies. One stealthy paw snuck up onto the tabletop, aiming for an asparagus spear.
I batted her away. “You don’t even like vegetables.”
Graham pulled a sliver of fish off his plate and reached over to the cat, who snapped the morsel from between his fingers. “I saw the inn on the news this morning. The sign was in the background for the entire story. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.”
“They should film in the lobby,” I said. “Where your sculptures are.”
As expected, his face flushed. Despite the positive comments about his work at the cocktail party, he still seemed to suffer from imposter syndrome. But at least doubt hadn’t paralyzed him; through the open doors behind Graham, the evidence of his frenzy to get ready for the Chicago show was everywhere. Finished pieces crowded the shelves and tables, but they were arranged haphazardly instead of in his normally neat rows. Even the band posters on the back wall above the sink—souvenirs from Graham’s younger days, when every weekend meant trips to Moyard to see touring acts—looked askew.
“Are you all ready for your trip?” I asked.
“I think so. I just need to get all my inventory into my new credit card app and pack everything in bubble wrap so it’ll survive the ride in Dad’s trailer.”
“Need any help?”
He looked startled then pursed his lips. “Uh… well… I kind of want to do it all myself. Make sure I know for sure where every piece is… and everything.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. There was an underlying implication there that if I helped, he wouldn’t be comfortable with the outcome. But his short hair was a mess, his flush had faded into irregular red splotches, and he hunched over his plate like a cat who couldn’t find a comfortable place to sit. He was stressed.
Still, I couldn’t let him off the hook for not trusting me entirely. I teased him a little, hoping to pry a smile out of him. “I’ll cross my fingers that your work ends up on channel five.”
He granted my wish, flashing a weak and nervous smile at me. “Penny keeps saying there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
The words hit me strangely. I’d heard the phrase hundreds of times, and it rang in my head over and over like a catchy song. But something about it made me feel suddenly ill. I rubbed my stomach and frowned.
“Something wrong with the food?” Graham asked.
I shook my head quickly. “No, it’s delicious. I just feel kind of… I don’t know. Anxious, I guess.”
He twisted in his seat to check the old public-school style wall clock that hung over his band posters. “It’ll be dark soon. How about we head inside and watch a movie?”
“Sure.” I smiled, though my belly twisted in knots. “That sounds nice.”
Graham cleared our plates and ushered me upstairs to the couch in his living room. He put on a movie to distract me, but my mind drifted. I finally realized what’d been bothering me about the old adage about publicity; it was a lie, and Raziel’s show proved it. Most people had never heard of the Midnight Lantern before Raziel’s exposé. It’d become famous just in time for Raziel’s legions of fans to rejoice in its demise.
Was that what would happen to us if his team posted the video of me going off on him at the cabin? The Soul Searchers would become a household name then cease to exist entirely? I petted Striker absently, chewing my lip as I tried to imagine life without my team, without new investigations to look forward to. It was a dreary thought.
Not for the first time, I kicked myself for losing control of my emotions at the cabin. I’d just been so raw from my failure to reach Richard Franklin.
No, it wasn’t a failure, I decided.
Sure, I didn’t contact the spirit I’d been hoping to banish, but I had reached out into the space between worlds and something had reached back. By that measure, I’d succeeded.
And I couldn’t ignore what I’d felt at the cabin. Richard Franklin no longer lurked there. I felt the truth of his departure with a certainty that helped mollify my guilt about what’d happened to Connor Miles. Even if it hadn’t been me who banished Richard Franklin’s spirit, he was gone.
The question was: who’d beaten us to it?
Yuri’s theory that a competing team had cleared the cabin didn’t sit right with me. They’d have bragged about it to someone. The paranormal community was a small one, and it was even smaller within Driscoll County.
It also didn’t feel likely that his spirit had left on his own. He seemed gleefully happy with his situation; I didn’t picture him growing bored with hunting, scaring, and ultimately killing thrill-seekers and campers who wandered within his range.
There was only one thing I knew for certain: someone had visited the cabin between Connor Miles’ injury and our attempted séance. The cabin hadn’t stripped itself, and Richard Franklin hadn’t left me any of their bodies to find on my subsequent visit. The dots connected in my head, and I felt like an idiot for not putting things together back at the cabin.
Whoever had stripped the cabin had also banished Richard Franklin.
But who on earth would do both things? And where did the spirit who had appeared fit into all of this?
“What was that?” Graham asked.
“What?”
“You just muttered something about fitting in.”
“Oh, sorry.”
I didn’t elaborate. He looked at me askance but didn’t press me. I squeezed his hand and snuggled into his shoulder, looking at the TV, but my eyes unfocused and I was soon back in the maze of my thoughts.
I’d reached out to one ghost and another answered. The spirit in the hat had known me. He’d said my name. Had he been at the cabin all along, watching us on our prior visits? Did ghosts talk to each other? Maybe he’d learned my name from Richard Franklin, who’d learned it from our past attempts to contact him.
On top of that, something about him had been so familiar. I’d seen him before. I knew it. But where?
Unable to wrap my head around that mystery, I bounced back to the other question that hovered in my mind. Raziel’s death happening so soon after the séance couldn’t be a coincidence. Had the spirit in black been an omen? Was he… responsible?
“Mac, you’re bleeding.” Graham touched my lip with his thumb. A smudge of red shone on his skin when he pulled his hand away.
“Oh.”
He stood up. “I’ll get you a tissue.”
When he returned with a box of Kleenex, he turned off the TV and faced me. His eyes narrowed behind his thickly framed glasses, and his mouth was set in a deep frown. “Do you want to talk about it?”
A smile quirked the edge of my mouth as I realized he hadn’t bothered to ask if I was okay. He wasn’t one to waste words by asking questions to which he already knew the answers.
“I’d rather do something about it,” I admitted.
His frown deepened. “Deputy Wallace told you not to get involved.”
“I’m not going to ‘get involved.’ It’s not like I’m going to run around and start asking people where they were the night of the murder or something. I just…”
I trailed off, not sure what I was even considering doing. A vision of a séance hovered dimly on the edge of my mind, too abstract to come into focus. I didn’t know how large it should be or even who I should try to contact. Raziel? The man in black? My parents?
I blinked, startled by my own thoughts. I had to be pretty tired for an idea like that to bust through the protective wall I’d built around their memory.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Graham’s voice was soft. “I know you, Mac. You’re thinking of summoning somebody. You’re practically lighting the sage in your head right now.”
I didn’t answer.
He leaned forward and stroked the small scar that sat on the side of my neck. “Isn’t that exactly what you were doing when you got this?”
A frustrated groan escaped my throat, and I shoved myself off the couch, dislodging Striker. She hopped into Graham’s lap and the two of them stared at me, their four eyes wide with concern—and a teensy bit of accusation.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “Keep going like nothing’s wrong?”
“No, but—”
“You know what’s crazy?” I interrupted. “The last two days have been so insane that I actually forgot a spirit forced its way into a séance—uninvited—because I found a dead body the next day. I mean, was this town always so dangerous?”
It was his turn to answer with silence. I knew from our conversations that, despite its slogan as “The Most Haunted Town in America,” Donn’s Hill was an uneventful place to live. People worked. They farmed or ranched or made things, and once a year they cut loose at the Afterlife Festival, getting just crazy enough to give themselves something to talk about for the next eleven months.
Wallace’s nickname for me—The Body Magnet—was eerily accurate. I didn’t like it. In the short time I’d lived here, I’d found three bodies. Three. That wasn’t normal.
I balled my hands into fists and struggled to put all these thoughts into words, eventually dropping into a chair and cradling my head in my hands. A moment later, Striker pawed my knee and a large hand squeezed my shoulder.
“Okay,” Graham said. “This will sound like a punishment, but I have an idea that might help.”
“What?” I peeked up at him through my fingers.
“Sometimes, when my head feels like a mess, I’ll organize something. Like clean out my car or inventory my studio.”
“You’re not tricking me into cleaning out that Geo.”
“Oh, I like you way too much to make you do something like that. But I have a project I could use an extra pair of hands for. I was saving it for tomorrow, but we might as well get a jump on it.”
“What is it?”
“Cleaning the butler’s pantry. Phillip left it in good condition when he moved out, but it could use some sprucing up before Amari can move in.”
“Wait—what?” I stared at him, my brain failing to translate my thoughts into something my mouth could work with. I was forced to repeat myself. “What?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed. “Okay, that’s my fault for assuming Kit told you. Amari isn’t comfortable staying at the inn with all the reporters and everything. She’s renting a room here for a while.”
“How long is ‘a while?’” Despite it coming out of my own mouth, the question surprised me. What did I care how long she was here? She was just another tenant.
Except… she was more than that. She’d been here less than a week, and I could already feel a distance growing between Kit and me. The recognition of that distance put a stone in my stomach, though I couldn’t say why. It didn’t feel like jealousy, but whenever I thought about Amari, a clump of worried energy the size of a boulder seemed to balloon to life inside my chest. I rubbed the skin below my collarbone. Maybe it was just indigestion.
Graham reached out a hand and pulled me to my feet. “Come on. I’ll let you pick the music.”
Striker and I followed him down the stairs to the main floor, and I scrolled through his iPod. My mood called for some '90s grunge, and I was pleased that he had plenty of Alice in Chains. I was just debating whether Jar of Flies or Dirt would be a better choice for housework—both titles felt thematically appropriate—when Graham abruptly stopped on the last stair. I bumped into him and tipped backward, but he caught me by the elbows.
“Look,” he started, “I know you’re going to do whatever you’re going to do. But promise me something. If there’s anything I can do to help, tell me.”
“Of course,” I said. “You’re the most helpful guy I know.”
He ignored the flirtatious tone in my compliment. “And promise me you won’t do anything dangerous.”
I frowned, unsure where that was coming from. As far as I knew, I’d never done anything dangerous. Well… apart from hitchhiking. And staying in a seedy motel by myself. And trying to talk to ghosts on a professional level.
As I opened my mouth to answer, a pounding sounded at the front door of Primrose House. Graham stepped off the last stair and opened the door, revealing a pair of Driscoll County Sheriff’s Deputies. I recognized them from the inn’s lobby the day before, but I didn’t know their names.
“Mackenzie Clair?” one of them asked, leaning around Graham to address me.
I swallowed. My heart pounded in my chest, and my hands twitched at my sides. For some reason, my first instinct was to run. I forced my feet to stay where they were and answered. “Yes?”
“We need you to come with us.”
The pair of them stepped forward, intending to push past Graham, but he held his ground, blocking the doorway with his tall frame.
“Is she under arrest?” he demanded.
“Not yet,” one of them said.
“But she can be, if that’s what it takes to get her down to the station.” The second produced a pair of handcuffs and dangled them in front of Graham’s face. “Sir, move aside.”
I have absolutely no idea where I summoned the courage to step around Graham and face the deputies. “Will Deputy Wallace be there?”
The first one nodded. “She’s who asked us to come get you.”
That felt odd. Why hadn’t she just called? I’d have gone to the station right away, no questions asked. Why had she sent these strangers here to collect me?
Instead of voicing these concerns, I simply nodded and followed the deputies outside. Graham hustled along beside me, and Striker ducked back and forth between the deputies’ legs, nearly tripping them several times on the walk to the curb where a black SUV with the seal of the Driscoll County Sheriff’s Department waited.
“I’ll follow you,” Graham said as the deputies helped me into the vehicle.
I swallowed again, trying to clear the lump of anxiety from my throat. All I could do was nod as the heavy door clunked shut, locking me in the backseat.