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"He WHAT?" Nate exclaimed.
We were walking down the Main Street, hand-in-hand, stealing a moment to enjoy the fall. The leaves on the trees had all turned bright red and orange and the rolling hills of the island had changed from green to gold. The storefronts were now completely transformed for Halloween with plenty of spiderwebs and jack-o'-lanterns. Someone had even tied a scarecrow to a signpost with one arm pointing to the ferry and the other toward the fairgrounds.
Other than some texts, Nate and I hadn't had a chance to connect in a couple days. Nate was running around, helping all he could with the island Halloween party, and I had been so busy with Bitter Beans. Granny was so preoccupied with mortgages and wedding plans, I had been trying to help her by picking up longer shifts. Not that I minded. I mean, when she and Richard finally opened their museum, Bitter Beans was pretty much just going to be me. This was a harbinger of things to come, but I was glad to report I still enjoyed it.
However, it meant that Nate and I had a lot to catch up on, which meant I just now was updating him on all that was going down with Madison and Johnny.
"So, yeah, Johnny is now offering competitive ghost tours," I concluded.
"Johnny?" Nate groaned, shaking his head with bemusement. "My own cousin..."
"It's kind of in his wheelhouse," I reminded him. "He did all those treasure hunt tours dressed as a pirate."
"Tell me he's not dressing up as a ghost..." Nate said.
"Don't mention it, because he just might do it."
"My lips are sealed." Nate became reflective. "With all the holes in his ratty old sheets, he wouldn't even have to cut new ones for the costume, though."
The image of Johnny standing in front of his surf shack wearing the dinosaur bedding he still had from when he was a kid made me laugh. "Okay, so that might actually be genius."
But this is when we passed by Trevor's saloon, just in time to see a guy coming out with a bag and tight black t-shirt emblazoned with a logo that read "Terror of Tango." His blonde hair was done in a buzz cut and he was built like a warrior wannabe who pumps iron at the gym to shoot paintballs in the woods on weekends.
"Tell me they are not starting up haunted Latin ballroom dancing ..." Nate murmured.
And probably the scariest part of it all is that I couldn't immediately negate the notion.
Madison shook hands with the guy as we came into hearing range. She said, "So, I'll see you Thursday. I'll send you a one-sheet with the ghosts to mention."
The ghost hunter folded his arms, patronizingly. "Sorry. I have my routine. I don't need some hack writer telling me what to say."
Madison was taken aback. "Excuse me. But I am not a hack. I based the outline for the tour on actual history and happenings on this island."
"Sure."
"Wait." She squinted at him. "You're telling me that unless I stand here telling you that ghosts are real and you need to cover them, you're going to ignore my direction?" I could see blotches of red flare up on her neck. Her thick foundation only covered her skin above the jaw line.
He shrugged. "I've got a working business and don't need your input on this."
Madison suddenly spotted us. She pointed at me. "Ask her! She saw one of the ghosts on my list!"
The ghost hunter stepped forward and I could see he was skeptical. "Wait. You saw a ghost? A real one."
I cleared my throat. "Um... no. It was nothing..."
But instead of discouraging him, it seemed to get him more excited. "No. This is good. A skeptic. Listen, anyone can believe in ghosts and rearrange the facts to convince themselves they've seen one. It's the ones who don't believe and who have had an encounter that I want to talk to."
"It really wasn't a ghost," I repeated again.
He held up his hands to assure me. "Listen, why don't you just tell me what happened and then we can figure out what exactly it was that you saw or think you didn't see."
Madison was shooting arrows at me with her eyes, as if telling me if I didn't say something that backed her up, she was going to take me down.
"No. It's just... my grandmother is buying the old hardware store and when we went upstairs, a bunch of paint trays fell over. There was no one there. It was probably the wind because a window was open."
I noted that Nate, the coward, didn't pipe up to say he had been there, too. He just folded his arms and listened, as if he was amused by the whole conversation.
"The wind? Knocking over a stack of metal objects. When did the window open?"
"I didn't notice," I said. "It was across the room."
"So, a wind that was from across the room that you all 'didn't notice' was powerful enough to knock over a pile of paint trays..." The guy nodded, getting more and more interested. He had made the accusation that others convinced themselves of squeezing facts into the narrative they wanted to believe, but I think we had a case of physician-heal-thyself. "Were they precariously stacked? Was gravity at play? Did you feel a little earthquake?"
"Um... not that I noticed..."
"Were there any witnesses?"
Nate, sheepishly, raised his hand.
"Why didn't you say you were there before?" Madison snapped, accusingly.
"Because this whole thing is ridiculous," he stated for the record.
However, the ghost hunter was getting excited. "Okay. So let's go check out this hardware store for psychic activity!"
"I can take you there!" Madison piped up, trying to make herself seem relevant.
"Okay," he said, but then slowed her roll. "However, then I need you to back off because you're creating disruptions that frighten ghosts away."
"That's not the only thing she frightens away," Nate muttered under his breath.
The leader held out his hand to me. "Thanks for the scoop. I'm Tango."
"Like the dance," Madison informed us, like Nate and I were too dense to put those pieces together.
The leader rolled his eyes. "Like the call sign."
"Oh! Like that guy Echo!" I exclaimed.
"Echo? Why would you..." Tango's face darkened and he stepped forward. He lowered his voice like he was scared of eavesdroppers. "Has Echo been here?"
"Yeah," I said, pointing toward the waterfront. "He's going to be leading tours from the surf shack."
Tango turned back to Madison. "Why didn't you tell me Echo was here?"
"Um... is that a problem?" asked Madison, nervous that her cash cow was about to bail on her.
The ghost hunter's face darkened. "No. It just means that I will absolutely be taking this job," he glowered.