Carla had just finished taking an order when she glanced across the diner and noticed most of the people at Chris’s table staring up at the ceiling. Wrinkling her nose, she tried to figure out what they were all looking at. Instead of putting her order in, she walked over to their booth, but once she got there, everyone stopped talking and just looked at her.
“Is everything okay?” Carla glanced up at the ceiling but saw nothing unusual. She looked back at Chris and the other members of his party.
“Everything’s great.” Danielle grinned at Carla before picking up a slice of bacon from her plate and taking a bite.
“You guys were all looking up at the ceiling. Was something wrong?”
“It was a spider,” Heather blurted.
“Are you calling Eva and me a spider?” Marie snickered.
Carla glanced back up at the ceiling. “Where?”
“Oh, it crawled in one of the cracks,” Heather explained. “For a minute there, we thought the little bugger was going to drop down and land on one of our plates. It was just hanging there, holding onto its web.”
Evan giggled and quickly took a bite of his toast.
Carla looked back down at the table. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”
“And it was a big one. It’s surprising how those suckers can squeeze in between cracks.”
“I guess I should tell someone. I don’t want a spider falling into someone’s food.”
Chris flashed Heather a frown and then turned to Carla. “She’s exaggerating. Heather insisted she saw a spider, but none of us did. I think it was a knothole in the wood. I’ve been telling her she needs glasses.”
With a look of relief, Carla let out a sigh. “I hope you’re right. The thought of a spider falling in someone’s food or in my hair…” Carla shivered.
“Do you need to put that order in?” the chief pointed to the order pad in Carla’s hand.
“Oh! I was just getting ready to do that.” Carla flashed them an awkward smile, turned, and rushed away.
“How did you know she had an order to put in?” Danielle asked.
“When you were all looking up at what I assume were snowflakes or glitter—”
“Snowflakes,” Evan blurted.
The chief gave his son a wink and said, “When the rest of you, except Brian, were distracted by snowflakes, I noticed Carla standing across the room, taking an order. She suddenly looked this way and started staring, and then she headed over here. When I glanced back at that table a few seconds ago, I noticed the people at the table glaring at us. They didn’t look happy. I assume they wondered why their server hadn’t put their order in yet.”
“Poor Carla,” Danielle said with a chuckle.
Chris looked at Heather. “That was kind of mean.”
Heather shrugged. “I had to tell her something. I couldn’t tell her we were looking at snowflakes and ghosts.”
“You didn’t need to be so specific,” Chris said.
Heather shrugged. “People say lying is a sin. I figure if I’m going to sin, I should go all out.”
Brian and Walt chuckled while Chris muttered something like, “See, this is what I have to put up with at work.”
“Enough of all this talking about spiders! I was asking about Lily,” Marie said.
“Yes, Marie, Lily went into labor Friday night. She had the baby early Saturday morning. Baby and mom are doing well, and according to a text I got from her, it looks like they’ll both be coming home on Tuesday. Or more accurately, coming back to Marlow House,” Danielle explained.
“How did you find out about the baby coming early?” Heather asked.
“I’m curious about that too,” Chris said.
“I felt a shift in the universe at the same time Marie had this sudden urge to return to Frederickport,” Eva explained. “We discussed it before we left, and we both wondered if it had anything to do with Lily and the baby. But now, now I’m not so sure.” Eva, the onetime silent screen star and childhood friend of Walt during his first life, bore an uncanny resemblance to Charles Dana Gibson’s drawing, the Gibson Girl. She stood next to Marie by the booth, her expression pensive as she absently tapped the side of her chin with her right index finger.
Marie turned to her fellow ghost. “What is it, dear?”
“There is something else. Something else going on.” Eva looked at her friends gathered at the table. “Has something else happened since we’ve been gone that we need to know?”
“Now that you mention it,” Walt began. Brian and the chief, the only ones at the table who could not see or hear the spirits, sat quietly and listened to one side of the conversation.
After they filled the ghosts in on what had been going on the past few days, Eva said, “I’ve met Wesley.” No longer standing, Eva and Marie sat in imaginary chairs and floated gently next to the booth.
“I’m not exactly sure why, but he can’t move on. Something between him and the Universe, I suspect. Something he’s been asked to correct,” Eva explained.
Danielle arched her brows at Eva. “I don’t ever remember it working quite like that.”
Eva laughed, the sound light and airy. “You should know by now the rules of the universe adapt to the situation. We’re all different; we have different goals.”
“He claims this has nothing to do with something he’s done in his lifetime. Yet from how you say it, then it sounds like it does, which makes me think I’m right, and there is something he’s not telling us,” Chris said.
Eva smiled at Chris and gave him a nod.
“How do you know all this?” Danielle asked. “This something he has with the Universe, is this your hunch, something he told you, or maybe something conveyed to you by the Universe?”
“Aw, Danielle, always seeking the answers—questioning the secrets of the Universe. I suspect what you need to do is ask yourself if it’s your responsibility to help him, and if so, how can you find some way to prevent his brother from killing his widow, if what he is telling you is true?” Eva said.
“Eva, dear, why must you always be so cryptic? Just admit you don’t know why Wesley hasn’t moved on.”
Eva shrugged. “I said it was a hunch.”
Marie rolled her eyes. “Indirectly.”
“I suppose we don’t really have to help him. But we don’t need him sticking around,” Danielle said. “Connor seems to think the guy is hilarious and calls him clown. With Connor picking up more and more words these days, I don’t think we need him chattering on about clowns with his grandmother. She might accept one imaginary friend, but two?”
“I didn’t quite understand why Wesley believes his brother intends to murder his wife. While I agree, she’s not really Adrian’s type,” Marie said.
“Did you know them when you were alive?” Heather asked. “Or are you just speaking from what you’ve learned since he’s passed over and has been hanging around at the cemetery?”
Marie shrugged. “I don’t really hang around at the cemetery much myself. I will stop by from time to time.” Marie glanced at Eva and back to Heather while saying, “And it wasn’t until Angela moved on did Eva start visiting the cemetery. Like me, she doesn’t spend a great deal of time there.”
“I don’t think either of us has interacted much with Wesley since he arrived,” Eva said. “He seems a little intimidated by our presence.”
“Since Pamela arrived, I’ve heard he tends to stick around her,” Marie said.
“Pamela Beckett, she hasn’t moved on yet? I thought she had,” Danielle asked.
“No. She’s still there. At least she was before we left last week,” Marie said. “As for Wesley, he was my insurance man. Well, he was until he gave me some ridiculous advice that could have cost me had one of my properties burned down. I told him what I thought of his incompetence before I changed insurance companies. Which could be a reason he seems to avoid me when I’m at the cemetery.”
“Did you ever meet his brother or wife?” Danielle asked.
“Both of them. His brother works at the auto part store. I find it hard to believe he’s plotting to marry and then murder his sister-in-law. It’s not like Wesley and his wife were rich. Like I said, he wasn’t that good of an insurance man. I imagine he had a life insurance policy that Bonnie got after he died, but is that worth risking going to prison for?”
Police Chief MacDonald had quietly finished his breakfast while listening to one side of the conversation. He glanced over at his son, wondering if he was getting bored. But then he saw his son attentively hanging on to every word, making him a little jealous for not being able to hear the entire conversation.
“It’s not just the insurance money,” Danielle said. “Bonnie got an inheritance from her aunt. Which apparently was substantial.”
Marie frowned at Danielle. “What aunt? She’s Cordelia Westbrook’s niece, but Cordelia is still alive.”
“Actually, she passed away last year,” Danielle said.
“Really?” Marie frowned.
“You didn’t know?” Heather asked.
“It’s not like we were friends. And considering her age, I imagine there wasn’t a funeral. Most of her family was gone, and I suspect all of her friends,” Marie said. “Cordelia was probably cremated. I imagine Rylee and Bonnie are sitting pretty right now. Rylee is her other niece.”
“Wesley claims she left her entire estate to Bonnie. Apparently, there was some sort of lawsuit with Rylee contesting the will.”
“I can imagine,” Marie muttered. “If Cordelia left her estate to Bonnie, I would be surprised if Rylee didn’t contest the will.”
“And Bonnie won. She got everything,” Danielle said.
“Now that, I can’t imagine,” Marie muttered.
“Interesting,” Eva said. “So Wesley has told you what he wants, yet you aren’t sure he’s being transparent about everything. Now what about Clay? You say he wants to set his sons on the right path before he moves on. Does his desire come from sincere fatherly concern and love, or does he see it as a bargaining chip, paying down his penance?”
Heather shrugged. “He keeps saying he doesn’t care about himself; he only cares about his sons.”
Eva smiled. “Well, it really doesn’t matter. The Universe sees what’s in his heart, and if there is a way to nudge his sons down the right road, their souls will be the better for it regardless of how it may or may not benefit their father’s soul.”
“I would like to go see Lily and the new baby,” Marie said. “Then afterwards, perhaps we can meet back at Marlow House and see how best to handle the requests of these new ghosts.”
“There is something else we need to discuss.” Walt spoke up. He looked at Evan. “Edward and Evan think it’s time to tell Eddy about Evan’s gift.”
“It’s just getting more and more difficult keeping something like this hidden from Eddy. And frankly, I no longer feel right about it. If something happened in the future, when both Eddy and Evan are adults, and Eddy learned about all this, I don’t want him to look back on his childhood and think it was all a lie. That Evan and I had kept this monumental secret from him.”