As they left the cottage, April was grateful that she’d worn a sweater. She always thought of Louisiana as being hot and humid but tonight was definitely chilly.
Turning on the long path toward the group of buildings ahead, Quinn spotted the ghostly welcome wagon and rolled his eyes. This woman was going to run for sure now.
“Uh, April, I have something I need to tell you.”
“Okay,” she said calmly. “Is it about the ghosts walking toward us?”
“You can see them?” he asked with a surprised expression.
“Either that or I’m having a stroke,” she grinned. “I’ve always believed in spirits and ghosts. I’d hoped that my grandfather would visit me but I suppose he was too stubborn for that.”
“He wasn’t too stubborn child,” said Martha, “he was just where he needed to be. Welcome to Belle Fleur.”
“Thank you,” she smiled.
“My name is Martha and this is Nathan, Franklin, Yori, and Charity. There are more of us that you’ll meet but we wanted to welcome you and let you know that we won’t harm you.”
“Thank you, Martha. It’s nice to meet you all. I guess you already know that I’m April.”
“Indeed, child,” smiled Franklin. “I like her Quinn. Treat her right or I’ll haunt you.”
Quinn just shook his head, continuing toward the cafeteria.
“You surprised me,” he said smiling. “Not a lot of people act so casually at meeting ghosts.”
“I can tell that this property is very old just by seeing that antebellum home,” she said smiling at him. “It would be shocking if there weren’t ghosts here. Besides, most spirits don’t mean to harm you and they seem very nice.”
“They are,” he laughed, nodding at her. “You really are a little bundle of surprises.”
“Right now, I’m a bundle of hungry. Take me to food, please.”
“Honey, that I can do,” he laughed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“April, forgive us but we tend to eat and talk business. Not good for digestion but great for solving problems quickly,” smirked Ham. “We met earlier. I’m Ham, that’s Jak, Gator, Matt, and Rush. There are dozens more here but we’ll be working with you to figure out what happened.”
“Well, I appreciate anything you can do,” she said taking a bite of the food and moaning aloud. “Oh, my God! That’s amazing.”
“We’re known for our food,” smiled Quinn.
“We have the bag with the broken wheel,” said Gator. “Our team is inspecting it now.”
“Inspecting it? It’s just a regulation rolling bag from the airlines,” said April.
“I don’t think it is,” said Jak. “We think the bag was tampered with or treated with something, we just don’t know what yet. When we finally got into the employee lounge, which is another story altogether, the minute we picked up the bag we knew that the texture of the material was off.”
“Maybe it got wet,” she frowned. “I’ve had that bag forever. I don’t remember it having a strange feel to it.”
“We’ll figure out what it is,” said Gator. “I believe that Quinn mentioned to you in Coronado that we can hear one another through our comms devices. We also want to ensure that if anything happens to one of us, we can easily find them. That includes you.”
“I don’t understand,” she frowned taking another bite and moaning again. Quinn leaned over, whispering in her ear.
“If you keep moaning like that I’m going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you back to the cottage.” She immediately blushed, staring down at the plate of food. Rush pushed a box toward her and she opened it, frowning at the man across from her.
“It’s not what you think,” he smiled. “There’s a bracelet and necklace in there. All made by our teams here. Never take it off. There is a tracker on it that will allow us to find you no matter where you are. If you’re in danger, we can hear it but you can also immediately depress the small disc on the back of the bracelet or necklace and we’ll be alerted.”
“This is like crazy secret-spy stuff,” she said staring at it. Quinn lifted the bracelet from the box and gently took her hand.
