I grabbed my keys. “No clue. But his computer has something on it that I need. You know where he lived?”
She winked at me. “Nope. But where I’m taking you, there’s someone sure to know.”
“Great. Let’s roll.” I cracked the door open.
“Your boyfriend’s not asleep. Try to be quiet.” She shrugged. “Or not. I like to watch.”
I rolled my eyes and tiptoed downstairs.
We made it outside easily enough and hopped in my Land Cruiser. It started right up.
“Turn left up here,” Susan said.
I took the left. The shops of Haunted Hollow disappeared in my rearview mirror.
“Turn right.”
“At the gate?” I said.
“Yep.”
We passed an iron gate. The road curved up and around to a tall hill.
“We’re visiting a graveyard?” I said.
“You’ll see.”
I’d been to lots of graveyards in my life. Most of them were nothing more than places where teenagers liked to go to get spooked and where the occasional bad spirit hung out, waiting for unsuspecting visitors in order to attach themselves to the living.
Not really the sort of place I liked to visit on the weekends.
But this being Haunted Hollow and the fact that this town was just a teensy bit different from most other towns, I let Susan lead me to a spot on the hill. I parked and pulled the emergency brake.
“Give me just a second,” she said, disappearing through the door.
I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel and waited. Finally, she popped through the door. “Follow me.” She disappeared again.
“Easier said than done.”
I climbed out and tailed Susan until we reached a copse of gravestones. These were crumbling and leaning, probably the first stones laid in the soft dirt.
I drank in the scent of the place. The smell of fresh earth was strong, filling the air. Something sweet tinged it—honeysuckles maybe. Hard to tell. The atmosphere was thick with humidity even though the night was cooler than the day had been.
My gaze flickered to Susan. “So why’d you bring me here?”
“All right, y’all, time to show the lady that we’re nice in this town.”
I frowned. I didn’t know what Susan had up her sleeve, but this better not be some sort of trap. Of course, we were talking about a Teenybopper with red heels and a jacked-up shirt collar. It’s not like she was some sort of criminal mastermind.
The headstones shimmered. I blinked to make sure I was seeing correctly. A moment later apparitions glowed to life. There were maybe a dozen or so of them, and each one sat on his or her grave marker.
“Who’s this?” an older woman in period dress said. “She looks like a Yankee.”
“She’s not a Yankee,” Susan said. She rolled her eyes and whispered to me. “Some folks think everybody’s a Yankee.”
“I’m Captain William Fitzpatrick Blount,” said a man. “Officer in the Confederacy.”
He wore a Confederate uniform with bars on the sleeves. He had a long curling mustache and a twinkle in his eyes.
