“Hmm?” She looked up from sipping her coffee.
“The evil spirit that was here wasn’t the woman. It was something much, much darker.”
“Oh?” Her eyes flared. “How so?”
“The thing attacked me. Said it wanted me dead. It’s still not completely dealt with. Here’s the deal—it threatened your family. The spirit promised to bring death and destruction to all of you.”
Brownie clutched her pearls. Literally. A rope of them twisted around her collar.
“But why? Why would the…spirit do that?”
I licked my lips. “Because it’s evil. Whoever it is, they’re evil. We need to stop it. That’s what we ladies are going to do. But in order for that to happen, I need to know who it was.”
I squeezed her hand. “Can you tell me? Do you know who haunted this house?”
Brownie stared at the floor for a long time. Pepper shot me a sympathetic smile. She reached over and squeezed Brownie’s shoulder.
“I know this can be hard. Sometimes facing stuff that we thought was one way but turns out to be another can hurt.”
“You have to protect your family.” Ruth pointed to Maisie. “You’ve got to protect that little girl.”
“She deserves it.” Alice nudged the tin of shortbread to Brownie. “That little girl is yours to keep safe. If my little girl were still here, I would be doing what I could to keep her secure.”
Alice’s daughter had passed away years ago. She’d been almost grown when she died. I knew it pained Alice not to still have her to hold, even if she would’ve been middle-aged by now.
Brownie scratched her nails over her forehead. “I don’t understand that. I don’t understand at all. We shouldn’t be hurt.”
I slid closer to her. “What do you mean,shouldn’t be?”
Brownie shook her head. “I knew the home was haunted, but I don’t understand this.”
I hesitated but had to ask the next question. “Brownie, we think the spirit might be Jinkins Hudson.”
She worried her hands red. “Jinkins?”
“Do you know anything about him? What he was like? That sort of thing.”
Brownie rose with a flourish of her skirt and paced the room. “He was mean. Cruel. The worst—if you believed my mother. Jinkins Hudson put on a nice face for the guests of the bed-and-breakfast, but underneath it all he was evil.” Her gaze met mine. “Like you say about this spirit.”
“How was he evil?” I had to know, make sure it was really Jinkins in theSpiritusand not some other spirit.
“He would torture his wife. That’s what I heard Deborah would say. He’d lock her in a closet all day if no guests were in the house, and he’d make her wait until he got home before he unlocked the door.”
Ruth shuddered. “That is cruel.”
“That’s why I’m afraid to get on one of those online dating sites,” Alice chirped. “What if I met someone who locked me in a closet?”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “Great excuse.”
“What happened to him?” I pressed Brownie. “When and where did he die?”
She shook her head in frustration. “I don’t know. They simply disappeared, leaving this place. No one could track them down. From what I understand the home went into foreclosure, and now”—she raised her hands as if showing off its splendor—“it’s mine and Wallace’s.”
She sank back onto the couch. “That’s as much as I can tell you. I don’t have any more answers about Jinkins.”
“But he was evil?” Pepper said.
Brownie pinched the bridge of her nose. “To the core, from what I understand.”
