All that whirled through my head as I watched the group of older ladies stomp out of their ATVs and approach Ruth and Alice.
The ladies said their hellos, and then suddenly voices rose.
“You know you stole that from me, Ruth Biggs.” Birda, with her hair teased into a foot-tall beehive, jutted her hips forward. “You know you stole the whole idea for Southern Ghost Wranglers from me. You did, Ruth. You know it. I know it.” She pointed at her group of women. “And they all know it, too. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make sure you regret ever stealing from me. I will go to my grave before I let you make money on my business, Ruth Biggs.” She poked the air. “You can count on that!”
I grimaced. Roan’s grip on my shoulder tightened. “It looks like it isn’t just the banshee screaming tonight.”
I gulped. “It looks like you’re right.”
TWO
“Now come on, Birda,” Ruth said. “You know as well as I do that Southern Ghost Wranglers didn’t come from me. We borrowed the name from Xavier Bibb and his group of television cronies. You could’ve opened up your own store years before we did.”
Xavier Bibb had been a cable television ghost hunter. The name of his show wasGhost Wranglers, and since Xavier had unfortunately been murdered, we had “borrowed” most of the name for our company.
“That’s not what I mean.” Birda’s finger shot up into Ruth’s face. “I’m talking about a ghost hunting company. You stole that from me.” Birda thumbed her arthritic digit onto her own chest. I noticed that Birda wore a gaudy watch on her wrist. Like, seriously, it was big and gold. It looked like something a much younger woman would wear. Not that I was judging.
Okay, I was judging.
Birda glared at Ruth. “I always wanted to open a ghost hunting business.”
Ruth swatted the air. “We beat you to it. What’s the big deal? You can still open your own.”
A tall woman wearing what looked like swimming goggles waddled up. “Ruth, you know as well as we do that now you have the corner on the market. How will we compete?”
“Cora, why are you wearing your goggles?” Alice asked. “Are you going for a swim after?”
“Please tell me the answer is yes,” Roan whispered.
“I lost my regular glasses, and these are prescription,” Cora answered. “Now stop trying to distract us. You know that business should’ve been ours to open.”
“You snooze, you lose,” Ruth said.
Alice replied by sticking her tongue out at the women. I rolled my eyes.
“We’ll just see about that,” Birda said. “The first group to spot the banshee this year gets to publicly declare themselves superior to the other.”
Oh no. This had taken a real turn for the worst. What would happen next? Would they fight for pink slips of ownership to one another’s ATVs?
Ruth spat in her hand and extended it. “Deal. If we spot the banshee first, which we will, you and your hooligans have to stop bad-mouthing us in church.”
Birda’s eyes narrowed to slits. “I’ve never said one bad word about y’all.”
“Baloney,” Alice chimed. “We heard you’re calling our business a hoax. That all we do is steal people’s money.” Her head bobbed back and forth in frustration. “For your information we don’t even charge to help folks. We do it out of the kindness of our hearts.”
Cora laughed. “That’s because you’re too old to know any better.”
Alice gasped. “Why, Cora, if I wasn’t a Christian woman, I’d tell everyone in church about your goggles.”
Cora took a threatening step forward. “Go ahead. Make my day.”
I’d heard just about enough. I pulled away from Roan and walked over. “Okay, ladies. That’s enough mudslinging. We’re all here to see the banshee, right?”
Birda glared at me. “I suppose this is that woman who claims to be clairvoyant.” She glanced back at her cronies. “She looks about as clairvoyant as a pig in heat. Has she even seen a real ghost? In the book I published, I even had pictures of real spirits.”
My eyes bulged. This old woman had a death wish.
“Oh, you don’t want to mess with Blissful,” Alice said. “She’ll get a spirit to attack you.”
