“Yes.” Tiny broke into tears. “Yes, we’ll leave her alone, and we’ll tell you anything you want to know.” He extended his clasped hands in prayer. “Anything.”
A slow smile curled my lips. “Great. The first thing I want to know is, who was the man Jeffrey was handing a document to?”
FOURTEEN
Turned out, Tiny ended up being a huge pile of worthless. He didn’t know who Jeffrey was, nor did he know about the other spirit.
I could only hope Francine had more luck.
Roan let Tiny and the other ghost go on the promise that if they ever saw me hanging out at the ghost bar again, they were instructed to allow me in and offer me a drink.
Not sure I was into ghost beer, but whatever.
“How’d you know I was here?”
Roan took my hand. “Oh, I don’t know. Down the street I saw an old Land Cruiser that looked exactly like yours, and I jumped out on a limb and figured you were out here. Once I saw the purple hair, I was convinced.”
“What if someone else had a vehicle just like mine?” I teased.
“Then I would’ve saved that person from a gang of angry spirits and called you to make sure you were okay.” He tweaked my nose. “What are you doing out here?”
I hooked my other arm through his. “I’ll explain back at the inn.”
Roan nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
Roan drove me to my Cruiser, and I followed him back to the inn. A few minutes later we were settled on his front porch. Roan’s guitar lay strapped over his knees. He stopped strumming to take a pull from his beer.
“We found some things in Cora’s house.”
Beer spewed from Roan’s mouth. “What,” he shouted, “are you talking about?”
I winced. “Okay. Sorry. Yeah. We found”—I dropped my voice to a whisper—“pictures that suggested Birda had doctored photos in her big best seller. Birda wanted it to appear that she was standing beside spirits, but they were really only people.”
He whistled. “Pretty heavy stuff.”
“No doubt. Plus, Cora had told the state police about Tallulah’s in-house gambling ring.”
“Old ladies should not do nefarious things.”
I took a pull of my beer. “I couldn’t agree with you more. They definitely shouldn’t. But they do.”
He raked his fingers down his face and sighed. “So why were you at the gas station?”
“Because I was on stakeout at Tallulah’s and saw Jeffery leave with what looked like the photos.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course you were. Never mind that this stuff is dangerous; you just go ahead and butt your nose into business where it shouldn’t be.”
I scoffed. “Somebody has to do it. I didn’t see Kency Blount parked out there.”
“Probably because she has an actual lead on a murderer and it wasn’t an old lady.”
“You’re way too optimistic.”
He chuckled. “And you’re way too impetuous.”
“That’s why you love me.”
The words hung in the air. Roan’s gaze snapped to mine. He held his beer to his mouth in mid-drink, but the intensity burning between us was enough to make me forget to breathe.
