Cass’s smile grew.
Margot picked up the binder. “The map?”
“Right.” Cass came in. “The south gate is fine. Harker thinks every shadow is a criminal opportunity.”
“He’s a detective,” Evan said.
“He can detect somewhere else.”
Margot opened the binder to the lantern route. “What exactly did he say?”
“That the tour pauses too long near the old bait house, the lighting is bad, and guests in costume are harder to identify.” Cass made a face. “Which is annoying, because he’s right.”
Margot looked at the map. “We can shift the pause to the chapel steps.”
“That changes the ghost story.”
“Can the ghost walk?”
Cass rubbed the screen on her phone. “The ghost can be flexible.”
Evan looked at the route. “Put a volunteer at the south gate anyway. Somebody local. Ray would do it if you give him a chair and tell him he’s in charge of that stop.”
“Ray loves being in charge of things,” Cass said.
“That, he does.” Margot chuckled.
Cass laughed.
For ten minutes, they worked the route. Lantern placement. Gate coverage. Masquerade dinner flow. Lacey’s smaller vendor pop-up on Front Street feeding guests toward the resort lawn before the first ghost tour.
It clicked together. Not perfectly. Nothing did. But well enough.
Cass closed her note app and pocketed her phone. “I’ll tell Harker we made his requested adjustment.”
“Say it exactly like that,” Margot said. “It will bother him more.”
Cass’s grin was quick. “You’re learning the town.”
“I have excellent teachers.”
Cass left with the revised map.
The shed went quiet again.
Margot looked at the mug.
Evan followed her gaze. “Still too much?”
“No.” She set the binder down and reached for his hand. “It’s exactly enough.”
His fingers closed around hers.
She stepped closer and kissed him once, soft and brief.
When she drew back, he was smiling. The real one.
“You know,” she said, “I still have three boxes upstairs.”
