Page 36 of Ghost Town Boogie

“I don’t know. Get in the house.”

She did, without question.

Colt shifted his focus to the ghost. “Jack, why did you have those pictures? Why did you hide them?”

Jack was no longer solid. He shimmered. He shook. For a moment the ghost in nothing but running shorts and tennis shoes was as grainy and unclear as the pictures Colt had locked in the depot safe.

“I did a bad thing,” the spirit whispered. “I’d forgotten. How could I forget? What else did I forget? Why did I…”

Jack shuddered one more time, and then he was gone.

Anna couldn’t concentrate on the pretty things that surrounded her, but her mom surely did. Dawn’s Radiance was one of several shops in downtown Seawolf Beach that catered to both locals and tourists. The shop was located in one of the small strip centers rather than in an old house, as many were. Anna preferred it this way. No separate rooms, no creaking floors. Just a square space filled with shelves of knick-knacks, hanging racks of clothes, and jewelry displays. Candles, scented creams and soaps, and a few locally made ceramic pieces were displayed on a shelf near the front counter.

The entire store smelled like lavender. A couple of times Anna held her hand over her nose to stifle the odor, but the strong scent didn’t appear to bother anyone else.

Dawn herself was bubbly, helpful, and very pregnant. She had a couple months to go, Anna guessed, not that she was an expert.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to do some shopping for herself while she was here, but instead she stood back, watched her mother, and pondered the ridiculousness of her current situation.

Colt couldn’t see… It was impossible… And yet…

Impossibility aside, she couldn’t deny what she’d seen and felt in the past few days. That last conversation hadn’t helped. Just when she’d thought things couldn’t get any weirder, the porch had shimmied. Colt jumped to his feet and called Jack’s name, and then he’d told her to get inside and stay there.

As if. She and her mom had planned to shop and come hell or high water they would shop. Well, Nina Miller would shop. Anna couldn’t concentrate enough to even browse properly.

Something was up in Colt’s ghostly world. In her dead brother’s world.

Jack. She hadn’t even properly mourned her brother. It was hard to believe what she’d been told, hard to accept that Jack had been dead five years, that his ghost had been haunting their parents all that time. Colt said Jack was attached to their mother. What about Dad? Had he tried to get his father’s attention before his death? Where was Donnie Miller? Had he known his son was dead, that his ghost…

No. He wouldn’t have let his wife and daughter wait and wonder if he knew. But she had to admit, her father hadn’t waited for, looked for, Jack the way Nina had. He hadn’t talked about him much, not the way his wife did. What had he ever said about his missing son? Good riddance. If he’s smart he’ll stay away. He’s no son of mine, not anymore. Were those memories clear, or was she embellishing? Memory was funny.

It was true Jack and his father, their father, had never gotten along well. The last straw had been some kind of investment that hadn’t panned out. Money. Why would a man turn his back on his own child over money?

Had Donnie Miller known all along that Jack was dead? The question gave Anna chills. If he’d known, why didn’t he tell?

Anna almost jumped when her mother plopped her treasures on the counter and asked, in a too loud voice, “When are you due?”

Dawn smiled. “This little boy might be a Christmas baby.” She rested a hand over her stomach. Closer to three months than the two Anna had guessed, but then what did she know about being pregnant? Nothing. “Mike is over the moon. After two little girls, he’s thrilled to have a son coming along. I wouldn’t be surprised if he brought a baseball glove to the hospital.”

Nina jumped into a spiel about how boys and girls were different, how Jack had been constantly on the move, how he’d been a trial at times, but she’d adored him… and then she stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. Her little boy was gone, and she didn’t know how or why.

One day, somehow, Anna was going to have to tell her mother that Jack was dead. Since she hadn’t entirely accepted it herself, she couldn’t imagine how she’d share the news with a heartbroken mother.

They said goodbye to Dawn, and Anna helped her mom carry the purchases to the car. It was a good thing they hadn’t walked! Even a few blocks with this load would’ve been a challenge. Nina was quiet in the car, she stared out the window and sighed, on occasion. The conversation about baby boys had her thinking about Jack, Anna imagined.

There was nothing she could say to make things better. No, anything she said now would only make matters worse.

After helping her mother inside, into Colt’s house, Anna put the bags in the main bedroom, left them for her mom to organize, decided they also needed to buy a couple of suitcases, and said, “Lock the door behind me. I’m going to see Colt.” Might as well be honest. She looked her mother in the eye. “I might not be back until late. I might not be back until tomorrow, so don’t wait up. There are leftovers in the fridge.”

CHAPTER 14

Colt had been studying the photos, trying to find a clue. A hint. Something, anything, that spoke to him. So far he’d had no luck. There just wasn’t much to work with. While he did see ghosts, he was no psychic.

The man in the photos was Walter Wakefield, of that he was certain. Did that mean anything at all? He didn’t want to believe someone he knew could be involved in Jack’s murder. Crystal’s too, perhaps. If what he’d seen in movies and on television, if what he read in mystery and true-crime books was true, most murder victims knew their killers. Not that a movie or book could be seen as proof.

The longer he studied the photos, the more horrified Crystal looked. Might be nothing more than his imagination working overtime. Knowing Jack was dead colored everything he saw. Was there anything going on in the grainy background? Who was she looking at in that last photo? Maybe if he had the originals, which seemed to have been taken with a cell phone and printed with a less-than-stellar printer, he’d catch more details. He was so firmly in his detective mindset, so intent on finding something, anything, the text notification startled him so much he jumped a little.

Home? I’m at your door.