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Mack drifted over to me. “Well, doll,” he said, “that’s how it’s done.”

I looked at Father Frank’s empty barstool. “I suppose it is.”

“Going to miss the man.”

“Me, too.”

And I would. I was glad he’d been able to move on, but I’d gotten used to him being there.

“But we’ve still got each other,” I added, blinking back tears once again. Really, this was getting ridiculous.

“You and me, doll,” Mack agreed, and then disappeared.

And I smiled.

The following Sunday, Roz hosted a small, private gathering at the bar. Normally, she didn’t work weekends, but she wanted to make an exception, timing the get-together so it would fall an hour after Mass at Sacred Heart, allowing everyone who wanted to do both to attend.

It wasn’t a memorial or anything; she’d been quick to point out that they’d already had one at the church. But this was something less formal, where anyone who wanted to could come by and pay their respects.

The place was comfortably full, though, filled with faces I’d come to know over the near-month I’d been living in Prescott. Father Esteban, of course, as well as Nell Whitaker, who’d made things right with the diocese and had been forgiven her transgressions…as long as she promised not to repeat the behavior.

I also saw Hal Pruitt, who made a point of coming up to me and letting me know he’d taken communion that afternoon, as well as Bob and Joanne Anselmo, who still seemed to be together. That surprised me somewhat, but maybe Joanne was a more forgiving person than I was.

Doreen from next door was there, too, and even Detective Ruiz, although he made a point of drinking coffee rather than the wine and beer and mead that almost everyone else was consuming. He tipped his head in my direction, and I answered him with the smallest lift of my shoulders.

There really wasn’t much for either of us to say at that point.

Even Adam showed up, which I wasn’t expecting. He greeted me with a smile and told me I’d done a brave thing, confronting the Lindleys like that. By then, I already knew that the bones of the story had made the rounds, so I only gave a deprecating shrug and said I’d just done what I thought I had to do.

“Still,” he replied, then paused. His clear gray eyes searched my face for a moment. “If you ever want to grab a coffee or something, just let me know.”

“I will,” I told him. Coffee was a step back from dinner at an Italian restaurant, and I guessed that signaled his willingness to just be friends.

I thought I was all right with that.

Jude was there, too, standing at one end of the bar and holding a glass of Tannat, talking with Father Esteban. I caught his eye from across the room, and he lifted his glass slightly in acknowledgment, as if letting me know we’d talk when we had a chance.

And Mack, the bar’s perpetual resident, watched the chatter and the reminiscences with a smile of his own. He’d seen a hundred years of these gatherings and would probably see a hundred more, and I could tell he approved of this one.

Even though I knew Hazel couldn’t be here, would never be able to set foot in Copper State Cellars again because she was tethered to a big Victorian house some six blocks away, I could almost see her standing in the room among her friends and neighbors, her gaze perpetually sharp, amethysts twinkling at her ears.

She was here, if only in spirit.

Around five, as things were beginning to wind down and the short autumn afternoon began to bleed into dusk, I stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. It was cold, almost sharp in my lungs, and smelled of woodsmoke, but was no longer as alien as it had been even a couple of weeks ago.

Now it was the scent of home.

The lights of the shops and restaurants on Whiskey Row were coming on, and the branches of the trees across the street in Courthouse Square were now mainly bare, slender and elegant against the bluish-purple sky. I stood there for a moment, breathing it in, and then I heard someone come up next to me.

Jude. He didn’t say anything at first, only stood there at my side and breathed in the crystal-sharp air, taking in twilight over downtown Prescott.

Then he asked, “Did Hazel tell you about moving on?”

Even though Jude didn’t have my ghost-communication abilities, I wondered then if he’d sensed that Father Frank had moved on, that he’d left this plane behind once the trauma that had trapped him here had been resolved.

“She did,” I said.

He shifted so he was now facing me rather than gazing out at the trees in the square. “And are you ready for that when the time comes?”