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“That’s the million dollar question,” Allie said.
Viola frowned. “You really have no idea who wrote this?”
“I was kind of hoping one of you would know.”
“If it had been someone from our group, I’m sure the rest of us would have heard about it,” Viola said. “There’s about fifty of us active Flamingoes, but honestly, I just don’t see any of us writing this anonymously.”
Roger glanced around the restaurant. “Who else have you shown this to?” he asked in a hushed voice.
“Just the four of you, and my sister-i
n-law Mimi. And Rusty Newton and Tom Donalan, who’s in charge of the building.” Allie used her fingers to make air quotation marks on that last part.
“It’s imperative that you don’t show this to anyone else,” Roger warned.
“What do you care who she shows this to?” Gus asked Roger.
“Roger’s right,” Betty said. “We shouldn’t show this to anyone. This ghost is probably trying to warn us and we don’t want to start a panic in town.”
“What kind of panic?” Allie asked.
Betty looked at her as if she were an idiot. “Ever hear of the end of the world?”
Viola and Gus moaned.
“Betty, enough with the end of the world stuff,” Gus said.
“Just because the Aztec calendar thing didn’t pan out doesn’t mean the world isn’t coming to an end soon. If there’s a ghost haunting the senior center then it’s someone we all knew. Someone who’s trying to come back from the dead to tell us something. Now, I ask you, what’s so important to come back to warn people about except the end of the world? All I can say, is that if the apocalypse is around the corner then I need to know pronto.”
“Betty Jean Collins, you already have a garage full of generators and enough bottled water for the entire town! What more do you need?” Viola asked.
“That was in preparation for this year’s hurricane season. Which didn’t go the way those forecasters thought it would. We barely got enough rainfall this past summer, and hardly any high winds. Hell, my electricity didn’t even go out once.”
“You sound disappointed we didn’t have a major disaster,” Gus said.
“Of course I’m not disappointed,” Betty grumbled. “But a dozen generators and a few hundred cases of bottled water aren’t going to be nearly enough if the apocalypse is coming. Don’t want to get caught with my pants down.”
“Yeah, nobody wants to see that,” Roger muttered.
Allie tried to hide her smile. She should probably keep her mouth shut, but she couldn’t help myself. “Um, if the world is going to end, then what does it matter?”
Betty threw her arms up in the air. “That’s the problem with your generation! Always flying by the seat of your pants. If the world is coming to an end, I need to be ready.”
“If the world is coming to an end, then I need to go to Confession,” Gus said. He caught Allie’s gaze and winked.
She giggled, but Betty scowled, so Allie quickly wiped her expression clean.
Viola leaned over and whispered in her ear, “If you haven’t figured it out by now, Betty Jean is one of those preppers.”
“How can we help?” Gus asked, making Allie smile at him in gratitude. Talking about the end of the world was all good and fine, but she had business to take care of.
“Have any of you ever seen or heard anything strange while in the senior center? Anything that would make you think it was haunted?”
“The buildings been closed up since summer,” Viola said. “Up to then I’m probably the one who’s spent the most time there. I used to teach seniors yoga, you know,” she added proudly, “but I never came across anything strange.” Sigh. This wasn’t the news Allie had hoped to hear.
“Well, can I ask a favor then? Would you hold on to this copy of the email and pass it around to the rest of your group? Maybe one of them might have heard something and just didn’t think it was important enough to share.”
Betty and Roger began to protest, but Viola silenced them. “How are we going to help Allie solve this mystery if we keep the email to ourselves?”
