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Allie whipped around to find herself face to face with a tall, thin woman in her late sixties. It only took her a couple of seconds to realize who was standing in front of her. “You mu
st be Phoebe Van Cleave.”
“In the flesh,” Phoebe croaked.
“What’s going on? I figured when you didn’t call me back that you weren’t interested in my ghost story.”
“Not interested? Are you kidding? I got sidetracked by the Dolphin Ghost, which turned out to be nothing but a big fake.” Her face crinkled in disgust. “But don’t worry, I plan to give this ghost one hundred percent of my full attention. My people are here now. That’s what counts. And this building isn’t going anywhere.”
Roger Van Cleave walked up holding a homemade sign that read GIVE THE DEAD A CHANCE. “It’s just like the good old days, huh?”
Allie frowned. “The good old days?”
“The sixties. Vietnam. Flower Power.” Phoebe shook her fist high in the air to accentuate her point. “You’re too young to understand but that’s the beauty of this great country. If you don’t like something, then protest the hell out of it.”
“Um, yeah, okay, I read about the sixties.”
“So, what happened last night? Did you make contact?” Phoebe asked.
The only contact Allie had made was the kiss-that-shouldn’t-have-been. She felt her face go warm. “Honestly, Ms. Van Cleave? Not a whole lot happened.” Allie briefly thought about mentioning the ghost detector app, but Phoebe was a professional and Allie didn’t want to come off amateurish. But the lemons…could it mean something? “I did smell this lemon odor. Twice now. And there was this warm fuzzy kind of feeling. But that’s it.”
“Lemons? This isn’t a potpourri shop.” Phoebe looked her over like a bug she wanted to squash. “Could be you and the ghost aren’t simpatico.”
“Could be there’s no ghost at all and this whole thing has been some elaborate prank.” She’d said it to get Phoebe’s goat, but Allie had to start facing facts. She’d never really believed there was a ghost, but she’d hoped there would be something to write about. Something spooky or unexplained that she could milk into an article. But the whole thing was looking like nothing more than a dead end.
Phoebe planted her fists on her bony hips and glared at her. “No wonder he hasn’t responded to you. You’re a non-believer, aren’t you?”
Allie sighed. She didn’t need this. Not now. What she needed was… “Wait. What do you mean him?”
“Oh, whoever’s haunting this place is definitely male. I’m getting an unusually high testosterone vibe.” She raised her palm in the air like she was touching something and closed her eyes in concentration. When she opened her eyes again there was a serene, almost taunting look in them. “You really can’t feel it?”
Allie couldn’t feel the ghost vibe but she could definitely feel the testosterone aura. And it wasn’t friendly. She turned around to find Tom staring down at her.
“Can I speak to you? In private?” he asked.
“Well, I think I know where that warm and fuzzy feeling is coming from,” Phoebe mocked. She waved them away. “You two lovebirds go on. I’m just going to have a word with my people.”
“Oh, we aren’t together,” Allie said, but Phoebe had already taken off into the crowd.
Tom’s expression was unreadable. “We can’t do the demolition with all these people here. Can you get them to leave?”
“I’ll try. But that crowd looks pretty determined. I’m not sure they’ll listen to anything I have to say.”
“Then try hard,” he shot back.
Unbelievable. He did think this was all her fault! Which, it sort of was, she supposed, but his attitude was unfair. Just like him, she’d only been doing her job.
“Look, Donalan, I didn’t go back on my word. Yes, I did contact these people to see what they knew about the ghost rumors, but I didn’t ask them to show up here this morning. I really expected this building to come down today.”
He studied her face like he was trying to figure something out, then slowly nodded. “If you say you didn’t organize this, then I believe you.”
Relief, simple and sweet, flooded her insides. It shouldn’t matter what he thought, but it did. Allie didn’t want to begin to think what that might mean. She took the bullhorn out of his hands. “I can’t promise they’ll leave, but I’ll do my best.”
Allie prepared herself to face the crowd. There were more people now than there’d been fifteen minutes ago. Besides the Bunco Babes and the Gray Flamingos there were at least ten people wearing Sunshine Ghost Society T-shirts, as well as an assortment of on-lookers.
“We’ve called in the troops from Panama City,” Phoebe said, seeing her look of astonishment. “It’s barely even eight and we already have almost forty people here. Should have another couple dozen by ten.”
“Troops? As in…the military?”
