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He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “Meaning?”

“Meaning there was another reason why I wanted to come to the New Orleans Public Library.”

“Oh?”

Cassie stood, knowing Jason would follow. She looked for the signs that would point her in the right direction, and once she found them, she headed for the section housing the city’s local history. It was a robust area, and Cassie’s heart quickened at the chance of finding answers.

Jason picked a book up off the shelf. “You think Charli is going to be in a yearbook from 1923?”

“No.” Cassie laughed and took the book out of his hands, placing it back on the shelf with reverence. “I think we need to set Charli aside for a minute. Just a minute,” she said, when he raised an eyebrow. “I want to know more about our Ghost Doctor.”

“I can’t say I’m not intrigued. Where do we start?”

“She dressed like someone from the 1940s. And she looks like a doctor. I’m guessing there weren’t too many female doctors back then. We’re bound to find her.”

“UMC isn’t that old of a building.” Jason frowned. Then his eyes widened. “But Tulane is old. It used to be a medical university.”

“How do you know all this?”

Jason shrugged, but pride shone through his smile. “My dad likes history. Sometimes I remember what he says.”

Cassie tapped a finger on her chin. “We never saw the Ghost Doctor at Tulane, but she obviously isn’t from UMC if it’s that new.”

“Don’t ghosts haunt where they die?”

“Not always.” Cassie looked around and lowered her voice. No one was paying attention to them, but she didn’t want to risk being overheard. “They go where they have particular ties, like where they died, where they’re buried, even where their family is, even if they’ve moved across the country.”

“And you said the Ghost Doctor is different from all the others, right? So, maybe she’s stronger, which means—”

“—she’s able to move around more freely.” Goosebumps erupted over Cassie’s skin. “If she started at Tulane, something could’ve pulled her away from there. Then she found UMC and stuck around.”

“And just because you’ve only seen her at UMC doesn’t mean she hasn’t traveled back to Tulane.”

A grin erupted over Cassie’s face. “Are you starting to take my Ghost Doctor theory seriously now?”

“I’m not not taking it seriously,” he said. “But we still haven’t proven anything. And even if we figure out she’s responsible for the uptick in murders, it doesn’t mean we’ll be able to do anything about it. Unless we can exorcise the whole hospital.”

Cassie had never done an exorcism, and she told Jason as much. “Or we figure out what she wants and help her move on.”

“But we can only do that if—”

“—we know who she is.”

Cassie loved being on the same page as Jason. It reminded her of working with David, which could be as effortless as breathing. She and David had cultivated their relationship over an entire decade, and though David trusted her, he sometimes treated her like a kid. Jason, on the other hand, treated her as an equal.

“What’s the goofy grin for?”

“Nothing.” Cassie tried to stifle it, but she couldn’t. And she didn’t really want to. “I’m just glad you’re here.” Her eyes grew wide. “I mean, not because of the circumstances, obviously. I wish things were different. I wish we didn’t have to be doing this. But since we are, I’m just glad it’s you.”

“I’m glad it’s you, too.”

Cassie held Jason’s gaze for as long as she could before looking away, her face aflame. She kneeled and began perusing the bottom shelves. “I’ll start down here. You start up there. Let’s find anything we can on the history of the Tulane Medical Center.”

Their second search proved more fruitful than the first. After about fifteen minutes, Jason ushered Cassie over to a table and splayed a thick volume in front of her. It smelled ancient and made her nose tingle, but there was something oddly satisfying about flipping through the yellowed pages.

“This one has pretty much everything you need to know about the medical center.” Jason was bursting with pride. “There are a few books over there, but none of them had this.” He flipped about two-thirds of the way through the book and pointed at a staff registry.

Cassie frowned. “But no pictures.”

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