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Sam looked up, and I pointed to the side yard, indicating that I was going that way, to get out of the wind—Dez had an outdoor shower with a slatted wall that would provide some cover.
“How’s Hannah?” I asked.
“She’s out of surgery and they’re waking her up slowly. Samples were sent to the lab and we don’t have them back yet, but the doctor is even more convinced now the tumor is benign. We’ll know for sure tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest. I just wanted you to know that Hannah proudly showed Junebear to everyone who walked in her room. The doctor even made a little surgery cap for the bear. You gave Hannah something none of us could, and we all love you for it. Thank you.”
Tears filled my eyes. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do. Anything. And please text or call and let me know when you hear for sure about those samples.”
“I will, darlin’.”
I hung up and hugged the phone to my chest and let out a deep breath.
I was still standing there, in the shadows of the shower, when I heard a high-pitched honk, sharp and staccato. Frowning, I looked up. I knew that noise. Had heard it coming from the attic when Dez first showed me around the house.
He had told me the noise was from a ghost.
I went on high alert, trying to focus my hearing to listen to what was going on above me.
“What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here,” I heard Dez whisper in that maudlin tone of voice he’d used the last time I’d heard him talking to his “little ghost.”
My heart hurt. And I knew I should walk away—it wasn’t right to eavesdrop—but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. Not after hisbe together again soontalk and suspecting this had been an estate sale.
I feared for him, his life. Was he considering doing something drastic?
Above me, on the back deck, Dez said, “Everything is going exactly according to plan.”
My heart beat faster. Plan? What plan?
There was another strange honk, then I heard someone say, “I’ve missed you. I thought in the chaos of the sale, it wouldn’t seem out of place for me to be seen here. It’s been incredibly difficult to keep my distance.”
My jaw dropped. The voice wasCarmella’s. I’d spoken to her a couple of times and would know her rich, silky sound anywhere.
“It won’t be long now that we can be together all the time,” Dez said. “No more hiding.”
There was another high-pitched honk.
I realized it was asneeze.
“Dez, you need to talk to Maggie before someone figures outour secret. Ava’s sharp. She’s not going to buy your silly ghost story for much longer.”
As they spoke, my head spun with what I was hearing and what I’d already known. Dez had first mentioned the ghost a couple of months ago, after he started neglecting his house. Now I realized theghostwas his way of hiding the fact that he wasn’t spending much time at home.
“She almost caught us once already. Hiding in your attic is not something I want to do again.”
So it had been Carmella in the attic the day I’d come by early, the day Dez gave me a tour. There must have been no way for her to get out without me seeing her. No wonder he had rushed me off to his storage units. And the day I’d come back from the trail? No doubt he’d been talking to her as well, probably using earbuds.
“Silly? I think not. I have half the town thinking this place is haunted.” Pride flowed from Dez’s words.
As I stood there eavesdropping, I wasn’t sure if I was mad at him for keeping secrets from Maggie or impressed with his quick thinking. But how had I not put this together sooner? Why had I accepted the ghost explanation? Started tobelieveit, even?
But I knew why. The letter. The butterfly. The seaweed scent.
Sarcasm dripped as Carmella said, “That’ll be great when we put the place on the market, by the way. Haunted houses sell so well.”
He laughed low. “I have no worries about that. This place will sell lickety-split.”
I could barely process what I was hearing—it was coming at me so fast. Dez’s other behaviors that Maggie had been worrying about made sense now. Sneaking around. Losing weight. Not wearing his wedding ring. He was hiding a new relationship.
I’d been concerned by this yard sale, of him liquidating his belongings, thinking that he was planning his own death, but it had only been about downsizing, plain and simple.
