The cozy town of Wicks Hollow was located in the center of a handful of rolling hills. None of them were large enough to be considered a mountain, but they did offer some protection from the harsh, lake effect winters that rolled in from Lake Michigan, only two miles away.

With a population of roughly two thousand, except during tourist season (Memorial Day through Labor Day, then a few weeks in late September for Fall Colors), Wicks Hollow could barely be considered a town. However, because of the tourists and seasonal workers—which could bring the population to five thousand or more—the village had a three-member police department headed by Captain Joe Longbow—and a full-sized high school that had recently been updated.

Since the town had been an escape from the heat and city life of Chicago and Detroit even at the turn of the 20th century—for the wealthy, anyway—Wicks Hollow boasted an inordinate number of mansions considered historic “painted ladies.” These single-family homes were built during the boom of the Gilded Age and into the Roaring Twenties, with all the curlicues and garrets and towers characteristic of that era. Because of historic accuracy, the “ladies” were painted shockingly bright colors: lemon yellow, bright purple, Kelly green, and many different shades of blue or pink. They had neat, square yards, broad, shady trees, and trim flower beds. Some even had iron-spiked fences and detached carriage houses. There were large, square houses with flat roofs and cupolas on top, and others with dormers, garrets, and peaks jutting up everywhere. There were a few, like Shenstone House, that had circular towers.

The streets leading into town were lined with mansions, single-family residences, cottages, and stately farmhouses. Three blocks of Elizabeth Street, which ran directly north one block west from the town center, was known as B&B Row, where each well-maintained house was a small inn or bed and breakfast. A few lucky ones even had glimpses of Lake Michigan, only two miles to the west, from their upper floors. On the upper floor of Sunflower House, from the northwest tower, you could even see Stony Cape, a lighthouse which sat out on a rocky point of Lake Michigan.

In the center of the village, the business and tourist district was just as manicured and inviting. It boasted two main streets—named Faith Avenue and Pamela Boulevard after the daughters of the town’s founder, George Wicks—that intersected in the middle of the tourist district.

Leslie had decided George Wicks had been either optimistic or delusional, for the two main drags were nowhere close to being either an avenue or a boulevard. Two cars could just pass by each other because parking was only allowed on one side of the street. Nevertheless, the massive stone pots containing spills of pansies, geraniums, and ivy and the Victorian style streetlamps gave the place a comfortable, welcoming feel even as the evenings turned chilly with autumn.

For two blocks in each of the four directions from the town’s center, shops, restaurants, cafes, and other businesses sprang up. Every one was a brick-fronted building of with unique heights, widths, and brick pattern. Leslie walked past Aunt Cherry’s yoga studio, which was on the second floor and had a view of long, ribboning Wicks Lake outside of town to the northeast, a vintage clothing shop called Gilda’s Goodies, and the trendy, urban-looking Trib’s, which was the best restaurant in the county.

To the south and east of the town, a bank of thickly wooded hills rose like a natural, protective wall. Through the trees, Leslie could see the peaks and towers of more Victorian mansions—including a hint of the roof of her own Shenstone House, which sat on the highest hill but was cloaked by thick woods. Beyond the hill was the high school, which had been around since 1950, though it had been updated several times over the years.

The bells jingled over the door when Leslie stepped into Orbra’s Tea House and saw her aunt sitting at a round table near the front window.

She gave her a quick hug, even though she’d seen her last night. But for the last few weeks, she’d been so busy with the renovations, she’d hardly left the house except for the grocery store. She pulled up a chair to sit down. “You look relaxed, auntie.”

“Meditation and twenty-five Sun Salutations will do that for you,” Cherry replied with a smile.

“Well, have you seen the ghost yet?” asked Orbra van Hest unceremoniously as she approached. She’d appeared from the back room just as Leslie came in, and was carrying a tray with a full tea service on it: two delicate china pots, two cups and saucers, a small plate with paper-thin lemon slices, a sugar bowl, and a tiny creamer pitcher. “You’ve been living there almost a month.”

Cherry grinned back at Leslie as the six-foot-plus Dutch woman loomed expectantly over their table. The proprietor of Orbra’s Tea House didn’t seem to be in any hurry to set down the tray for her customers—at least until she got a response to her question.

“No,” Leslie replied. “Not a sign. No slamming doors, no footsteps in the night, no fluttering curtains over a closed window…not even an inexplicable chill wafting through the air.”

“You can put the tray down, Orbra,” Cherry said, gesturing to the lace-covered table. Beneath the large doily was a blue floral cloth of cotton, and each place setting boasted a small hand-painted china plate, flatware of real silver, and a lace-trimmed cloth napkin. “I told you Leslie is too practical for the metaphysical to speak to her.” She said this with a wink at her favorite niece—her sister’s daughter—who shook her head in mock disgust as the tray clinked into place in front of her.

“If there’s really a ghost at Shenstone House,” Leslie said as Orbra poured vanilla oolong into her cup, “then why didn’t Alice ver Stahl see him? Or her. Does anyone know whether this so-called ghost is supposed to be a man or woman?”

“Alice ver Stahl was half-deaf and had cataracts. She never went anywhere in that house but the kitchen and the bathroom before they brought her to the nursing home. What was it, five years ago? She wouldn’t have seen or heard a ghost if it pulled out a chair for her at the table.” Orbra turned to pouring a fragrant floral tea of a much lighter color into Cherry’s cup.

“She was half-deaf and had cataracts and lived alone?” Leslie was horrified.

“Orbra’s exaggerating, my dear. Mrs. ver Stahl had a perfectly fine hearing aid, and her cataracts had been removed years earlier,” Cherry said, and sipped her jasmine green tea. She smiled, curling her fingers around the cup as if to warm them. “Mm. This is still my favorite, even though the caffeine wreaks havoc on my meditations.”

“The way you drink it, brewed hardly more than a minute, there can’t be much caffeine in there to speak of,” Orbra replied. She stood with her hands on her hips, clearly unwilling to move on until she got more information from her best friend’s niece.

Unlike other tea shops with a Victorian flair, Orbra’s wasn’t decorated in pink, cabbage flower prints, or with too much lace. There was some lace, but it was restricted to covering the dark blue tablecloths, and an occasional doily. The rest of the decor was mostly cornflower blue, yellow, and white. Though there were tiny flowers printed on the wallpaper and fresh Gerbera daisies, sweet peas, and alstroemeria stuck in vases on each table, the florals weren’t overwhelming.

“I don’t like to make the men feel uncomfortable. You know a lot of them won’t come into a place that feels too much like a woman’s bedroom—unless it is a woman’s bedroom,” Orbra had told Leslie with a grin. “So I try to keep it feminine without going overboard. Regina Underwhite helped me find some of the antiques, along with that silver tea service in the front window. But I did the rest of it myself. And business is all I can handle, believe you me.”

However, today Leslie and Cherry were the only customers in the tea shop. As it was early October, summer was over and school was back in session, and it was just past the high season of fall colors. Thus, Wicks Hollow was devoid of the tourists that kept it buzzing and humming from late May through the end of September. This meant Orbra had plenty of time to sit and pepper Leslie with questions.

“Bethy,” the proprietress shouted toward the swinging doors that led to the kitchen, “bring out those scones, will you, hon? I’m going to pull up a chair myself.”

But just as she was wrangling a heavy Victorian side chair to their table, the door opened and three elderly ladies burst in on a swirl of leaves and chilly autumn air.

“I told you it was a word,” said the one who was clearly the oldest, and, it seemed, the loudest as well. “All you had to do was trust me, and you would have won.” She had dark skin so smooth it appeared polished, thick iron-gray hair and a sturdy build, and was practically shouting at one of her companions as she led them through the door. She was carrying a walking stick, but didn’t actually appear to need it for locomotion.

“Mornin’ Orbry,” the woman crowed as soon as she saw the proprietress, but she stopped just inside the threshold to direct one of her companions. “Now, Juanita, you watch here so you don’t trip on that little step—you know you’re blind as a bat.”

With a little sigh of exasperation, Orbra muttered, “As if they haven’t come here five times a week for twenty years. Which is five times too many, some days,” she added in an undertone. Then she lifted her brows at Leslie. “You’d better move. You’re in Maxine’s seat.”

“Yes,” said Cherry around a chuckle as Leslie moved over. “She likes to sit there so she can see the street and direct the happenings in the entire tea house. Nosy old bag.” Then she projected across the cafe, “Welcome back, ladies! How was Chicago?”

Leaving her two companions behind, Maxine was barreling her way across the hardwood floor, her cane thumping with alacrity. For a woman who had just turned eighty—as she announced to anyone who would listen—she was remarkably agile and nearly stomped Leslie’s toe with her heavy wooden cane as she plopped onto her chair.

Ignoring Cherry’s greeting, she speared Leslie with her sharp eyes. “You’re Cherry’s niece. Ain’t seen you since you were in saggy diapers,” she said as if she were accusing her of some derelict of duty.

“It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Took,” Leslie replied with a smile, even though she’d never been in Wicks Hollow in saggy diapers. That she knew of.

“It’s Maxine. And it was never missus nothing,” she replied, then jabbed up at Orbra with a curling, arthritic finger. “You got cinnamon scones today?”

“Fresh ones, because I knew you were going to be back,” Orbra replied dryly. Cherry looked at Leslie and they both smothered grins.

“I want three. And bring me some of that Earl Grey with the vanilla in it. And some milk. Real milk, not that nut stuff you tried to kill me with last week.”

“Leslie, I don’t know if you remember Juanita Alecita and Iva Bergstrom,” Cherry said as the other two ladies sat down. “They’re part of our Tuesday Ladies group as well. The three of them just got back from a trip to Chicago.”

“Used to be six of us till Jean Fickler died last summer,” Maxine said in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. “She didn’t even make it to my eightieth birthday party. That was a hell of a bash,” she added, giving Leslie (who’d known nothing about it because she’d still been in Philadelphia) an accusing look for daring to be absent.

“I’ve heard all about the Tuesday Ladies,” Leslie said, knowing that the name was a misnomer, for the older women didn’t limit their socializing to Tuesdays—and hadn’t done so for years. “I’m sorry it took this long for us to finally meet again—I’ve been so busy getting settled.”

“Don’t you worry about that, honey.” Juanita Alecita smiled as she placed a napkin on her broad lap.

She was in her late seventies and had hair of an impossible paprika color. It was curled and teased into a bubble at the crown of her head, while the sides and back were stick straight. Someone had once described Juanita’s hairdo as a mushroom cloud, and Leslie couldn’t disagree. The older lady had soft, pudgy hands with pink nails buffed to a long, gentle curve. She carried a large bag, and a small dog with huge ears that reminded Leslie of butterfly wings peeked out from the top.

“But you did get the salsa recipe from Cherry, didn’t you, Leslie?” Juanita had owned a chain of ten Mexican restaurants scattered throughout Michigan and Indiana until she “retired” in 2000, and she had recently passed on her secret family recipe to Leslie via Cherry.

“It was perfect. I never would have thought to stew the tomatoes and peppers in vegetable stock before blending them.”

“And the vegetarians of the world thank you for using vegetable stock instead of chicken stock,” Cherry said. “Such a little thing, but it definitely broadens what we can eat.”

Iva Bergstrom had taken the last chair. She was a woman of sixty-fiveish with round apple cheeks and neatly styled blue-white hair. “So nice to see you again, Leslie. And now you’ve moved to Michigan permanently—to open a B&B, is that what I heard?”

“Yes, and it’s haunted—but Leslie hasn’t seen or heard of the ghost yet. She’s been here more than a month,” Orbra informed them just as Bethy appeared with a crowded tray that made Leslie’s mouth water.

Besides blueberry and apple cinnamon scones, the newly arrived tray also held tiny white stoneware pots of clotted cream and jam, finger sandwiches with salmon salad or cucumbers sliced paper-thin, and profiteroles. There were small plates and tiny spoons, irregular lumps of sugar in a dish, a narrow bowl of fresh berries, and half-dollar-sized open-faced quiches.

“Can you believe she’s heard nothing?” Orbra went on. “Not one sign of the ghost. I don’t think she’s trying hard enough. It’s not as if the ghosts in Wicks Hollow are shy or anything.”

Leslie was well aware of Wicks Hollow’s reputation—at least among the Tuesday Ladies; she didn’t think anyone else had the same crazy notion—of the area having a particular propensity for ghostly happenings and haunting instances. She didn’t believe it herself. After all, an historic town with so many old, Victorian buildings obviously attracted legends and tales just by virtue of the fact that they had history. Plus, the Tuesday Ladies—well, they were…old. And some of them were battier than others.

“Your inn is haunted, Leslie?” Iva said, and her eyes sparkled with interest. “I’ve got to come and visit. I went to see a medium last week, and—”

“Sounds like a great way to scare off potential customers,” grumbled Maxine. She picked up one of the triangular sandwiches with fingers curved like talons. “We had some ghost-happenings back over the summer, you remember that, Juanita?”

“Yes, of course I remember.” Juanita rolled her eyes. “Ay-yi-yi, Maxine! It was only a few months ago when that all happened with Diana and that nice Ethan and—”

“Don’t try an’ tell me my memory’s going,” groused Maxine, showering crumbs everywhere. “At least I can hear everything—which is better than you, when I have to repeat it all the time.”

Hadn’t Maxine just accused her friend of being blind, not deaf? Not that Juanita seemed to exhibit either symptom. Leslie glanced at Cherry, and saw that she and Orbra were laughing silently together. Tears were streaming down Cherry’s face.

“Did the three of you ladies really drive all the way to and from Chicago together?” Orbra said to Iva when she could speak clearly. “You have my condolences,” she added in an undertone.

“It’s really Hollis who’s the saint. He drove us, the lovely man, and that’s why I told him he could golf as much as he wanted while he’s here on vacation. Hollis lives in Grand Rapids,” Iva explained to Leslie. “But he’s taking the entire month of October off to spend it here in Wicks Hollow with me.” Iva’s cheeks went slightly pink as Cherry and Orbra made “oooooh” and “awwwww” noises. Leslie couldn’t help but laugh, because they sounded as if they were in middle school.

“Hollis and Iva are very hot and heavy,” Cherry explained. “She met him back in April, and I swear, he’s been down here in Wicks Hollow more than he’s been in Grand Rapids.”

“He’s very handsome and has more hair than Maxine does—which is saying a lot for a seventy-year-old man,” Orbra put in. “Iva’s got him wrapped around her little finger.”

“I told Hollis the only thing he has to attend is the reunion,” Iva went on, studiously ignoring the razzing. But her cheeks got even more pink.

“Oh,” Leslie said, reaching for a small blueberry scone. It was warm and practically crumbled in her fingers, chock-full of tiny wild blueberries. “That’s right—there’s the big class reunion on the nineteenth.”

“That’s right. There ain’t enough of us left from each of the classes—we’re all dead—so we bunched ’em all together into one big reunion,” Maxine informed her. “It’s my sixty-second reunion, and Juanita’s fifty-eighth, and Iva’s—what one is it?”

“Thirty-fifth.”

“Right. Thirty-fifth.” Maxine paused, peering at Iva as if she didn’t know whether to believe her or not. “Thirty-fifth? I thought you were older than that. Aren’t you—”

“You’ll never guess what happened,” Iva interrupted loudly. “You know that little store, up on Gertrude? The one that’s hardly ever open and looks like it needs a good cleaning?”

“Damned eyesore,” Maxine grumbled. “Someone ought to do something about it.”

“Well, someone’s going to,” Iva replied brightly. “Turns out the owner is—was—a client of Hollis’s law firm. The man was over a hundred, and he died about a month ago. So there’ll be a new owner at the shop. And guess who it is!” She looked at Maxine as if she were dangling a donut on a string in front of a very hungry child.

“Tell us,” Juanita said.

“Ethan Murphy’s sister!”

“You mean that red-headed girl? Looks like a gypsy? Likes to read palms?” Maxine growled. “She said I was gonna live to a hundred myself. Not sure how I feel about that,” she added grumpily.

“Yes. Her name is Fiona. I expect once all the legal tangle’s taken care of, she’ll come down here from Grand Rapids and spruce the place up.”

“Well, someone needs to see to it,” snarled Maxine. “Tired of looking at the dingy place ever’time I drive by.”

“You never drive that way anyway,” Juanita said. “It’s completely out of your way. Why, you probably haven’t seen it for three months—”

“I drive past there all the time,” Maxine returned. “You just ain’t paying attention. Always messing with that snooty French dog of yours.”

“Why, how dare you say such a thing! My Brucie isn’t snooty—”

“You’ll never guess who’s staying in the Sunflower House,” Iva exclaimed, once again diverting the subject. She glanced at Leslie. “It’s too bad your bed and breakfast isn’t ready yet, because maybe you could have been the one to host him.”

“Who?” asked Cherry.

“It’s a famous writer,” Maxine said in what was possibly supposed to be a low voice, but rang in Leslie’s eardrums nevertheless. “Mildred didn’t tell us his name—claims she was sworn to secrecy, the crotchety old bat—but we figured it out. She can take her mysterious winks and hints and—”

“Mildred is the owner of the Sunflower House,” Orbra told Leslie in an aside before turning back to Iva. “I heard someone was coming to stay there in the off-season—some big celebrity who wanted privacy. I was hoping for Robert Redford myself. It used to be Paul Newman I hoped would show up, but then he died. And then James Garner, but he died too.” She tsked, as if it were the poor actors’ faults they’d passed on before chancing a visit to Wicks Hollow.

“Who is it?” asked Leslie—more interested in keeping the topic away from her not-so-haunted house than who the celeb was…because she was still remembering that odd sort of groan and shudder she’d felt when the staircase railing was opened. Not that anything had happened otherwise, but it had only been yesterday.

How long did it take for ghosts to bestir themselves once awakened? Didn’t they most often show themselves at night, anyway? After the so-called witching hour of midnight?

She wouldn’t know, for Leslie hadn’t slept at home last night, as it turned out, for Cherry had made her share a bottle of wine and watch reruns of 30 Rock till after midnight, and she ended up crashing in her aunt’s guest room. So this would be Leslie’s first night in the house since the stairway had been opened, since she’d felt the house shudder and moan—and what sort of nonsense was she thinking?

Maybe she’d inhaled too much drywall dust or paint fumes. Leslie gave herself a mental shake and tuned back in to the conversation—still apparently about the identity of the mysterious celebrity staying at Sunflower House.

“It’s the man who writes them big action books, Mildred said. She told me in confidence, you know,” Maxine announced.

“Then she must want everyone to know,” Cherry said, laughing. “Then she can blame it on you, but still get the word out.”

“Which action books?” Orbra demanded. “Who is it?”

“They make movies about ’em with Tom Cruise—is that the guy?” Maxine peered at Juanita as if to read the answer in her bottle-bottom glasses. “The one who danced in his underwear?”

“That’s Tom Cruise, yes. Action movies based on books, starring Tom Cruise. Jack Reacher?” Orbra asked.

“No, not that one. The other Jack,” Maxine grumbled, frowning. “The author, I mean. His character had a Greek name or maybe a Roman name…something like one of them musicians nowadays.”

“At least, that’s what Mildred was dropping hints about,” Juanita said.

“Wait, are you talking about Jeremy Fischer?” Leslie said, a spark of interest sizzling through her. “He writes the Bruno Tablenture books?”

“Yes, that’s him! Not Jack. Jeremy. He’s done locked himself away in the tower room at Sunflower, going to be writing on his new book, Mildred said. But she told me not to tell anyone, because he doesn’t want to be bothered.” Maxine clearly didn’t appreciate that sentiment.

“Jeremy Fischer? For certain?” Even Aunt Cherry seemed impressed, and it took a lot to impress her. Or maybe she was just assessing her chances of getting to meet the man. “How do you know? He’s such a recluse. He doesn’t even do book signings.”

“I told you, Mildred dropped a lot of hints for us. She even got a bunch of his books about Bluto, Brundo—whatever—those detective stories on her bookshelf in the sitting room. We’re going to have to go by for tea—no offense, Orbry,” Maxine added. “So we can accidentally-on-purpose run into him and check him out. Pam down to the book shop told me Mildred ordered in a whole bunch of them Bluto Talent-whatever books, and now she’s just put them out casual-like in the front parlor there. And they’re all signed. She ain’t saying for sure he’s the guest, but I know it’s him.” Maxine jabbed the air with her finger. “He’s telling everyone his name is John Fischer, though.”

“So tell me about this haunted house of yours,” Iva said, turning back to Leslie.

The sudden change of topic caught her by surprise, but Leslie recovered immediately. “There’s really nothing to tell. The house needs some updates—it’s been empty on and off for the last thirty or so years. The last woman who lived there stayed on the main floor, so there’s work that needs to be done on the second and third floors. I just had someone in yesterday about replacing a big wrought iron staircase.”

And, thank goodness, she’d just this morning hired a high school student as an intern to help her out after class and on the weekend with whatever needed to be done.

“Are you talking about that big, grand staircase in the foyer? It always reminded me of that stairway Rhett carried Scarlett up in Gone with the Wind,” Iva said with a sigh. “I loved that movie.”

“That’s the one. Some of the spindles are missing, and other ones are rusted.”

“Leslie needed a blacksmith and I told her to call Declan Zyler,” Orbra said with a wink at her friend. “Cherry here can’t wait to see him in action in that hot, dark smithy—all sweaty and muscular and—”

“And I figure if he’s doing work for my niece, I have an excuse to—er—check up on it.” Cherry grinned, looking very much like a naughty Helen Mirren with her spiky champagne hair and pink lipstick. “Leslie was on the front page of the paper today too—did you see it? Not because of the staircase, but because of her being famous and her plans to open a bed and breakfast. But you can see the missing section of railing behind her. Unfortunately, Declan wasn’t in the picture. Did you get my extra copy, Orbra?”

“Of course. It’s in the back. I’ll get it later. What were you going to do if he had been in it? Hang it up in your office?”

“Maybe.” Cherry’s eyes danced mischievously, then she glanced at her watch. “Time to go. I’ve got a hot class and have to turn on the heaters.”

“You’ve got hot flashes?” Maxine demanded in her growly voice. “And you’re going to turn on the heaters? That’s about the dumbest thing—”

“No, she’s got to teach a hot class at the yoga studio,” Orbra said. “It’s done in a very hot room.”

“I’ve always wanted to try doing those Yogi Berra things,” said Maxine, crumbs flying again. “I could probably put my foot behind my head, now that I got a new hip—”

“So about this ghost,” Iva said, closing her soft, wrinkled hand over Leslie’s as she shook with silent laughter. “Can I come over and walk through the house? I have a real sense for the otherworldly and metaphysical…maybe the ghost will show itself to me.” Her eyes danced with enthusiasm. “My medium told me I have the sensitivity.”

“Of course, feel free to stop by any time. I’ll show you around—it sounds as if you’ve been in the house before.”

“Yes, well, back when we were growing up—”

“What’s this about the ghost?” demanded Maxine. “Have you seen it, then, missy?”

“Don’t shout,” Juanita said, elbowing her companion. This was the first time she’d joined the conversation since the tray of scones and sandwiches had been delivered. She appeared to have sampled a bit of everything, if the remains on her dainty plate were any indication. “She’s just sitting across the table from you. And you’re talking about Shenstone House, aren’t you?” She directed her question to Leslie.

Apparently, the conversation was going to center around the so-far-nonexistent ghost, despite efforts to the contrary. So Leslie decided she might as well dive in. “Who is supposedly haunting the place anyway?” she asked. “I don’t know whether I’m supposed to be seeing a male or female ghost.”

“Well, you do know the history of the house, don’t you?” Juanita pulled herself upright and, gripping a teacup between two sets of fingertips, fixed her eyes on Leslie.

“A little of it. I know it was built at the turn of the century, and that in the twenties, a rival of Al Capone’s used it for a hideaway from the cops in Chicago,” Leslie began.

“I know about all that,” interjected Maxine. “My mama used to tell me stories about during Prohibition. Those damned gangsters used to come over here from Chicago acrosst Lake Michigan to get away from the authorities. They’d bring their families and make like a vacation. Or their girls—you know the ones, the floozies with the short skirts and rolled garters. They even smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey.”

“Oh, come now, Maxine. You like your Maker’s Mark just as much as anyone else I know,” Juanita said.

“I do, but I ain’t breaking the law drinking it!”

“Yes, there were hideaways all along the west coast of Michigan, all the way up to Traverse City,” Juanita continued. “They probably used the Great Lakes to smuggle in booze too, from Canada. Didn’t even have to go all the way to Detroit—could just go right over past Sault Ste. Marie and through Lake Huron to Ontario.”

“The name of the bootlegging gangster who owned Shenstone House was Sal ‘Red Eye’ Marciano,” Leslie continued. “And there’s a rumor he hid a bunch of jewels here in the area.”

“That’s right!” Maxine jabbed her talon-finger at the table at large. “We used to sneak around that house, trying to find the hidden gems. Place was empty as often as it was lived in, you know—probably got a curse on it, now’t I think of it—and there was a time we sneaked inside too. Had a smoke, even. Never got caught, neither!”

“We never did either,” said Juanita smugly.

Cherry and Orbra were laughing. “We sneaked in there too. But our generation was more interested in smoking pot and making out in the house than finding a cache of jewels.”

Leslie looked around at the table in amazement. “Are you telling me you all were sneaking into Shenstone House?”

“Well, yes. An abandoned house, just far enough outside of town and in the woods to be secluded, but not so far away from everything so as to be scary…what do you think?” Cherry said.

“I never did,” Iva said primly. Her friends looked at her with disbelieving eyes. “Well, I didn’t sneak. Tommy Baxterberry had a key, and we used to go in there to make out.”

“That’s because the people who was living there when you were hot to trot traveled to Europe all the time,” Maxine said. Then she wheeled her eyes toward Leslie. “And you never sneaked inside yourself, missy? You had to be the only generation what didn’t do that.”

“I was only here for a few summers in my early teens, and none of the boys were very interesting. Besides, I think Mr. Mineera was living there at the time. He had big dogs.”

“Ah, yes, that’ll do it,” Cherry replied.

“Look! There he is!” Maxine fairly bolted out of her chair. “That has to be him!” She leveraged her walking stick to heave herself to her feet. “Right there on the corner! You shoulda been watching!” she screeched at Juanita, and almost lost her balance in the process. “We almost missed him. Not that you can see anything anyway—”

“Who? Where?”

“It’s that Jeremy Fischer. See, the guy with the beard? It has to be him. He’s with Mildred and—Hey! Why does Aaron Underwhite get to meet him?” Maxine’s nose was pressed to the tea shop window.

Leslie looked outside as well. Sure enough, standing on the street corner was a small cluster of people: an older woman who was probably the innkeeper at Sunflower House, an attractive man of about forty with dark hair and a full beard and mustache, and an elegant couple of about fifty. The last two were dressed in business suits and were shaking the man’s hand.

“Aaron Underwhite’s the mayor, Maxine,” Orbra said. “I suppose he’s probably welcoming the celebrity to our town. He and Regina are always very gracious to anyone who visits.”

This pulled Maxine away from the window, and she spoke to Leslie as if she’d not been living in the town for a month, “Aaron Underwhite and Regina Clemons. Never could figure out that match. She used to go out with Colter Bray, remember?”

Since Maxine was looking at her as if she expected a response, Leslie answered, “I think that was before my time.

“Colter Bray was one of them jockey strap boys back in high school, and now she’s married to the nerdy Underwhite kid.”

Orbra appeared to share Maxine’s emotion. “How do you remember all of those people? They’re at least thirty years younger than you, and it’s not like you had kids of your own who knew them.”

Maxine tapped her temple with a curved finger. “Perfect memory, right here. Never forget a face or nothing. Ain’t that how I helped catch that culprit was messing with Diana Iverson last summer?” She turned back to the view. “Now how the hell am I going to get me an invite to meet Jeremy Fischer?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Iva said.

The gleam in the elderly woman’s eye was enough to make Leslie shudder. She was suddenly relieved her own inn wasn’t quite ready to open. She didn’t think she could handle customers like Maxine Took.