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I just needed to rest a bit before the next heave-ho. Close my eyes. Just for a second.

The next thing I knew I was outside in the bright sunshine and someone was shouting my name.

“Carlina Bell Hartwell! You’d better damn well wake up!”

At first I thought it was my mama, because she was the only one who ever said my full name that angrily. Then the fuzziness cleared for just a moment, and I realized it wasn’t my mama at all.

It was Dylan.

Somehow, I’d ended up in his arms, pressed tight against his chest. His heart beat hard and fast against my cheek as I looked up at him.

His green eyes brimmed with tears. “That’s it,” he encouraged. “Don’t go quitting on me now, Care Bear.”

I tried to smile but couldn’t quite pull it off. All I wanted to do was sleep. I closed my eyes. It was okay to rest now.

In Dylan’s arms, I knew I’d be safe.

Chapter Fourteen

I
’d had to spend the night in the hospital, which was hell on earth for an empath.

Hell. On. Earth.

Which was why I’d been surprised that Delia had voluntarily slept all night in one of the chairs next to my bed.

Dylan had been in the other.

I’d been released at noontime the next day and they had driven me straight home, where I’d taken an extremely long shower in an attempt to cleanse my body of its smoky smell.

An attempt that had failed.

The scent clung relentlessly to my hair, my skin, and I had the uncomfortable notion that it was seeping straight out of my pores.

It was now pushing two o’clock, and I was stretched out on the couch, resting per doctor’s orders.

And hating it.

I was restless, feeling like there were things I needed to do. I didn’t have time for proper recuperation. Today was November first, All Saints’ Day. A day some churches and their congregants celebrated those who had attained sainthood. For me, it marked the rising of more spirits. More ghosts in need of help. The day also signaled that time was running out as well. I had only until eleven fifty-nine tomorrow night to ensure the eternal departure of Haywood, Virgil, and Jenny Jane.

Lying here on this couch wasn’t going to help any of them. Time was not on our side.

“It wasn’t premeditated,” Dylan said. “The Molotov cocktail was made with items found in the Ezekiel kitchen. A milk bottle, kerosene from the lamps on the mantel, a dish towel. Whoever it was must have seen you two together and when you went into the basement, they took action. But who? And why?”

Dylan, Delia, and I were trying to make sense of why someone had wanted to roast Mr. Butterbaugh and me like marshmallows.

“Carly definitely ticked someone off but good,” Delia said, biting back a smile. She was working on my laptop, researching Avery Bryan. Boo lay next to her, his head resting in the crook of her arm.

“That’s nothing new,” Dylan said, kissing my head as he walked into the kitchen.

“Hey!” I protested, my voice raspy from the smoke inhalation. “How do we know Mr. Butterbaugh didn’t tick someone off?”

Delia tipped her head and gave me a wry look. Dylan popped his head out of the kitchen and did the same.

“It’s possible,” I said, sniffing.

“Let’s go over this again.” Dylan brought Delia and me cups of tea.

The tea was supposed to soothe my throat, but I knew a dose of Leilara would have me feeling as good as new in no time. My daddy was dropping off a potion for me any minute now.

“Who all did you talk to yesterday?” Dylan lifted my legs and sat on the sofa, then dropped my legs onto his lap.

Which didn’t make Roly and Poly very happy. They bookended my hips; Roly curled into a ball as she napped, and Poly sleeping on his back, his limbs outstretched. Dylan had disturbed their slumber and they meowed protests until Dylan scratched their heads and they started purring. They offered forgiveness easily.

They did not get that trait from me.

I said, “Mama, Daddy, Delia. Ainsley, Eulalie, Mr. Dunwoody. Avery Bryan, the Kirbys, the Ramelles. Jessa, Mr. Butterbaugh . . . you. I saw Hyacinth Foster but didn’t actually speak with her. I think that’s it. Unless you count the ghosts.” I sounded a lot like Jessa with my strained voice.

The ghosts, minus Haywood, were out on the front porch. Haywood had once again pulled a disappearing act.

I supposed I should be grateful he had been there for me when it truly mattered, but I was growing weary of him hiding out.

Yesterday when I had sent Virgil to find Delia, she’d still been asleep. The sound of the cats freaking out at the ghostly presence woke her up, and she quickly realized that Virgil wanted her to follow him. When she was leaving, Dylan was pulling up after springing his mama from the pokey, and lo and behold, Haywood had been with him.

They’d all converged on the Ezekiel house and saw the smoke. Haywood showed Delia the secret tunnel that led beneath the shed out back to the house, and Dylan had gone in after me.

Mr. Butterbaugh was still in the hospital. He hadn’t only hit his head during the fire—he’d also had a heart attack. My aunt Eulalie had volunteered to sit with him, and I resurrected hopes that there might be a love connection between them yet.

Neither Virgil nor Jenny Jane had seen who tossed the bottle bomb, and I don’t know why my witchy senses hadn’t kicked in, either, other than maybe I was too far away from the source of danger.

“Is there anyone you didn’t talk to?” Dylan asked, smirking.

I smiled. “A couple of people . . .”

“You upset someone with your nosing around. What did you find out about Haywood’s case?” Delia asked.

I once again refrained from pointing out that Mr. Butterbaugh could have been the intended victim. It was a bit of a stretch. “What did I find out? Well, let’s see. Hyacinth might be a lush who hates Avery Bryan. Avery is angry and grieving. The Kirbys didn’t know about Haywood inheriting the house, and I think I volunteered to adopt Louella, Virgil’s she-devil dog.”

Delia nearly choked on her tea. “You what?”

“Long story,” I said, waving it off. I was supposed to have been at the kennel this morning, but I was sure Dr. Gabriel would understand my tardiness. “Mayor Ramelle might have a gambling problem and you already know about the secret room in the Ezekiel basement and how someone had searched it.”

Fortunately yesterday afternoon after the fire broke out, someone passing by the Ezekiel house had spotted the smoke and called the fire department. The majority of the damage had been contained to the basement, and because the house had been so solidly rebuilt, the structural integrity hadn’t been compromised. The basement needed a complete overhaul, but the rest of the house would need only a professional restoration service to get rid of the smell and soot. On the whole, the place would be just fine. A miracle.

“Oh,” I added, “and there’s something going on about letters. Hyacinth and Avery talked a little bit about them, and Doug hinted that Haywood had been the one who sent them and deserved what he got.” Suddenly I bolted upright.

“What’s wrong?” Dylan asked, concern filling his eyes. “Are you having pains?”

“Doug told me that when you played with fire, you got burned. He said it in reference to Haywood, but it seems a bit coincidental . . .”

“I’ll kill him,” Dylan seethed.

“Not if I get to him first,” Delia added in a stone-cold tone of voice.

I held up my hands. “We don’t know anything for sure. Let’s see if he has an alibi before we go killing anyone. And really, I should get first dibs.”

We fell into silence for a moment before Dylan said, “I don’t like this letter business. The crime techs went back to Haywood’s house yesterday after I gave the sheriff the info on Haywood’s family tree. The ashes we had found in the trash can? Remnants from typed letters.”

“Haywood said he didn’t burn them, so someone broke in just to set them afire?” I asked.

Was it possible it was the same person who’d tried to set
me
afire?

“Must have been something incriminating in them,” Dylan said, rubbing my feet.

“Incriminating letters that are upsetting people? Sounds like blackmail,” Delia theorized, glancing up from the computer screen.

Dylan and I looked at her. She was absolutely right.

He shifted and worry lines creased his forehead. “Yesterday when I signed on to my mother’s online bank account to transfer money for her bail, I noticed a series of withdrawals. About a thousand dollars a week for the past six months. When I asked her about it, she wrote it off as spending money.”

“A thousand dollars a
week
? That’s quite a shopping spree,” Delia said. “What’d she say she was buying for four grand a month?”

Dylan’s mama could spend that in an hour at the right boutique. Four grand a month was a drop in the bucket of her fortune.

“I didn’t push it,” he said. “Figured it really wasn’t my business what she was buying. But if she’s been paying off someone, then that’s definitely my business.”

That it was. But how did it factor into the case as a whole? “We need to look at the bigger picture. If Hyacinth got a letter, Haywood got a letter, and Doug hinted that he and the mayor got a letter . . . and Patricia’s doling out a thousand a week, then I think we need to assume all the Harpies are involved. I can ask Dr. Gabriel about it when I go pick up Louella in a little bit.” I shuddered.

“You’re not seriously adopting her,” Delia said, eyebrows raised.

“I have to.” I rubbed Poly’s head and hoped he wouldn’t hate me come tonight. “Virgil isn’t going to cross over until she’s settled in a home. I don’t suppose Boo wants a playmate?” I batted my eyelashes.

“Oh hell no. You’re not dumping that dog on me.”

“But didn’t Doug say Haywood
sent
the letters?” Dylan asked out of the blue. He’d apparently been stewing on the letters and not listening to the news about the dog.

Hmm.
I wondered if he’d take her.

“Yeah, but that’s the opposite of what I heard at the Silly Goose yesterday,” I said. “Avery mentioned that Haywood had gotten a letter, the same as Hyacinth. Hyacinth intimated that it was Avery who sent them. If those ashes at Haywood’s were from letters, then I tend toward believing Avery’s version of events.”

Yet, why did Doug think Haywood had sent them? It was something to look into.

“Who is this Avery?” Dylan asked, looking at Delia. “She seems to be in the thick of things. You find anything on her yet?”

“Not much. Just calling up property tax records now.” She tapped away.

Dylan glanced at me. “Okay, let’s say the Harpies
are
being blackmailed. Why? Is it as a whole or individually? Did the group do something they’re trying to hide? Or did each person in the group do something they don’t want known?”

“I vote individual,” Delia said. “Your mama wouldn’t pay out of her personal account for all the Harpies. That money would come out of the Harpies account.”

“Four grand a month for each of them . . .” I did quick math. “That’s a haul of twenty grand a month. Someone’s making a boatload of money. Either of you know anyone who’s been flashing extra cash lately?”

They shook their heads.

Delia looked up. “How do I know the name Twilabeth Morgan?”

“Twilabeth? That was the name of Haywood’s former wife, wasn’t it?” I asked. “I think he said it the other night, but didn’t mention a last name. Mayor Ramelle told me that Haywood’s ex used to live here in Hitching Post until she and Haywood divorced twenty-some years ago. Why?”

Delia said, “Twilabeth Morgan previously owned the house Avery Bryan is living in, bought it in the late eighties. Avery took ownership last year. It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Hand me the phone, will you?” I asked Dylan.

He reached across the table, grabbed the cordless, and handed it over. I dialed quickly.

“Law offices of Caleb Montgomery,” a voice on the line said.

“Hey, John Richard, it’s Carly. I need a favor.” Attorney John Richard Baldwin and I had forged a friendship last May during a particularly rough patch in both our lives. He ended up quitting his fancy job in Birmingham and moved to Hitching Post. He was now working for one of my closest friends. Caleb Montgomery was the best divorce lawyer in Darling County and his office had access to all sorts of online records that I didn’t.