Chapter 28
In August, a popular movie franchise arrived in town to film for several months. They brought with them an enormous cast and crew from Hollywood, as well as rabid fans from all over the region who hoped to spot some filming in action or one of the stars on their days off.
The air in town seemed to electrify, and the sidewalks were more crowded than usual in the summer. There were celebrity sightings at local coffee shops and restaurants, not to mention the huge bump in traffic for local businesses.
The ghost tours benefitted from the flurry of excitement, too, and one particularly busy Saturday night, Miles’s boss said he’d pay Ingrid if she went along to help.
Since the Loefflers were enjoying a family gathering on Jude’s yacht that weekend, Ingrid declared herself on vacation and told Miles she’d join him.
She didn’t need the money—and although she was dying to be with Cas again, she knew the crowded boat would be no place for romance.
Besides, she really did want to help Miles.
To show him that she valued him as much as Sailor.
Boney also had a big group that night and brought along Mari to assist him.
They all gathered at the Jasper Monument in the center of Madison Square.
Boney was dressed in his usual skeleton T-shirt, fake leather pants, and black velvet top hat—a ridiculous getup that still somehow managed to make him look like a sexy goth rockstar.
The women gathering for their tours kept giggling and trying to catch his eye.
Through the crowd of women, Boney sent Ingrid a lazy wink and then, when she walked past him, let his fingers graze her rear end.
She found herself annoyingly turned on and briefly considered promising him a hookup back at his apartment.
But then she thought better of it. Part of her liked the idea of saving herself for Cas, even if he hadn’t asked her.
She said hello to Mari, who produced a plastic bag full of boxed soaps from the hotel she cleaned and insisted Ingrid take them.
Ingrid felt slightly embarrassed at the gift and guilty that she hadn’t brought anything for Mari, especially with how well things had been going recently.
Ingrid no longer had to worry about money, no longer stayed up at night sweating over tax bills or an empty appointment book.
The least she could’ve done was pick up a six-pack or one of the many candles Sailor always brought every time she dropped by. She would remember next time.
Ingrid and Mari were given the iPads that had all the spooky pictures of apparitions and energy orbs that they were supposed to show at every stop, and the two groups went their separate ways.
Miles’s group would start at the first spot, the Old Sorel Weed House, and Boney’s group would start at Madison Square, intersecting at the midpoint, Colonial Park Cemetery.
During the tour, Ingrid tried to inject some pizzazz and add some of the stories she’d heard from Edie.
In 1967, a teenage girl saw a ghostly dog, supposedly the spirit of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell’s terrier, running up and down the riverfront, barking for its master.
A trio of singing ghosts live in the balcony of the Independent Presbyterian Church.
In the mid-nineties, a tourist attempting to break into the Mercer-Williams House, site of the famous shooting, claimed to have seen the ghost of Jim Williams, who told her that he knew who really shot Danny Hansford.
In the Lucas Theatre, after Miles went through his spiel about the ghost audience applauding in the empty auditorium and the guests started to file toward the exits, he pulled Ingrid aside.
“Thirsty?” he asked, then pushed on the panel under the stage.
Inside the compartment was a small silver flask.
He pulled it out, unscrewed the top, and tipped it back.
“Sure.” She took a sip—rum—and handed it back to him.
“I got you.” He winked at her. “I always got you, Ingrid.” Overcome with happiness, she hugged him. Her own, sweet Miles was back. They were okay.
An hour later, the two groups were standing at the iron fence of the cemetery about a dozen yards away from each other. Close enough that Ingrid could catch bits of Boney’s spiel.
“… there’s many a morning I’ve come for a walk in the cemetery and found puddles of blood or feathers, or the heart of a rabbit sacrificed in a hoodoo ritual …”
Such bullshit. But she had to smile. Boney had those poor tourists eating out of his hand, and at the end of the night he’d rake in the tips. She was just glad she didn’t have to sing for her supper anymore herself. Well, not in that particular way, at least.
Miles was going on about the number of unmarked graves under every inch of the city, so she pulled out her phone and opened her messages. She saw one unread.
You bewitch me in the moonlight.
She caught her breath, a thrill making her skin prickle. She scanned the dark streets around her. It was past ten but the summer weekend meant the streets were almost as busy as during the day. Still, she didn’t see anyone nearby.
The cemetery.
She peered past the iron fence and into the shadowy depths of the graveyard. The crooked branches of the oaks dripped with moss over the stone markers, and she strained to search among the graves, but it was frustratingly dark. She couldn’t see a thing.
And then a shriek rang out, splitting her ears. One of Boney’s group, a teenage girl, was pointing between the bars into the cemetery. Everyone in both groups was now pressed against the fence, gripping the bars and craning their necks.
“She saw a ghost!” another girl said.
Every nerve in Ingrid’s body electrified. She clicked her phone.
News flash …
I hear the ghost of the Noble Hardee Mansion is roaming the city.
She grinned, biting her lip and pressing the phone to her chest. Now all the people in both groups were practically losing their minds, running up and down the iron fence, a few trying to scale it, all in an attempt to get a glimpse of the ghost. Boney and Miles were doing their best to calm them all down.
He’s causing quite a stir, she wrote.
He seeks his temptress.
Her breath caught in her throat again.
He sees her. But it is not enough. He wants to touch her.
Ingrid let out a soft sigh. Finally.
Where? she wrote with trembling fingers.
His house.
“What the fuck are you doing, Ingrid?” Miles was standing in front of her, hands on his hips, and on reflex, she tucked her phone behind her back. “They’re trying to climb the goddamn fence!”
“What do you want me to do about it?” she asked.
“I don’t know—help, maybe?”
“It’s your group, Miles.”
“Right,” he said. “You’re too good for this now. Sailor Loeffler’s best friend and personal psychic.”
“What are you talking about?” she snapped. “I came here to help you.”
“Then help!” He glared at her phone. “Stop talking to your boyfriend.”
The commotion grew louder. She gritted her teeth. “Get off my back, Miles.”
He hung back. “Who is it, anyway? Who are you seeing?”
“Nobody. Why do you care?”
“Because we’re friends. Best friends who used to tell each other everything.
It was always us against the world and now …
now it’s you and them.” He caught sight of a teenage boy, halfway up the fence and clinging to it like a monkey, and ran to him.
“Hey! Stop! Get down!” Miles grabbed the boy’s T-shirt and yanked him off the fence. The kid hit the pavement with a grunt.
“Dude!” protested one of the girls.
“Look,” Miles shouted to the group. “There’s no ghost, so I need everybody to gather around. We’ve got to get back to the square soon.”
As the group began to reassemble, Miles turned back to Ingrid. His voice was softer now. Pleading. “Who is it? Just tell me, so it doesn’t feel like we’re keeping secrets from each other.”
“I’m not keeping secrets—”
“So we can go back to normal—”
“It’s nobody.”
“Come on, Budgie.”
“Don’t fucking call me that anymore,” Ingrid hissed at him. “It’s what Edie called me. Not you. Never you.” She pushed the iPad at him, and he took it, drawing back with a hurt look on his face. She looked down at her phone, not caring anymore if he saw.
Meet me in the altar room, read Cas’s latest text.
“I have to go see somebody.” She took off, trotting in the direction of Monterey Square, feeling Miles watching her as she went.