“I hope that’s all it is, Willa,” Augusta warned. “I don’t want you going off on some wild investigation.”

“Who, me?” I asked as I slid my right boot off. “Never.”

Augusta laughed. “Okay, just be careful, then.”

“I will.” I snapped the phone shut and shrugged out of my coat, hanging it on the hook.

“So you didn’t find my killer yet?”

I whirled around, my heart seizing in my chest. The cell phone slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor.

Lavinia’s ghost sat at the oak claw-foot kitchen table, her hands folded in front of her as if she were waiting for me to serve tea.

“Lavinia! You scared the crap out of me.”

“Sorry, dear. I just wanted to catch up and see if you’d made any progress.”

I blew out a puff of air, picked the bag with the pie up and headed toward the fridge. On the way, I grabbed a tube of Iced Fire out of the basket I kept handy on the kitchen island. My leg was starting to hurt and I needed something to ease the pain.

“Myrna saw Ophelia Withington in town that morning.” I put the pie in the fridge, then sat across from Lavinia, pulling the chair next to me closer so I could rest my leg on it.

Lavinia pressed her ghostly lips together. “That woman! I wouldn’t put it past her to push me down the stairs.”

I raised my brow at her as I eased up the leg of my jeans. “You didn’t get along?”

“Not one bit. Oh, she was fine when she first came to town, but after Pete died she turned into a miserable witch trying to make everyone else around her just as bitter as she was.”

“So you think she did it? But why? Why would she be in the library?” I opened the tube of Iced Fire and rolled some of it onto my leg, the medicinal peppermint smell tickling my nose.

“I’m not sure … unless …” Lavinia’s voice trailed off.

“Unless, what?” I massaged my leg, the ache starting to disappear as the sensation of cold and hot from the Iced Fire worked its way into the muscle.

“No, I can’t say.” Lavinia shook her head. “Anyway she wouldn’t have any reason to be in the library. She’d already scoured it.”

“Scoured it? For what?”

“Oh, that’s not important. It has nothing to do with my murder,” Lavinia said, pushing herself up from the table. “You keep looking, and please do be careful. There may be danger about.”

And with that, Lavinia disappeared, leaving me staring at the empty chair across the table from me.

Her parting words caused a chill to run up my spine … Elspeth had said almost the same exact thing to me.