“I don’t know, Helen. I don’t like this. This is scary shit.”

“I have to keep looking. Try to find Ann’s children. I learned her daughter’s name: Gloria Gray. She was born in 1971, so she’d be forty-four now. I found her birth certificate but nothing else. She just kind of disappears. Fades into the thousands of possible Gloria Grays out there. The newspaper story covering the murder and the woman I met who runs the antique shop said that the children were sent to live with relatives. I need to figure out where they went, who took them in.”

Riley nodded, her face full of worry.

Helen looked at her watch. “I should get back to Nate. He doesn’t know I’m here. I was just supposed to make a quick run for finishing nails and more putty.”

“Just be careful,” Riley implored. “You and Nate both.”

. . .

Helen pulled into the driveway and saw a beat-up red pickup parked there. Then she spotted Nate sitting on the steps of the new house with Dicky Barns. They were each holding a can of beer.

“Oh shit,” Helen mumbled, hurrying out of the truck, carrying the bag from the building supply store.

What the hell was Dicky doing here?

Nate gave Helen a cold glance. “Helen,” he said. “Your friend Dicky brought back your phone.” Nate held it up to show her.

“My phone?”

Dicky nodded. “You must have dropped it last night.”

Helen held her breath.

“When you visited Dicky’s ghost-summoning circle,” Nate said, staring at her. His face was a blank slate.

She said nothing. Nate continued. “Dicky’s been telling me about his weekly gatherings. And about his father. About the white deer and Hattie.”

“I should go,” Dicky said, standing up, draining his beer, and carefully setting the empty on the step. “I just wanted to make sure you got your phone and that you were all right.”

“Thank you so much, Dicky. I’m fine. I’m…I’m sorry about last night.”

“No worries. Hope to see you again. We meet every Wednesday at eight,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Thanks for the beer, Nate,” he called as he got into his pickup. They watched him drive off.

Nate reached for the six-pack, cracked open another beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was what the new frugal Nate drank these days.

Helen braced herself for what might come next.

“I have never in my life felt like such a complete idiot,” he said finally, his voice low but furious, enunciating every word too clearly. “Holy fuck, Helen, how do you think it looked when this guy pulls up and introduces himself, tells me he met you at a fucking ghost-hunting circle?”

“I’m sorry. I—”

“You lied to me, told me you and Riley went out for dinner and drinks. Not to mention lying to the cop last night!”