Dan arched a brow to Katie. She shrugged and rolled her eyes.

Still, she gamely launched into her best tour-guide voice. “What I know about the Medford Mansion is this. Jonathan Medford was in the Confederate military. The Union took the city in 1862. Jonathan had a beautiful young wife. She fell in love with one of the Union soldiers occupying the city. Maybe. Or maybe she felt she had no other choice than to give in to him, the man they called Beast Butler, a General Benjamin Butler who was running the city under his Union military. And for Southern women, it was bleak. If they mocked Union soldiers in any way, they could face punishments, be labeled as prostitutes and so on. Butler was reviled in the South, but he was an interesting man. He claimed he was for Southern rights and against Southern wrong. He was Union army all the way, but I doubt President Lincoln would have approved of some of his tactics. Anyway, Jonathan Medford’s brother, Isiah, heard about it. He was older, and he had made his fortune in real estate and cotton, neither of which was doing well then, but he lived—seething with indignation, I imagine—just a few blocks away from Jonathan’s home. One night he went to the house. There was an argument. The wife, the lover and the brother were all killed, and when he heard about it, Jonathan Medford walked straight into the enemy lines and a bullet went through his heart. The family is supposed to still lie in the little cemetery, but the vaults there are falling apart. There was no more family, there was a fire...and, of course, they were interred in a vault. And in time here, bodies are cremated in the intense heat. So the place just went to ruin, but people kept buying the land, I guess everyone planning to either restore and clean up or demolish the place. I’m not sure who owns it now. A holding company, I believe. But it is fenced off because...” She broke off, looking at Dan.

Brenda giggled. “Because a lot of people think mediums are crazy or the vampires in the city will use it for a ritual place or even some voodoo sect. That’s okay. I just want to be in the area.”

“I have a feeling the owners are also afraid of the liability,” Dan said.

“Well, of course. We don’t have to go in,” Brenda said. “We just have to get near.”

“And so we will!” Katie said cheerfully.

“Have you ever met anyone there?” he asked her softly.