She laughed and told me to shut it.

All was quiet on the western front; she’d put Devlin to bed and had settled in with Night of the Hunter. Minerva was on edge in my absence. The dog paced the house, grumbling at doors, which while not completely out of character, sounded strident tonight. I didn’t utter my predictable advice to make sure the place was locked tight; crime doesn’t skip small towns, even placid whistle-stops like Tilson, blah, blah. I gave Meg my love and let her get back to that bad boy dreamboat, young Robert Mitchum. I walked to the hotel, naming the constellations as red blinking plane lights crawled beneath them. I also contemplated my luck in finding a woman who properly appreciated Robert Mitchum.

My room was dim except for a puddle of light in the mini-parlor. The silhouette of a woman stood in the corner where a large window overlooked the rear lot. I caught the slightest trace of ginger. My childhood rushed back. Tepora Coleridge favored a ginger scent and I remembered it from her hugs.

I nearly blurted, Mom? like a total rube, and flipped the wall switch. Bright light revealed where curtains gathered and bunched. Tracking right, I spotted a scented candle. Wisps of smoke coiled from its wick. The maid had replaced the towels and folded my discarded clothes. I remained motionless, processing a cascade of emotions and the wider implications.

It had been a while since I’d shed real tears. My throat burned and it was close for a moment. Meg was right; the docs missed something when they scanned my gray matter. An unclosing wound, a tumor, the ghosts of my sinful past.

■■■

I dreamed I was in colonial times, clad in my skivvies and carrying the boar spear that lies under the bed in my cabin in the real world. A blacksmith in Pawtucket had forged it per my unique specifications. Soldiers hunted me through a forest. Cocked hats, long coats, and muskets. I made my stand in a clearing. An officer on horseback emerged from the misty woods. He wore a crimson and bronze high school letter jacket. His face was rigid and pasty—a death mask. The horse’s head was skinned to the bone, glistening with blood. It snapped the air in anticipation of tasting mine.

I awakened, sweating, heart racing.

Be careful, Badja Adeyemi said. The laptop monitor faded and brightened, auto-playing a video I’d selected and then fallen asleep watching. Adeyemi whispered his warning to Sean, but the camera microphone caught it just fine. Ghosts, the both of them. Sean and Linda’s wedding day as documented by Sean’s father, Dr. Alex Pruitt, and his Handycam. Adeyemi, drunk as a lord, had pulled young Sean to the side for some avuncular tips on how to handle women.

Be careful, kid. She’s got a wandering eye.

The scene went to black and the speaker hissed.

CHAPTER TEN

June Adeyemi Pruitt lived alone in a historical neighborhood on the edge of town. Many of the houses were stamped with bronze plaques, designating their cultural import to the community. The Pruitt home was done in the Colonial Revivalist style; two stories plus an attic, painted white with lemon trim. It sat between similar houses; one brown, the other forest-green. Everybody shared a massive elm that towered over the rumpled sidewalk.