Page 2 of Ghost Business (Boneyard Key #2)

Two

Where in the hell had she come from?

Tristan turned his head to watch Sophie leave.

He couldn’t help it; he’d been drawn into her orbit from the moment she’d sat down, and now his head turned, the movement involuntary.

Her dark red turtleneck was formfitting without being aggressively tight, clinging to the dip of her waist where the sweater met the waistband of her jeans.

His fingers itched to explore that bottom edge of fabric, that dip.

But he made himself stay seated while she bumped the outer door with her hip as she shrugged into her coat.

The thud of the thick wooden door swinging shut behind her was like waking up from a dream.

Tristan liked flirting. He traveled a lot, and he’d gotten really good at it.

He liked pretty girls. He liked cute guys too.

But there had been something about Sophie.

The way her laugh felt like a reward, the way her smile was a place he wanted to sink into, get lost in.

It had been a long time since he’d seen a smile like hers.

He wished she’d stuck around longer, let him buy her that drink. He wanted to talk to her some more.

Because it had really sounded like she’d said she ran a ghost tour. And that couldn’t be right.

Tristan took a long sip from his second lager before setting it down carefully on the square coaster in front of him.

The coaster seemed superfluous; the bar he’d bellied up to earlier this evening had obviously seen some stuff.

The wood was weathered, pockmarked in places, with initials carved into it at one edge.

He really hoped that those crazy kids J.G. and M.L. had managed to make it work.

Across the bar, the house band, composed of what looked like retirees playing steel drums, had swung into the most bizarre cover of “Friends in Low Places” he’d ever heard. It was…loud.

That explained it. It was loud in here. Obviously, he’d misheard Sophie when she said she ran a ghost tour. Because Tristan knew better; there wasn’t a ghost tour in Boneyard Key, Florida.

He should know, because he was here to start one.

He’d done his due diligence. He always did his due diligence; it had been drilled into him, not only in business school but at his father’s knee.

Most kids had nursery rhymes; Tristan Martin grew up with phrases like “angel investors” and “balance sheet.” Before he’d even booked the flight to Florida, he’d researched the town of Boneyard Key.

He had one rule: never start up a ghost tour in a town that already had market saturation.

He’d learned that the hard way, and he still wasn’t welcome back in Savannah.

(Tristan hadn’t even realized that being run out of town on a rail was still a thing .)

His research on this place had turned up nothing.

Which made no sense—a ghost tour in the “most haunted small town in Florida” was a no-brainer.

But there’d been no website, no social media presence.

A couple mentions on Yelp or Tripadvisor, but in the context of another review: “got a cup of coffee here after the ghost tour,” that kind of thing.

And besides, those mentions had all been pre-pandemic, and how many small, tourist-centric businesses had gone under during those times?

But now here she was. All dark eyes behind big glasses and curling brown hair, not to mention the sweetest smile Tristan had ever seen.

Picking her way through a chef salad, making sure she got all the egg pieces, smiling at him in a way that made him think he had a chance.

Then she’d dropped that bomb on the way out the door.

There was only one thing to do now. Go after her.

Tristan signed his credit card slip but left the tip in cash—forty percent.

Those were some damn good oysters; he was going to be back.

Then he nodded his thanks to the bartender—a tall, dark, and handsome man with a chiseled jaw that reminded Tristan of a theatre major he’d dated briefly in college (yeah, he’d definitely be back)—and headed for the door.

As it closed behind him, the steel drum band faded to a background thrumming, just loud enough to beckon him to go back inside. Join the party.

But Tristan wasn’t in a party mood. Not anymore.

The humidity of the warm Florida evening hit him like a wet towel to the face.

Night had fallen in earnest while he’d been inside eating oysters and flirting with a pretty ghost tour guide.

Tristan looked up and down the street. How was he going to find her?

She’d said her tour was mostly downtown, so that was a good enough place to start.

He’d already walked Beachside Drive—the main drag in town—earlier today when he’d first arrived in Boneyard Key.

It hadn’t taken him long to fall in love with the place.

He’d felt his blood pressure lower the more he walked around the charming downtown teeming with souvenir shops, boutiques, coffee shops, restaurants, and an alarming number of places to get ice cream.

The sidewalks were wide, the vintage-looking buildings were painted in soft pastel shades, and the window displays invited slow, meandering strolls.

Heading north took you to a bend in the road to the right, past even more charming historic beach cottages to a fishing pier, complete with a bait shack that looked like something out of a postcard.

This wasn’t a downtown like a city. He certainly wasn’t in Chicago or New York.

Here, the streetlights that lined the main drag each boasted a white flag shaped like a cartoon ghost, fluttering gently if not at all spookily in the dark.

The glow of the faux gas-lamp streetlights recalled an earlier century.

A horse and buggy clattering down the street wouldn’t have surprised Tristan in the least.

He loved the look of this town. He’d been so excited when his father had mentioned the latest acquisition to his real estate portfolio: a beachside condo in a small Florida tourist town.

It was a modest investment, but guaranteed to turn a steady profit year-round.

The name of the town, of course, had sparked Tristan’s interest more than anything.

A tourist town, by the beach, that had a macabre-themed name?

Boneyard Key seemed like the kind of place that screamed for a ghost tour, and Tristan was more than happy to fill that void.

But apparently that void had already been filled.

So where was she? Tristan stopped on the corner, where a coffee shop named Spooky Brew was closed up for the night.

This was a downtown that rolled up its sidewalks after dark, even on a Friday.

Most of the souvenir shops were closed, but a couple of open restaurants dotted the landscape with glowing windows.

Up the street, another coffee shop had its lights on, but the Closed sign was flipped over.

Tristan hurried up the street, his own footsteps echoing back in his ears. How hard was it to find a walking tour in this town?

Just then, he heard a voice across the street.

“This was the mayor’s house for decades. But about thirty years ago or so, when a new mayor was elected, he moved in—and then moved out the very next day. Resigned his post too. They had to have a special election and everything.”

A thrill went up Tristan’s spine. He knew that voice. Sophie. He also knew that kind of cadence. He knew the sound of being followed by five to ten pairs of feet. He’d found her.

Of course, now that he’d found her, he didn’t know how to proceed.

Crashing the tour felt stalkery and unprofessional, but that was exactly what he needed to do.

There was no way he could hide among a group of six people, so he fell back a step or two, blending into the shadows between streetlights.

Sophie continued her story. “No one knows what exactly happened that night, but no mayor of Boneyard Key ever lived here again. The city moved the Chamber of Commerce here in the late nineties, and whatever spooked the mayor so badly seems to be okay with the new resident.”

She led the tour away from the house, and Tristan squinted at it as he followed along a few beats behind. It didn’t look like a haunted house—not that he would know, because haunted houses weren’t real. Neither were ghosts.

The tour paused at a vacant lot, not too far from The Haunt, where coffee and ice cream carts were closed up tight, side by side.

The tour gathered under the streetlight, and Tristan took the opportunity to duck behind the closed-up ice cream cart to stay out of sight.

“Now, there’s a little path here, between the dunes…

” She gestured just past the carts, to a sanded-over path that Tristan couldn’t see from his vantage point.

“If you go down that way, it takes you straight to the beach. A word of warning, though. If you decide to take a walk down there at this time of night, well, you may have company.”

He frowned. Sophie didn’t do things the way he did.

She wasn’t playing a character, adding a dramatic flair to her storytelling.

She wasn’t even in costume—just wearing the same jeans and sneakers she’d been in at The Haunt, same red sweater and blue peacoat that had been hanging on the back of her chair.

What was she thinking? She could be doing so much more with this.

Give the people a real experience , the way he did.