Page 69 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception

“Teddy is dressed like Wednesday Addams,” Hollis said. “It’s the wig with the braids that gave it away.”

“That was too easy, wasn’t it?” I picked up a plastic cup and filled it from the jug I had on the coffee table.

“I am a detective.”

When I handed him the cup our fingers touched and I yanked them back far too quickly to look anything less than insane.

“Abigail’s friend is getting married,” I suddenly blurted out. “Isn’t twenty-three a little young to get married?”

“Maybe her friend is older,” Maggie said with a shrug.

“Maybe some people are the marrying kind,” Hollis commented.

“What kind of people are we?” I mused. “Three singles sitting on a porch waiting for kids to beg for candy.”

“We speak for the dead,” Maggie said.

Hollis raised his cup in salute.

I realized that despite everything—the murders, the danger, the constant disruption to my quiet B&B life—I was actually looking forward to whatever came next.

Midnight House had chosen me to be its keeper, its voice for the voiceless, its champion for justice. And with Hollis beside me, Maggie as my backup, and Teddy as my early warning system, I was ready for whatever secrets were still waiting to be uncovered.

“As long as the dead don’t speak back,” I said.

Although, knowing New Orleans, that might be easier said than done. In a city where the line between history and legend was always blurry, where the dead seemed just as present as the living, maybe a simple life just wasn’t in the tarot cards.

We’ve. Got. Ghosts.