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Wendy watched her class of karate kids kick their way across her studio, and ignored Ariel MacLean when she stepped close enough to say, “Wendy, you’ve got that look.”

“What look?” Wendy said, deadpan.

“Like the dog who stole the ham off the Easter table and is waiting for all hell to break loose.” Ariel adjusted her ever-present leather shoulder bag.

“Hmm?”

“Forget that innocent expression. I’ve got three kids, and I’ve been to your parties before.” Ariel turned to her husband, county sheriff’s department deputy Dave MacLean, known across the county as Deputy Dave, and a good guy. “Whatever it is she’s cooking up, it’s your turn to be guinea pig.”

Deputy Dave wore street clothes, and his service weapon was nowhere in sight. He looked like the other dads when he said hopefully, “Maybe this time parents won’t be involved.”

Ariel snorted.

Wendy rubbed her palms together. “Deputy Dave will be perfect.”

The prospect of a party filled the karate students with extra energy, and that kept Wendy happy and distracted. She wasn’t heartbroken, not close to tears; she was simply still fighting the results of what had probably been a concussion. If this prickly sense of fear and anticipation didn’t ease soon, she would make an appointment to have her head examined . . . in every way possible.

In the last ten minutes of class, parents began to trickle in; the ones who were familiar with Wendy’s idea of fun wore puckish expressions, and the new parents picked up on the atmosphere and glanced around warily.

“Poor dears,” Ariel whispered to Wendy. “They look so confused.”

“Is it time, Wendy?” Roy was the seven-year-old, the new pupil, the one whose mother she’d seen only once, at his registration. “Is it time?”

Wendy glanced at the clock. “Almost.”

The kids stared at her pleadingly.

“We’ll quit a little early, but just this once.” The kids started to cheer, and Wendy held up one finger. “What do we do when we finish a class?”

The kids settled down, lined up, white belt to brown belt, bowed with their fist in their palm and said, “Thank you, Master Wendy,” in unison.

She bowed to them. “Thank you, students.”

They quivered, waiting for her dismissal.

“Okay!” She flung her arms in the air. “The party’s at the Vintage Gothic Encore Clothing Shop. Change out of your gi into your street clothes, and hustle down there with your parent. Don’t lose them on the way! When we’re all there, I’ll explain the party game.”

“Told you so,” Ariel said to Deputy Dave.

He lifted his hands in surrender.

Wendy waited until the children had galloped out in their street clothes and flung their gis into their respective parent’s arms. “Roy, are you with me?” she asked.

Roy came to her side and stuck. Although he was unusually gifted in self-defense, especially for a first timer, the boy was shy and uncertain, a good kid . . . but there was something twisted in his background. She knew. She recognized that he had faced uncertainty and fear at too young an age . . . as she had done.

Wendy led the families through the deep, damp, gray fog, down Gothic’s main, sloping, winding road to Minnie and Mabel’s shop. She stopped on the step, her hand on the door handle, waiting until the stragglers caught up with her. She was not at all uneasy about entering the venue of the old theater again. The fog was merely fog, the swirl of gray within the mist was nothing but a breeze off the ocean, and nothing in Gothic brought the dead back to life.

Sure, but the other parents glanced around uneasily and crowded together, gaining comfort from the closeness of friends and family. “The sign says Closed,” Ariel pointed out.

“Not for us,” Wendy said, and when she opened the door, everyone surged forward, enticed by the smells of popcorn, caramel and coffee.

Roy, too. Whatever fear stained his everyday life was vanished by light and the prospect of fun.

Wendy followed her class to find the lights bright and summoning them into the not-yet-bookshop half of the old theater auditorium, and when they passed through the framed-in arch and entered the game area, she breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Minnie and Mabel had done exactly as they’d promised—put the bags of props on a line at the far end of the shop and set up obstacle courses with shelves and boxes.

She directed a smile at the two sisters, seated on stools in the shadows.

This was good. This was great. Wendy was fine, not haunted by a memory that had never occurred. “Come on, kids!” She directed each student to stand with the sacrificial parent. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Ariel pushed her shoulder bag behind her shoulder and folded her arms over her chest. “Look at her smirk.”

“Be careful,” Wendy warned. “It could be you out here instead of Deputy Dave.” With Ariel properly subdued, Wendy ran through the rules. The anonymous brown bags each contained an article of clothing or a theater prop. Each child had to run the obstacle, grab a bag, bring it back and dress their parent appropriately.

The kids laughed and clapped.

The parents gave good-natured groans and said stuff like, “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“The good news is, because Roy’s parents couldn’t make it, I get to be his parent.” Wendy hugged the boy’s shoulders. “He will dress me.”

The kids cheered and high-fived Roy.

“That perks me up some,” Deputy Dave said.

She grinned at him; they were both Blazing Saddles fans.

Once Roy realized he got to make a fool out of his karate teacher, that perked him up, too, and Wendy felt an upswelling of appreciation for these kids, these parents, her job and her life in Gothic. Maybe she didn’t have Hugh, but she had created a satisfactory existence and if in the dark hours of the night she was lonely and cold, well, her classes and her friends made up for the lack.

Yet when she glanced toward the windows, the fog was out there, swirling with currents, and she tingled with anticipation. Not a good tingle; this was formed of heartbreak and blood loss and holding a man as he died in her arms. The fog had come for Hugh. Nothing could bring him back.

Roy slipped his hand into hers. “Wendy?”

She looked around, realized she had gone quiet, and rubbed her palms together in overacted anticipation. “Are we ready?”

The kids cheered again.

Ariel moved to Wendy’s side and in an undertone said, “This is going to make you smile like you mean it.”

“I’m happy!” Wendy snapped, then felt like a fool for reacting so vehemently.

“I can tell.” Ariel put an arm around her. “Look at what has arrived.”

“What?” Wendy barely breathed the word. She didn’t hope. She couldn’t imagine.

“That seriously ripped smoky beast.”

Wendy knew, knew, that the fog had not returned and brought a lost soul back from the dead. She didn’t believe in currents and legends. She didn’t even believe in head injuries that caused hallucinations so complete she could fall in love and break her heart all in one imaginary night.

But Ariel forcibly turned her toward the clothing side of the shop.

And Wendy saw him. Him.

Her lost love. The man who had caught her, kissed her, helped her, proved to be a hero and died because he wouldn’t allow a bad man to hurt a small child . . . and because she wasn’t quick enough to save him.

Hugh. Hugh stood framed in the arched entrance.