“What are you talking about?” Jack asked, stepping between Marc and me.
“I’m talking about every single wire and cord that was ripped out of outlets and knotted so tightly, it’s going to take all day to straighten them out while I pay the actors and film crew to do nothing but sit around! And it’s her fault.” He stepped around Jack and stabbed his finger at me again.
“Now, hold on just a minute,” Jack said, his voice still pleasant but now holding a menacing note. “My wife had nothing to do with that.”
My blood warmed at Jack saying my wife.
“Right,” Marc said, sneering. “And I’m the pope. We all know what’s going on around here, and she needs to tell her little Casper friends to knock it off.”
“You know, Matt,” Jack said as he handed the children to me before moving toward Marc, “maybe if you were nicer to people, like your film crew, they wouldn’t feel the need to play pranks to piss you off.”
“My film crew is made up of professionals who would never jeopardize their jobs.”
“Fine,” Jack said, slipping on his jacket and zipping it up. “Tell Harvey and the other producers that a bunch of ghosts is responsible for holding up the production. Let me know what they say.”
He opened the back door and allowed Jayne and me to pass through before closing it behind us, JJ letting out another explosive gas attack at the last moment. I kissed him on the cheek in thanks.
After we dropped off the twins at my parents’ house, Jack drove us down Meeting Street to Cunnington Avenue and the front gates of Magnolia Cemetery. I always wondered if the nearly invisible street signage for the cemetery had been deliberately hidden to make it more difficult for tourists to find it. Despite the mosquitoes and the hard-to-find street signs, the thirty thousand burials—including many famous and infamous interred, and a real treasure trove of architectural monuments, natural vistas, and wildlife—made Magnolia Cemetery popular mostly with relatives of the deceased, taphophiles, and ghost hunters. And people like me who didn’t fall technically into any of those categories but who were dragged into the cemetery by people who did.
A smattering of rain sprinkled the windshield as we drove through the gates. I was almost glad for the rain, because it meant nobody was out walking who could hear the beat of the marching band drums from our cranked-up car stereo.
I kept my head down, looking at the map Veronica had drawn for me, thankful that I didn’t have to see some of the curious residents standing by their funerary statuary and the famed architectural beauty the cemetery was known for. Or peering at us from beneath the drapes of moss hanging from the outstretched limbs of the thick-trunked live oaks that shaded the dead in their sometimes restless slumber.
I leaned forward to show Jack where to go. “Veer right here on the main road past the Large Lagoon and head toward Mausoleum Road. Veronica says the plot isn’t far from the Hunley crew graves, so you can follow the signs. She’ll meet us there, so look for her car.”
My phone pinged with a text from Nola. Charlotte under clock again. Marc found her. Not happy. This was followed by an angry-face emoji blowing steam from its nose.
Ywo olsu? I didn’t bother to correct the typos since Nola was now an expert in translating my texts.
Fine. Beau here to pick me up. Same height so they had stare down. GL bit Marc and ended it. Good boy.
“It’s from Nola. Apparently General Lee bit Marc when he got a little feisty about finding the Frozen Charlotte. Not that I blame him.”
Jack looked at me. “You don’t blame Marc for being angry or General Lee for biting him?”
I grinned. “Both.” I read the text out loud to Jack and Jayne.
“Please tell Nola to let Beau know that I’m available for the rest of the year to drive her to school,” Jack said.
I put my phone down. “That’s a lot for me to type. Why don’t you just tell her yourself when you see her?”
He sent me a sidelong glance, then returned his attention to the narrow road heading toward the river, with the Ravenel Bridge visible in the distance. We spotted Veronica’s car pulled over to the side of the asphalt path and Jack slid into the space behind it. A blue egret stood in the marsh grass, unblinking in the rain that had begun to fall in earnest. Despite it being almost March, the mosquitoes were out in force, their numbers most likely matching those of the spectral inhabitants who were moving toward us from behind headstones and rising from the ground.
“Can you keep the music on?” I asked hopefully.
“I doubt Veronica would appreciate it.” Jack looked back at Jayne. “If anybody forgot bug spray, I have some in the glove box.”
“I’m good,” I said, remembering dousing myself with almost an entire can after I’d finished my shower.
“Same,” Jayne said, scooting over toward the car door. She reached over the back of my seat and squeezed my shoulder. “If it gets too much, let me know. I’m better than you at blocking out the noise. I just don’t want to do it now in case Adrienne has something to say.”
I nodded, smiling my appreciation.
Jack held a large black umbrella over Jayne as she exited the van, helping her stay dry until she raised her own umbrella. When he approached my side of the van, he said, “My umbrella is big enough for both of us, if that’s all right.”
I smiled up at him, smelling his aftershave and soap, and feeling much happier than any person standing in a cemetery in the rain had a right to feel. My smile slipped slightly when I saw Michael exit the car with Veronica. It wasn’t that I disliked him. It was just that I felt a resentment toward him because of his impatience with Veronica about her unwillingness to move on. I suspected he’d never lost a loved one, which would account for his inability to understand, but in my opinion, he’d been married to her long enough to have learned how.