She thought of the different apparitions she’d encountered, and she knew that some were present and never appeared, some were like mist...and some had become so experienced at showing themselves that they could cause a great deal more than cold drafts or whispers in the night.
“Sage, we really need your help,” she said again.
The ghost seemed to step through her. Sage touched the mirror, but of course there was no steam. Jane quickly closed the door and ran the hot water in the sink, creating a vapor.
The ghost wrote, “Trey Hardy.”
It seemed to take all her effort. She wrote the name and faded away.
Trey Hardy, gunned down in his cell. Jane had to get to the Old Jail and into that cell.
*
Chet Morgan and Lamont Atkins were in town, in uniform, patrolling the streets on foot, making their presence known.
Sloan spoke with them both. They were worried, aware that Lily needed Silverfest even though the town had been plagued by murder.
“Bad days, Sloan, bad days,” Lamont told him. “But we’re watching everyone. And Newsome over at county has done his part. There are three officers, two men and a woman, keeping up with everything. So far, I’m feeling like a tour director, but that’s all right. No trouble happening here as I can see.”
Sloan started into Desert Diamonds next, but the place was overflowing with people and every step he took drew another question from a tourist or someone wanting to pose with him. He went back to the street and called Grant Winston, asking him to come out for a chat.
Sloan leaned against the post by the Old Jail Bed and Breakfast, playing his part as Trey Hardy. He didn’t mind being Hardy—he actually felt a certain kinship with the man. But his main goal that day was to interview everyone in town about Caleb Hough.
His call to Grant Winston had ruffled the man. He was extremely busy and delighted to be; these days let him stay open for the rest of the year. But Sloan was insistent, and Grant promised he’d go over to the Old Jail as soon as he could get his staff functioning smoothly.
As he waited, Sloan watched people move along the street and he listened to their conversations.
Some talked about leaving Lily then and there, despite all the festivities planned for the day; the news services had carried information about the murders that had occurred in the desert. But someone in the party would usually argue that the murders had taken place out in the desert and in a mine shaft, and had nothing to do with anyone in Lily.
“Drug-related, obviously!” one person said.
“We’re not that far from the border! It’s all about human trafficking!” another woman suggested.
Then they would stop to chat with him.
People asked him about the outlaw Trey Hardy, and he played his part whenever they did, telling them he wasn’t a bad sort at all. There were those who’d profited by war and those who’d been impoverished by it, and he just didn’t think it was right for people to make money on war.
“Still happening. It will always happen,” a man said.
He posed for pictures with kids, with young women and even the men—many of whom were walking around with the replica Western gunslinger pistols they’d bought at Desert Diamonds.
He studied every gun he saw that day.
As he’d promised, Grant Winston came out of Desert Diamonds, wearing the kind of apron an old-fashioned shopkeeper would wear.
“Sloan, what the hell? It’s the busiest day of the year!” Grant was obviously flustered and annoyed.
“I would have come to you,” Sloan said.
“I don’t want to talk in the store!” Grant protested.
“Because I want to ask you about a dead man?”
Grant’s ruddy face grew even redder. “Caleb Hough got himself murdered. I’m surprised his wife didn’t kill him long ago.”
That was a common assertion. “I heard you and Caleb had a big argument. Want to tell me about it?”
Grant Winston frowned and seemed truly perplexed. “First off, the guy never came to my shop. The wife and kid did—Zoe loves a cappuccino, and the kid came with all the other kids, bought pizza, looked through the magazines and books—but Caleb Hough never darkened my door. Then all of a sudden about a month ago he comes in and asks about my history books. I showed him where they all were, although a numbskull could’ve found them on his own. Then, about two weeks ago, he’s back, telling me I’m holding out, that I’ve got books I’m not selling. I told him I owned collectible books that no, I didn’t sell. He wanted to see them. I said no. Then I come in one day and he’s just let himself into my office in back and he’s going through my private collection! I told him to get the hell out—that everything I have has been republished over the years. He told me he’d pay me some ridiculous sum of money for my collection and I said, ‘No!’ I collect books because I love them. He told me that if I had any sense, I’d accept his offer or he’d see that I wound up being closed down. I said he could take his money and stuff it where the sun don’t shine and that I’d take my chances. That was the last time I saw him. And if you think I’d go crawl into a mine and kill someone because he was an idiot, you’re crazy!”