Then, as though night had suddenly turned into day, I was blinded by light. Pain shot through my eyes, and I lifted my hands to shield them. A deep voice broke the silence. “Lucinda Lorca, I am arresting you for the murder of Helena Sanchez. Anything you say—”
“What? You can’t arrest me. Those people attacked me. It was three against one. I didn’t—”
Butch Greenblatt pulled Lucinda to her feet, and Holly Rankin snapped handcuffs on her as Sam Watson continued giving the warning. At an unseen signal, blue and red lights flashed, and sirens screamed through the row of trees as police cars sped to the scene.
Lucinda recovered her wits quicker than I would have expected her to. “It was a trick,” she yelled. “They wanted to play at having their silly séance, and I decided to play along so we could get this nonsense over with and go back to town. You have to believe me, Detective. I knew that woman wasn’t Helena’s ghost. I’m not that stupid.”
“We’ll sort it all out downtown,” Watson said.
Tina stepped in front of Lucinda. Holly Rankin braced herself to intervene. Tina’s lip was cut, her face battered, her nose bleeding, and she’d have a couple of impressive black eyes tomorrow, but she gave the other woman a big grin. Lucinda made no move toward her, but simply studied Tina’s face for a long time before saying, “You’re Helena’s sister.”
“Identical twin. When we were kids we had great fun pretending to be each other. Our parents hated that.”
Butch hustled Lucinda, still proclaiming her innocence, across the lawn to a police car discreetly parked in a copse of trees in the loop at the end of the laneway. More uniformed officers ran up.
“What took you so long?” Bertie said to Sam Watson. “Lucinda turned into a mad woman. Tina might have been killed. Lucy might have been killed. We couldn’t see a blasted thing.”
“Sorry,” Watson said. “We must have gotten turned around in the dark. We were at the other end of the boardwalk when we heard the screaming.”
“Nice diversion, Louise Jane,” Tina said. “If I didn’t know you were an old fraud, I’d have almost thought you were onto something with this ‘summoning the spirits’ stuff.”
Louise Jane sputtered, but she decided she had other people to be angrier at than Tina. “Sam, what are you and your lot doing here? Bertie, this is all your fault. I told you not to involve the police.”
“It was more my doing,” I said. “Of course I involved the police. Didn’t you hear? The rest of us did. Lucinda confessed to murdering Helena.”
Louise Jane took a step toward me. The look on her face was positively murderous, and I was glad Connor stood next to me and we were surrounded by police officers. “You have completely ruined the mood. They were here. I know they were. I felt them. They were coming. They wanted to talk to me. For once, just once, the marsh spirits wanted to talk to me!”
“That was the entire point, Louise Jane,” Bertie said calmly. “It was your idea originally, and Lucy and I ran with it. We knew Lucinda would be scared of contact with real spirits and thus ready to be frightened when she thought the ghost of Helena was confronting her. We considered going ahead with your plan to let the spirits tell us what happened, but I pointed out to Lucy that Sam could never take that to court.”
“Got that one right,” Holly Rankin muttered under her breath.
Louise Jane huffed, but some of the anger faded from her eyes. “You could have told me what you were up to.”
“I considered doing that,” Bertie said, “but we needed your total concentration to ensure the mood was absolutely perfect.”
“Natural enough, I guess,” Louise Jane said. “I’m always happy to be of help.”
“To create a distraction anyway,” Tina said, “while others do the real work.”
“You are not helping,” Ronald said.
“Not trying to,” Tina replied.
“The resemblance is uncanny.” Shelia stepped in front of Tina and peered into the woman’s face. “I’ll admit that, but I wouldn’t have been fooled so easily.”
“Okay, Lucy, you’re forgiven,” Louise Jane said. “The energy here tonight is awful powerful, and I’m sure I can do something to salvage it. Sam, you’ve got what you need. Get your people out of here and move those lights. Turn off the sirens too, will you? I’m going to try again. I can’t leave things like this. The spirts don’t like to think they’ve been tricked. Everyone, resume your positions.”
“Are you kidding me?” Mary-Sue said. “I scarcely know what’s happened here, but whatever it is, I’ve had enough of it.”
“That goes for me as well,” Ruth said. “Do you need me any more tonight, Detective?”
“I’ll have to take your statements before you leave,” Watson replied. “Bertie can we use the library?”
“Of course,” she said.
Connor groaned.
“What brings you here tonight anyway?” Watson asked him. “When Lucy called me, she said they were going to attempt to reenact the events of Friday, but you weren’t part of this group originally.”
“I wanted to talk to Lucy.”
“What about?” I asked.
“It’s private,” Connor said.
“Can it wait?”
“It’ll have to,” he said, “although I’m starting to give up hope that the right time will ever present itself.”
Louise Jane threw up her arms. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Connor. Just come out with it and ask her to marry you and get it over with. We’ll all pretend not to be listening.”
Louise Jane and her stupid, inappropriate jokes.
I looked at Connor, ready to laugh along with him. Instead, the look on his face had my jaw dropping and my heart fluttering.
He took both my hands in his. He stared into my eyes.
My heart stopped. I stared back.
“Lucy.” He cleared his throat. “Lucille Richardson, you’ve been the light of my life since I was
