Good Lord, he’d been rude to leave her as he had without a word of thanks or farewell. He needed to be careful not to anger the ghost whisperer. She might be his one and only chance to be free of this accursed place.
Damn. Meredith blew out a breath. Daniel had popped out of the picture the moment the door opened to reveal John and Judy. How much had the two heard? Why on earth were they here?
“Sorry, Meredith. We’re light sleepers. We heard you leave the cabin, and curiosity got the better of us.” Judy surveyed the saloon. “I know there are ghosts here. I can feel them. Can you see spirits? Can you communicate with them?” Judy whispered. “We heard you talking to someone. Who is Daniel?”
If she denied the truth, they’d think she was delusional. “Yes, I can both see and communicate with the dead. I’m a ghost whisperer. I help confused spirits move on, and that’s the real reason I’m here this summer.” Well that didn’t sound pretentious or preposterous. She cringed inwardly. “It’s a family thing,” she added.
“She can help us, John.” Judy pulled out a chair and sat down. “I know she can.”
“Help you?” Meredith glanced at Judy and then at John, who remained standing. “How?”
Judy practically bounced in her seat with eagerness. “My great-great-grandfather mined here in the mid-eighteen hundreds, and he brought his wife and three children with him. They opened a diner in town. My great-great-grandmother and the children managed the diner while Frederick worked their claim.” She lifted her chin. “Frederick Klein’s ghost is here. We’ve been coming to Garretsville all these years hoping to somehow contact him and help him move on.”
“What makes you so certain he’s here?” Meredith peered around at the many spirits carrying on in the saloon. Might one of them be Judy’s ancestor?
“Frederick’s daughter, my great-grandmother, kept journals,” Judy told her. “Ellen wrote about a gang of murderous thieves who preyed upon the prospectors here in Garretsville. When one of the claims began to produce significant amounts of silver ore, somehow the gang always found out. They must’ve kept watch after that, because when the claimholders set out for town to bring their silver to the assayer’s office, they were ambushed, robbed, and murdered.”
“I see.” Meredith frowned. Daniel and his partner had suffered the same fate as Judy’s ancestor, probably at the hands of the same outlaws. Worse, she suspected the three spirits who’d visited her were the ghosts of the murderers. If true, the poor souls who’d been killed by the trio were likely forced to relive the horror of their deaths every year on the day they were murdered. She needed to break the cycle. “Ellen believed her father haunted Garretsville?”
Judy nodded. “She wrote about items flying off the shelves, doors and drawers opening and closing on their own, things being knocked over, stuff like that. Most convincing though was that her mother swore over and over that her husband frequently appeared to her. She and her family believed Frederick was trying to tell his widow something, and that’s why he remained in Garretsville.”
John finally took a seat. “Can you help Judy contact the ghost?”
“I’ll do my best.” Meredith rose from the table. “Let’s get some sleep, and we’ll talk more after we’re rested.” The entire situation had turned into a snowball racing down a hill, growing larger by the minute. Not only did she need sleep, but she also needed time to think about how best to proceed. The time had come to consult with her family.
“Thank you, Meredith,” Judy said. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
“No problem.”
As she and the Schultes walked back to the cabin, her thoughts went back to Daniel. She ached for the man whose life had been cut short. His reasons for not moving on were obvious. He’d probably vowed to send money home to his mother, or he’d promised to save enough to bring his family to the U.S. Perhaps if Meredith could find out what became of his mother and siblings, that might help him let go.
Their next encounter she’d take notes, get full names, dates, the parish and county of birth, and other pertinent information so she could do an ancestry search. She frowned. What if she dug up information that would torture him even more?
In that case, she’d keep the truth to herself and make up a plausible story about how his family had eventually overcome adversity and prospered. Daniel deserved peace after what he’d suffered, and she wanted to be the one to give him that gift. She no longer doubted he’d been the one whose plight had summoned her to Garretsville, and that meant she was the only one who could set him free.
He was the first ghost she’d ever met to affect her on a personal level. She found him and his story compelling. Oddly enough, she wanted to know more about him—who he’d been when living.
She groaned and rolled her eyes. More than likely her reaction to Daniel Cavanaugh had everything to do with loneliness coupled with the unusual circumstances leading her sisters to their husbands. Meredith was not like her sisters, and she needed to get her head on straight, out of the clouds, and back to reality—as strange as that reality might be.
Neither Grayce’s husband nor Regan’s had been dead when they’d met them. Daniel had been a ghost for far longer than he’d been alive. Besides, he’d already told her he wished for nothing more than to cross into the warm, beckoning light. She’d do her best to help him and all the other ghosties stuck in Garretsville, and then she’d go home and begin the fall semester, her savings account significantly diminished.
“The lights are on,” John said as they approached the cabin.
“They weren’t when you left?” Meredith asked.
“No.” Judy stepped up
