“Did you find...anything? Tracks?” she asked, hoping they’d found something to prove that it hadn’t been Megan’s ghost. Something tangible. Evidence to put an end to this.
“It was impossible to track anything in the dead pine needles,” Finn said, dashing her hope.
“Did you see her again?” Jen asked as she, Shirley and Patience joined them.
Jason shook his head and looked at Finn. “You should have seen her,” he said, still sounding overly excited. “I heard Shirley cry out, and I turned, and I saw her blond hair, the white dress, the stains on it. I know it was for only a second as she ran through the pines, but her hair and that dress... It was Megan.”
Casey scoffed. She had no idea what they’d thought they’d seen, but it wasn’t Megan’s ghost.
“Why are you questioning this?” Jason demanded. “We aren’t the first to see her. Megan’s ghost put this hotel on the map for your grandmother.”
Casey bristled. “If you’re about to say what I think you are...”
“Easy,” he said, raising both hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, it was to your grandmother’s benefit to have a ghost, for people to see a ghost. You know how people are. Admittedly, it can be a type of fanaticism. But what I just witnessed was her ghost, and I wasn’t alone.”
She looked to Finn. He had a strange expression on his face as if deep in thought. He really wasn’t buying into this, was he?
CHAPTER TWENTY
SHIRLEY HAD COMPLETELY forgotten about Megan—until she saw her ghost. She’d been having fun, drinking more than usual and no longer worried about the motel. It would still be there when this weekend was over.
This was her first vacation in years. She refused to feel guilty about it. So she’d been in vacation mode, enjoying herself, feeling freer than she had in more than a year. Then she’d seen Megan’s ghost moving through the woods.
She’d almost peed herself. Her heart was still a sledgehammer in her chest. She felt dizzy from the booze, from the terror. She’d wanted to run, but her legs were water under her.
When Jason and Benjamin had raced into the woods, she’d stood frozen by the fire, blinking into the darkness, terrified that she would never see them alive again.
“I knew that bitch couldn’t be killed,” Jen said next to her now. “She’s like a damned vampire.”
She glanced at her friend. She’d noticed earlier that Jen had been shaking as hard as she’d been. But with Jen, she realized now, it had probably been with excitement rather than fear.
While she suspected the others hadn’t wanted to see Megan’s ghost any more than she had, she wasn’t sure that was the case with Jen. Each night Jen had dressed up to stand by a campfire as if waiting for the dead woman to appear like she had an old grudge to settle.
Shirley glanced at Jen, wondering again why they were friends and why she was still here. She would feel the initial shock and terror slowly crystallizing into something no less scary.
“What if Claude and Devlin are dead?” Shirley asked, her voice breaking. “What if Megan—”
“Megan didn’t kill anyone,” Finn said. “It wasn’t a ghost.”
EVERYONE TURNED TO look at him, including Casey.
“But I saw it, too,” Benjamin said. “Not that I believe it was her ghost.”
“Then what was it?” Jason demanded, sounding almost disappointed.
“I don’t know who it was,” Finn said, locking his gaze with Casey’s. “It could have been Claude or Devlin.”
Jason shook his head. “You didn’t see her. I did. The ghost had the body of a woman—not either of those men.”
Finn wished he had seen her. He told himself that if someone tried this again, he wanted to be there. Next time he would catch them.
“What is that?” Casey asked as she motioned to what he had in his hand, his fingers running over the fibers subconsciously.
He held out his hand so she could see it in the firelight. “This was caught on a branch.”
Benjamin gasped as he saw what it was, then began to laugh.
“It’s a lock of her hair?” Jason cried.
Finn shook his head. “It was just someone wearing a wig and a white dress. I found blond synthetic fiber caught on a tree limb.”
“What?” Jen cried. “You mean Megan’s blond hair wasn’t even real?”
It took a moment before anyone laughed.
“It’s not real hair,” Finn said, showing it to Benjamin. “I suspect it’s from a wig.”
Benjamin tentatively felt a strand. “He’s right. It’s synthetic.” He sounded more than a little relieved.
Jason swore. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because whoever you saw, it wasn’t Megan,” Finn said.
“Obviously,” Patience said. “She’s dead.”
“Nor was it her ghost,” Finn said. He saw lightning flicker over the mountains and heard thunder. The storm would be moving in soon. “It was just someone who wanted us to believe it was her.”
“Why would someone do that?” Shirley asked.
“To scare us,” Patience said. “It worked, didn’t it?”
“You’re drunk,” Jason said to her as he slung his arm around her. “We should go inside. I have something in mind. For all of us,” he added quickly as Patience shrugged off his arm playfully. Jason grinned. “I found an old Ouija board.” There was a groan from the others.
Finn saw Casey looking at Jason with an intensity he recognized. “You’re taking this well,” she said.
Jason looked up at her in surprise, his gaze locking with hers. “What? The storm?”
“Megan’s so-called ghost,” she said, clearly angry. “This is the kind of stunt you would pull. Who’d you get to help you? Claude? Devlin? Some barmaid from town?”
He held up both hands, but he was grinning as he said, “You give me too much credit.”
Finn witnessed the exchange between the two of them as the first raindrops began to
