Chapter 4

T wenty minutes later, after I had bargained with Johnny for more story time as an apology for ditching them, Harrow arrived in a rusted-out Chevy Chevelle with fat whitewall tires. To say that I heard him coming from a mile away was being polite. More like three or four. The throaty growl his new car should have had was more of a phlegmy cough with a hint of deathbed rattle.

Careful of the door, wary it might pop off its squeaky hinges, I let myself in and breathed the scent of old car left exposed to the elements to molder and rust.

From the dampness seeping into my shorts, I grasped why Harrow hadn't minded a sweaty rider.

The hand towel draped over the passenger seat wasn't enough to stop my clothes from turning soggy.

"Well?" He brandished his hand across his cracked dash. "What do you think?"

"Chevelles are gorgeous cars." I yelped when shutting my door caused the window to fall into the frame. "Uh, sorry about that." I searched for a seat belt, unsurprised it was missing. "Where did you find her?"

"Uncle Lyle owned some property over in Hardeeville. This was buried under leaves beneath a lean-to."

Hardeeville, South Carolina, was less than twenty miles from Savannah, Georgia, making the trip a short ride across state lines. Had I found this car, sure, I would have been tempted to restore her. I would not, however, have driven her with my fingers crossed she didn't drop parts behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs.

"She wouldn't be the first barn find to still run."

"I wasn't that lucky." He put the ornery car in gear. "I've been working on her."

That explained why he rolled up to flash his questionable ride. He was proud of her. Of himself too.

"You're a closet mechanic?" Knock me over with a feather. "I had no idea you were handy."

"Hmm." Humor seeped into his features. "Does this mean you'll offer me a job?"

With three employees on the payroll already, even if they all took turns using Matty's body as their own, I wasn't hurting for help. Plus, not that he was serious, but it was asking for trouble to hire an ex. I would deserve any trouble that came my way if I welcomed him underfoot, which he might view, eventually, as being under my thumb.

"I'm joking." He sobered after my awkward pause. "I don't have time for a side gig."

"It's not that," I lied through my teeth. "Do you hear a scratching noise?"

"Several." He let me get away with the fib. "I'll fix it later."

Ah, yes.

The catchphrase of every budding mechanic with their first project car.

"Let me know if you get stuck," I tossed out there. "Or if the restoration gets to be too much."

"I'm tempted to ask if I qualify for the friends and family discount, but I don't want to spook you again."

"Oh, please." So much for him buying my lame excuse. "I don't spook easy."

A low hum from him turned my head to stare out my window where he couldn't see the heat in my cheeks.

As the car rolled to a stop, Harrow angled his body toward me. "How do you want to do this?"

Share a city? Work together? Be friends?

At my blank expression, he tapped under his right eye. "I can't see the girl."

"Oh." I leaned forward. "Right." I chewed my bottom lip. "Turn on your hazard lights and roll slowly."

Tommy hadn't been specific about the location, and La Roche Avenue was just shy of four miles long. To further complicate the issue, the avenue was a stone's throw away from Skidaway River, Herb River, and Country Club Creek. That didn't touch on the unnamed bodies of water, runoffs, and culverts.

"That I can do." He put the car in neutral and allowed it to coast. "Holler if you see anything."

Twisting in my seat, I propped my forearms on the lip of my missing window and scanned the area, but I didn't expect us to get lucky on our first attempt. There was simply too much water and?—

A faint glimmer caught the corner of my eye, and I squinted into the darkness for a better look.

Wispy blue radiance shimmered, too far for me to determine gender, but it must be her.

"There." I pointed toward the bridge over Herb River. "Park on the shoulder, and I'll walk out."

" We'll walk out," he corrected me but did as he was told.

He met me at the hood of the car, and we went to greet the teenage girl I could now see was using a low-slung power line as a swing, swaying back and forth while her feet dangled mere yards above the river.

"Hi there."

The girl whipped her head around, lost her grip, and fell. Or she would have if the laws of physics still applied to her.

"Hello?" Waving her arms as she drifted over, she hopped on air like she was flagging down a ride. "Hello!"

For her to accept us with such naked hope in her eyes, Harrow's uniform must have put her at ease.

"Ouch." I rubbed my ears as she touched down on the road. "No need to yell."

"You can hear me." She shoved damp bangs off her forehead. "You can see me."

Beside me, Harrow followed my line of sight, but he simply watched and listened to me.

"I'm Frankie." I offered her my hand. "Do you know your name?"

Traumatic deaths often left amnesiac ghosts. That, or they produced vengeful spirits.

"Farah." She stared at my hand like it was radioactive. "Farah Kent."

Relief she wasn't Audrey collided with grief she had died so young, leaving me questioning how to proceed without upsetting her. I rarely bumped into freshies outside of cemeteries. Newly departed spirits tended to have some idea who they were and how they got there, so there was no harm in asking.

"What happened to you?"

"I have no idea." She raked more slippery hair away from her face. "I went to sleep, and then I woke up here."

Allowing my arm to fall to my side, I wished I had more training for this. "That's all you remember?"

"Yeah." She wrapped her arms across her stomach. "Am I…?" She rocked side to side. "Dead?"

"I'm sorry." I watched her nod, as if confirming what she already knew. "How long have you been here?"

"A few days?"

Uncertainty crept into her features, and so I prompted her. "What's the last holiday you remember?"

"We're not big on holidays." She rubbed at a hole in her shirt. "We don't have much to celebrate."

Intercepting an encouraging glance from Harrow, I dug deeper. "Who is we ?"

"The other kids." She kept it vague, but I sensed it was done on purpose and not a glitch in her recall. "I thought that might change this year." She half smiled. "My best friend moved in with us. We had these plans for Christmas but…"

"I'm sorry you won't get to see them through." I decided to jog her memory a bit, test the theory to make sure I could trust her intel. "What's your best friend's name?"

"Audrey." Her gaze slid out over the water. "Audrey Collins."

Two things convinced me that Farah hadn't lived on the streets for long.

She had taken me, a total stranger, at my word when I offered to help her.

And she gravitated toward Harrow, despite his being an authority figure.

That told me this girl had been raised to expect kindness from others and to believe there was goodness in the world. She also respected police officers. Anyone who had spent months or years sheltering under a cardboard roof or shopping for groceries in dumpsters behind restaurants had no trust in others or any faith in higher powers left in them.

Or perhaps I was superimposing my past experiences over hers.

We chatted for a few more minutes, long enough for me to grasp that Audrey was, for whatever reason, her unfinished business. I doubted missing out on holiday plans merited Farah sticking around, but I knew of souls who had stayed behind for less.

From where she stood, she grew brighter. "Can I come with you?"

"That's up to you." I didn't mean to sound flip, but I couldn't answer for her. "Spirits tend to be tethered to their bodies or where they die." Her frequent appearances here spoke to a connection with the area. "Do you want to give it a try? You're welcome to ride with us. I know somewhere you'll be safe."

Cemeteries held their own magics, and other people's graves could shelter her.

"I don't know where I died or where my body is now. I don't feel anything holding me here."

Extending my hand for a second time, I earned a smile when I focused until her fingers solidified in mine. I led her to the Chevelle, opened the passenger side door, flipped the seat forward, and guided her onto the backseat. "Ready to go?"

Jaw set, fingers sinking through the fabric, she nodded hard once.

Harrow, taking cues from me, climbed in and cranked the engine. Putting muscle behind it, I locked my seat into its original position. I slid in beside him, ignoring the squelch of fabric, and turned until I faced Farah.

"Go slow," I warned Harrow. "We don't want to give her whiplash if she's yanked back."

Maybe it was ignorance of her limitations. Maybe it was determination to be reunited with Audrey. Or it might have been that her body had washed so far from where she died, she had no trouble traveling the distance between them. Honestly? We had no way of knowing what enabled her to stick it out from that lonesome bridge all the way out to Bonaventure, but she managed without breaking a sweat.

After guiding Harrow into my usual parking spot, I climbed out of the car. "Can you guys wait here?"

"Sure," they chorused, though neither one heard the other.

How I let myself into the cemetery wasn't a secret from Harrow. Unfortunately. Which meant that there was no harm in climbing the fence as I had earlier and jogging off in search of a friend who tended to get lost birdwatching near the Heaven's gate-inspired monument atop General Alexander R. Lawton's grave.

Sure enough, as the Wilmington River came into view, I located a silvery figure standing at the bluff.

"Alyse," I called out to the woman dressed in a simple Victorian chemise. "Do you have a minute?"

"Frankie." Silky black ringlets slid over her shoulder as she turned her head. "How are you, dear?"

"I'm good." I rushed up to her. "I have a favor to ask."

"Of course." Her binoculars vanished as she took my hands in hers. "Name it."

"The Buckley Boys tipped me off about a drowned girl wandering La Roche. I'm not sure what happened to her or how long she's been dead. She doesn't know either. Without a body or a memory of her death to anchor her there, she was able to leave. With me." I massaged my knuckles. "She's, um, here now."

"I see." Her attention shot to a black and white bird on the shore. "You want me to shelter her."

The bird's distinctive red-orange bill and red-yellow eyes left the species tickling the edge of my memory.

"Your family has a mausoleum." A marble vault with wrought iron covering the doors and protecting the vivid stained glass windows in the back. "I was hoping you could make room for her, just for a few days."

"The stove hasn't been used in decades." She tracked the bird with avarice. "The basin is full of leaves."

Wealthy as her family had been, their mausoleum included space for visiting relatives to spend the night if the roads home were too dark or too long for them to return after paying their respects. In addition to space for a cot, there was a small woodburning stove with a chimney and a shallow basin for washing up in the corner. Amenities that, while luxurious, Farah couldn't make use of any more than Alyse.

"She won't mind," I promised her. "She'll be grateful for the shelter and the company."

A singular caw rose behind me, a warning before Badb graced us with her presence, landing on my head.

"Corvus brachyrhynchos." Curiosity honed her features. "Necromancers don't take familiars, do they?"

"She belongs to a friend of mine." I sidestepped the question. "I'm birdsitting her for a while."

"I had no idea we shared a hobby."

"Yes, well, my interest is recent."

"The girl may stay with me," she decided on the spot. "How can I say no to a fellow ornithophile?"

"Thank you." I reached up to stroke Badb's silky breast. "I'll be right back with Farah."

To the crow, after we left Alyse, I murmured, "I owe you a hotdog."

With her pleased chuffing in my ear, I returned to the Chevelle, happy to have solved one problem.