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“Gotta take this!” I called out to Roz. “It’s Detective Ruiz.”

“Go to the office,” she told me. “Marco and I can handle the crowd.”

I wasn’t completely sure about that, but I knew if I didn’t pick up, the detective would probably keep calling me until I did.

So I touched the screen to accept the call, even as I hurried into the office and closed the door.

“Lorelei Cosgrove.”

“Hello, Lorelei.” Ruiz sounded completely businesslike, and if he was at all pleased that the case had been wrapped up so quickly, he didn’t give any sign of it. “I just wanted to thank you for helping to solve the case.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, although I knew that reply was tinged with more than a little doubt. Joe Ruiz didn’t seem like the kind of guy to offer a simple thanks unless there was something else he wanted to say.

Which, of course, there was.

“However,” he went on, “you caused a good deal of unnecessary risk to yourself, and to Jude Marsh as well. There was no way you could have known a tense situation like that would have a positive outcome.”

“Well,” I said reasonably, “I was fairly sure Wes Lindley wouldn’t be there. And he wouldn’t have been, except Diane called him to tell him to come over.”

A brief pause as Joe Ruiz took a few seconds to process my rebuttal and decide on the best way to reply. “That’s neither here nor there. You should never have taken the risk in the first place.”

I could have continued to argue but decided not to, mostly because deep down, I knew he was right. Everything had worked out just fine, but I’d taken an enormous risk.

“Just don’t do anything like that again,” he told me.

“I won’t,” I replied, and honestly meant it. After all, I was fairly sure that I wouldn’t have to deal with any more murders after this.

“Hmm,” he said, by which I gathered he wasn’t sure if he believed me. However, he only added, “You have a good day, Ms. Cosgrove,” and then ended the call.

That was probably a good place to leave things.

Celeste showed up Sunday evening more or less on time, which for her was its own small miracle. She came up the front walk in a leopard coat and four-inch stilettos, a bottle of something sparkling in one hand and an overnight bag over the opposite shoulder, and when I opened the door, she looked me up and down like a medic checking for broken bones.

“Okay,” she said. “You’re vertical. That’s a start.”

“Good to see you, too.”

She dropped the bag in the entryway and pulled me into a hug that smelled like her usual cloud of Tabu and Aqua Net. Chauncey lost his mind at her feet, spinning in circles until she crouched down — no small feat in those heels — to let him snuffle her hand.

“Hey, you furry little sausage,” she said. Then she straightened and took in the entry hall, the dark wood, the staircase curving up into shadow. “This place is still gorgeous and still extremely haunted-looking, and I want the whole story of what happened.”

Upstairs, Hazel was keeping well out of sight. I’ll make myself scarce while you have company, she’d told me dryly that afternoon, since you can hardly introduce me.

I made good on the wine I’d promised — a bottle of Chupacabra I’d picked up at TJ’s — put out the cheese and crackers I’d bought at the same time, and sat down with Celeste in the front parlor. And then, because I knew my best friend wouldn’t let me wriggle out of spilling all the tea, I told her the story.

The ghost-free version, of course. I left out Mack and Father Frank and the great-aunt who was hanging around one floor up from where we sat, and what remained was still enough to make Celeste set her glass down slowly and send me a very direct look.

“Let me make sure I’ve got this,” she said. “You figured out that this guy murdered a priest. And then you drove to that guy’s grandmother’s house alone so you could talk to her about it.”

I shrugged. “Jude was at the end of the street, less than a minute away.”

“At the end of the street.” Celeste pressed her fingers to her temples, as if my revelation had brought on a sudden migraine. “Lorelei, I told you to be careful. If I recall correctly, I told you that exact thing on the phone not two days earlier.”

“And I was careful,” I said calmly.

Mostly.

She sat back against the couch, suddenly looking much smaller and more fragile than she’d been just a moment earlier. “You could’ve gotten hurt, and I’d have found out from a Google alert. Do you get how insane that is?”