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“Hazel?” I said, startled.

A nod. “Frank told me once that he’d sat with someone he respected and who shared his concerns. He spoke only in vague terms and definitely didn’t name any names, but I could guess. Your aunt had a way of seeing things. She came to visit me about three weeks before she died, and she brought flowers, just like you did.” Meg paused there to look at the autumnal bouquet I’d brought, blazing away in that carnival glass vase as if they’d always been meant to go together, and the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. “And she told me, ‘Meg, I know you’re carrying something heavy inside. I just wanted you to know that you’re stronger than whatever it might be.’ That was all — she excused herself right after that, said someone was waiting in the car and she had other errands she needed to run. After she left, I sat and thought about what she’d said. I think I started writing the letter for the third time the next day.”

I absorbed all this. Doreen had told me that she’d helped Hazel during the past year or so, driving her when she no longer trusted herself to pilot the big Cadillac around town. Had she been the one behind the wheel that day, waiting patiently while Hazel performed that very important errand?

Possibly, or some other neighbor or friend pitching in.

And then I realized this was what Hazel must have been talking about when she wrote something is different in her journal. Hazel must have realized that what she’d said had made Meg think about the situation differently, finally getting her to understand that the only way out of the mess was through.

In that moment, I also realized there hadn’t been any grand conspiracy. No one had murdered Hazel. She hadn’t written anything after that because she was waiting to see what Meg would do, and even though it sounded as if Hazel had been healthy and strong enough up to the end, “healthy and strong” at ninety-five was very different from what it was at thirty-five, or even sixty-five. Most likely, she’d been resting a lot those final days, and then one day she’d lain down and had never woken up.

Before I could say anything, Meg added, “Your great-aunt was a fine woman.”

“Yes,” I said, “she was.”

We chatted quietly for a while, not about anything consequential, just talking about when the downtown merchants’ association would start their holiday decorations and what the weather might be like for Thanksgiving, now only two weeks off.

Then I went home. Hazel was waiting in the parlor, as usual, and I told her everything Meg and I had discussed. She was quiet for a moment and said, “I thought I might have done something. I couldn’t remember for sure. Thank you, Lorelei.”

“You did do something,” I said firmly. “Don’t ever forget that.”

The next evening, I was working solo for the last hour we were open. Marco had to leave unexpectedly — his younger sister had a date go horribly wrong and needed him to go rescue her — and I didn’t see the need to have either Mason or Alix come in for just an hour. If it had been Friday or Saturday, maybe, but on a Monday, it wasn’t a big deal.

Father Frank was sitting on his usual stool, since the only customers were a couple around my age chatting at one of the tables near the front windows. I hadn’t seen him as much since Halloween, although he’d appeared here and there, enough to let me know he was still around.

Tonight, though, he looked different, almost peaceful, as if a weight he’d been carrying for a long time was finally gone.

“Lorelei,” he said, and I tilted my head at him.

“Father Frank?”

“I think it’s time.”

I didn’t ask him what he meant. After all, Hazel had explained to me that ghosts often moved on after whatever trauma or connection that had tied them to the mortal plane was finally resolved.

Instead, I came over and sat down on the stool next to him. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mack loitering at the other end of the bar, close enough to hear what we were saying but not so close that he was invading our space.

“I can feel the tether that held me here loosening,” Father Frank said. “My work is done — Meg has confessed, and Wes is facing his own destiny. The Padilla family has their answers, and whatever comes next is out of my hands.”

More than ever, I wished I could reach out and give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Since even that simple contact was denied me, I settled for what I hoped was an understanding nod.

“Hazel wasn’t killed, Lorelei,” he went on. “I want you to know that. I remember the last time I came to see her. She was tired, but she was also at peace. She was ready the way people often are at the end. I think she chose to stay because of you, but she didn’t die because of me. She died because she was ninety-five and ready to go.”

Some of which I’d already heard, or simply guessed at, but hearing him state the truth so plainly and calmly made a worried knot deep inside finally begin to loosen.

Tears burned in my eyes, and I blinked. So far, my two customers hadn’t seemed to notice my sotto voce conversation over by the bar, but if I turned on the waterworks, that might raise a few eyebrows.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, and he smiled.

“No, Lorelei…thank you.”

He got up from his stool and then paused to look around — at the bottles lined up in neat rows behind the bar, at the gleaming row of taps, at the hand-lettered chalkboard with today’s offerings. Then he glanced over at Mack, standing at the end of the antique bar, and finally back at me.

“This was a good place to end up,” he said. “I could have chosen worse.”

Another smile, and then he disappeared.

Oddly, the room felt different without him there. Not empty, not with Mack still down at the other end of the bar and that one couple deep in conversation at the table by the window, but lighter somehow, as if something heavy had been holding down the room’s energy and was now gone.