"I'm glad to be getting out, too," Taryn admitted. "I've only been getting out of the house to teach and grocery shop. I'm starting to go a little stir crazy back there by myself."

"Don't you get, like, scared or anything?" Lindy asked with interest. Sitting so close to her, Taryn was breathing in her strong scenta mixture of cigarette smoke and some pop star's perfume. It reminded her of how Matt always said smoking was a dating deal breaker for him, no matter how much he liked the woman, and she was suddenly filled with a longing for his OCD ways.

"I don't always like being by myself," Taryn admitted. "And you know how it is. You start hearing every little noise. I leave the TV on a lot."

"s.h.i.t, I couldn't last a night out there," Lindy swore. "Better you than me."

"You couldn't last a night anywhere that was more than a five-minute drive from Taco Bell," Emma teased her and Lindy laughed. "Seriously. We went camping once and after about an hour she was begging Cheyenne to drive her to Wal-Mart. She didn't need anything; she just wanted to walk around."

"I like Wal-Marting," Lindy shrugged.

"I didn't think you guys knew her that well," Taryn countered lightly.

"Yeah, well, we were all friends back in middle school and our freshmen and soph.o.m.ore years. We've only got the one middle and high school here and, like, three elementary schools. So we all knew each other. Technically."

"But we hadn't been friends for a while," Lindy added. "Cheyenne started dating a guy named Stuart when we were soph.o.m.ores. He was a real a.s.shat. She didn't have much time for friends after that."

"Just too busy dating?"

"Nah. He didn't like us. He said we were too loud and trashy."

"Lindy, he didn't say that," Emma admonished.

"Yeah, well, I'm paraphrasing, okay?"

"He was kind of different," Emma explained. "He was two years older than Cheyenne. Real smart. Took cla.s.ses at the college when he was still in high school. Made fun of country music because he said it was 'redneck.' Only wanted to watch things like doc.u.mentaries and serious movies. I think Cheyenne started dating him at first because she was so flattered he liked her. And he had a car."

"So what happened to him?"

Emma sighed. "He went up to Duke on some kind of academic scholarship and broke up with Cheyenne two months later. His parents moved to Virginia the next year and n.o.body has seen him since."

The doublewide they pulled up to was one of the fancy ones, designed to look like a log cabin. The porch boasted a standalone swing, pots of dead flowers, and a menagerie of children's toys. "My mom babysits during the day," Lindy explained as Taryn got out of the truck to let her slide across the seat. "Come on, you can come in. I'll just be a sec, and it's too cold to sit out here."

There was total chaos inside, with a horde of toddlers chasing a red dachshund through the living room. They appeared to be trying to tie a bonnet on his head. When he dove under the couch they began working together as a team to coax him out. At the sound of the door shutting, a tall thin woman with wild, s.h.a.ggy black hair and what looked like chocolate frosting coating her white T-shirt came out of the kitchen.

"Sorry," she called over the noise. "Didn't hear you guys pull up."

"What?!" Lindy shouted in a decibel level Taryn thought unnecessary.

"Julie!" Lindy's mother raised her own voice. A plump young woman ambled into the living room, a look of frustration on her face. "Take them to the playroom so that I can hear myself think."

Within seconds the kids were rounded up and marched down the hallway, the room almost immediately quiet. "I hired her to help but she don't do a whole lot," she complained as she cleared off a s.p.a.ce of toys on the couch and flopped down, the springs creaking under her. "You guys want anything?"

"I'm just here to get my purse," Lindy muttered before stalking off, leaving Taryn and Emma alone.

"I'm Bonnie," she introduced herself at last. "Welcome to the nuthouse."

"It's lively," Taryn bubbled, trying to maintain a smile. Since every other available surface was littered with either toys, baby wipes, or random articles of clothing she perched on an armrest.

"Yeah, well, I get disability but it don't cover s.h.i.t anymore, not with the price of gas and everything else going up. My water bill was almost forty-five dollars last month. Who can afford to pay that? The babysittin' money's my spending money."

"I hear that," Taryn agreed. "Everything's getting higher." Although her water bill in Nashville averaged around thirty dollars a month, and she lived alone and was rarely ever even there.

"Are you feeling okay, Mrs. Clifton?" Emma asked politely.

"Oh, it's my back mostly. But then sometimes it starts in my legs, too, and that makes it tough to walk around," Bonnie crowed, a sorrowful look immediately creeping over her face. Still, Taryn got the distinct feeling she enjoyed talking about her ailments. "I was in a wreck a few years ago and it messed me up. And now I got this arthritis on top of things," she explained to Taryn.

She didn't think Bonnie looked a day over forty, but she carried herself like someone much older.

When Lindy came back into the room she sported an over-sized Ed Hardy purse and matching cell phone case. "Have those little brats been going through my s.h.i.t?" she demanded, glowering at her mother.

"I tried to keep them out of there, but I can't be everywhere at once," Bonnie whined.

"I had perfume spilt all over my dresser, and there's something brown and sticky on my comforter," Lindy complained. "And I am not cleaning it up."

"You know," Bonnie began tragically, her eyes looking down at the laminate hardwood floors as she slowly shook her head back and forth. "Your uncle had cancer and died just three months after being diagnosed."

"What the h.e.l.l does that have to do with anything? It was two years ago," Lindy balked.

"It's just a reminder that some people have bad things going on in their lives and you'd best remember that before you start complaining about little things."

"That perfume cost me sixty dollars!" Lindy's screech cut through the room like a knife, and Taryn jumped a little, feeling embarra.s.sed to be subjected to the drama.

"I read on Facebook today that Janine Evans' daughter was in a car crash last night and is still in ICU," Bonnie continued, like she hadn't heard her daughter.

"Who's Janine Evans?" Lindy's look of confusion almost had Taryn laughing, but she thought better of it.

"You know. I went to high school with her that year my family lived in Atlanta? She sent me a friend request back last spring."

"Oh my G.o.d," Lindy muttered. "Let's go." Swinging past Taryn and Emma she was out the door and on the porch before Taryn could even get up.

"It was nice meeting you, and I hope you feel a little better later," Taryn spoke politely to her hostess.

"Oh, I don't know. Seems to get a little worse every day," Bonnie sighed with regret.

Back in the truck Lindy was still complaining about her mother. "She does that too me all the time. Totally interrupts me with random c.r.a.p about people I don't even know. She refreshes her Facebook news feed every fifteen minutes to keep up with people she hasn't seen in twenty years."

"How bad was the car wreck she was in?" Taryn asked.

"Oh, h.e.l.l. It was a fender bender. And she was pulling that disabled s.h.i.t long before," Lindy declared with a sigh.

A crackling fire was roaring in the Cracker Barrel's dining room, and the perky waitress seated them in front of it, much to Taryn's delight. She was freezing, thanks to the lack of heat in Emma's truck, and wished she'd worn something warmer.

"So I've told Lindy about what you do," Emma confided to Taryn after they'd all ordered off the breakfast menu and were sipping on their root beers. "You know, the ghost stuff. She knew about the painting."

"Don't worry, I don't think you're a freak or anything," Lindy laughed. Like a lot of girls her age, she had the talent of being able to text incredibly fast on her iPhone and still manage to remain an active partic.i.p.ant in the conversation.

"Well, that's good," Taryn mumbled. She still wasn't real comfortable with people knowing about her and Miss Dixie, although since working at Griffith Tavern there had been quite a bit about the stuff that went on there, including her part in it, written online. She couldn't escape it.

"So back to you staying out there by yourself," Emma began. "Have you seen or heard anything scary?"

A little nagging sensation at the corner of her brain kept her from spilling the beans about the noises and what she'd experienced on the porch. So she lied. "No, nothing spooky."

"I think Thelma is hoping you'll pick up on something to do with Cheyenne," Lindy explained. "I'm sure that's why she put you out there instead of at a hotel."

"Or because they own the place and it was free for them," Emma frowned at her friend.

"You think she thinks it because Cheyenne was there that night?" Taryn asked. "I mean, from all accounts, she was also at her friend's house, and that was later in the night."

"I don't know," Lindy shrugged. "She's probably just grasping at straws, you know?"

"I would be, too, if it were my daughter," Emma put in softly. "So have you come up with any new ideas you could share with us? You know, about what happened?"

"Not really," Taryn answered honestly. "It all just seems to be all over the place, you know what I mean? Was it drug related? Did she run away? Was it the friend? An accident? A total stranger?"

"Human trafficking," Lindy added.

Emma c.o.c.ked her head and glared at Lindy like she'd sprouted another mouth. "Really? Here?"

"Hey, it's everywhere now man," Lindy replied with heat. "I watched a Lifetime movie about it and everything. And we are right off the interstate. It could happen."

"It seems to be a thing now," Taryn agreed. "Even police can't rule it out in missing person's cases anymore. Especially when it's a missing female."

"When we grew up here it was totally safe. I rode my bike everywhere. We walked to each other's houses, played outside after dark," Lindy reported wistfully, her eyes taking on a dreamy look and her face softening until she magically looked years younger, and Taryn could almost see what she might have looked like as a little girl. The waitress came back, her arms laden with food. She began doling it out in front of the women. "It's not like that anymore."

"Now kids don't even go trick-or-treating like they used to because everyone is so afraid," Emma ranted, getting worked up. "They get a bunch of businesses and line them up downtown and then march the kids through. They get a lot of candy, but there's so many kids they don't even get the chance to say 'trick-or-treat.'"

"That's sad," Taryn murmured, now feeling a little depressed. She'd mostly grown up in a subdivision outside of Nashville and she, too, remembered playing outside after dark and riding her bike down to the corner store to buy pop and candy bars alone.

"It's just not the same world anymore," Lindy complained through a mouthful of hash brown ca.s.serole. "You can't trust anyone."

Despite the fact Taryn was having difficulty sleeping in the house alone, when 10 pm rolled around she found herself dragging her tired feet up the stairs and collapsing into the bed. She'd spent nearly all day with the girls, being dragged first from one store to another and then to the movies. They might have been ten years younger than her, but it was the first time she'd really felt like she had girlfriends and the warm, tingling feeling of limited acceptance flooded through her like wine.

"High school would've been so much better if I'd had girlfriends," she muttered as she slid under the covers. Taryn had always been jealous of the girls who had best friends and a close circle of friendspeople they could confide in and giggle with and act silly with. Television shows like s.e.x and the City depressed her and even though she couldn't stand Carrie Bradshaw she found herself unable to take her eyes away, not because she liked the romance or tawdriness but because she was jealous of the relationships between the four women. Sure, Matt had always been there for her and was the greatest best friend one could ask for, but at the end of the day he was a dude and there were some things she just couldn't share with him. She'd found that out in high school when she'd confided she'd lost her virginity and he'd refused to talk to her for a month. She now saw that for what it wasjealousybut at the time all she'd felt was embarra.s.sment and hurt.

Because she spent so much time on the road she didn't have the opportunity to make lasting friendships as an adult. Her first few years after college were spent with Andrew, ensconced in marital bliss. Andrew was likable and friendly, but they didn't have "couple" friends together, just acquaintances they mostly met during jobs. After his accident she'd delved into her work and stayed gone as much as she could. She didn't even know her neighbors back at her Nashville apartment.

As she drifted off to sleep, the sound of the television in the bedroom turned softly to a crime show, she let herself think of the group of kids who'd grown up there in the town. What must it have been like, going all the way through school with the same group of people? To have folks know your name in almost every business you walked into? To have that feeling of being known by everyone, even if those people weren't your friends? Was it comforting? Stifling? At the moment, it sounded nice.

Something was in the house. Taryn's eyes flew open at the sound but still she laid in bed, her heart racing in her chest. She didn't move a muscle as she trained her ears to the dark. The television, set to a timer, was off. The low rumbling of the heater was now the only noise pulsating through the air.

Still, she'd heard something.

By turning her head a little to the left she could see the clock on her nightstand. The red numbers flashed 3:15 am. I should've known, she thought to herself. Taryn had a tendency to wake up, unprovoked, at the same time on a regular basis.

The air around her was still, almost unnaturally so. Again, she strained her ears to pick up the sound that had awakened her, but all she could hear was the sound of her own labored breathing and the pumping of her heart in her ears. Calm yourself, calm yourself, she chanted in her mind. She would not give in to a panic attack. Taking a deep breath she held onto her air for several seconds, hoping to hear something. When she thought she would burst, she let it out. Of course if she tried to hear a sound she would. That didn't mean anything was there.

Angry at herself for getting scared and disgusted with feeling like an idiot, she sat up in bed and stared into the darkness. She could barely see her hand in front of her face, but there would be a lamp on downstairs if she wanted to get up. But something made her stay. The darkness pressed in around her, a wall, and kept her rooted to the bed. Her blankets, bunched around her hips, were a shield and she wasn't ready to let them go. Although the night was silent, and she was certain she'd locked all the doors, every nerve in her body was on fire, all going a million miles a second. If she touched something she expected to see sparks fly.

She might be scared, but she wasn't crazy. Something wasn't right.

Before Taryn could make a move, the noise came again. It was a definite creak, the sound of weight on a floorboard. The movement was hesitant, testing. She knew then, that what she'd heard had been real. She was aware of something downstairs and, whatever it was, it was equally aware of her.

Taryn's overactive imagination immediately went into high gear. The creak was close, at the bottom of the stairs perhaps. A quick-moving figure could be to her in a matter of seconds. She had no gun, no knife, or weapon of any sort. It was so dark in the room she'd fumble grasping for something to use as one. Maybe the lamp? But how could she find it? She didn't know where the plug was. Why had someone come in on her? What did they want? Were they there to kill her? Rape her? Worse? (And what was worse?) Slowly, holding her breath, Taryn rose to her knees and shed the blanket. It dropped to the floor in a soft thud. Her weight shifted the box springs and as a small groan escaped from them, the creak came again, this time louder. Was it closer? Was it on the stairs?

Suddenly, Matt's face appeared behind her eyes, his dark eyes flashing at her. She wanted to cry out for him, reach for him, but he was far away from her. She was on her own.

And then, as her phone on the nightstand let out a shrill call, she realized she wasn't. Grabbing it in relief she flipped it open to the sound of Matt's voice. "Are you okay?" he asked with urgency. "I-"

"Oh, good!" she cried into the phone. "I thought maybe you'd given up on coming tonight because it was so late!"

With newfound energy, Taryn pounced off the bed and fumbled for the lamp switch. The bedroom was filled with a soft glow. It was quiet downstairs, listening.

"What?"

""So you think about five more minutes?" she asked loudly. "Oh, you can see the driveway? I'll go ahead and get the coffee started." She laughed at herself then, and the fact neither one of them drank coffee. It sounded so absurd.

"Taryn? You want me to call the police?"

"Yes please," she nearly sobbed. "That would be great!"

Moving quickly to her door she pushed it to with an urgency and force she didn't know she possessed and then dragged the small office chair and placed it under the k.n.o.b. She knew then her activity meant she couldn't possibly hear what was going on beneath her, but she didn't care. She would be safe for a few minutes.

"Calling now," Matt vowed. "Using the landline. Stay on the phone."

"Okay." She cried now, sliding down to the floor at the foot of the bed. "Please hurry."

Matt stayed with her on the line until the blue lights reflected in her bedroom window. "I'll call you back," she promised. "They're here."

"I'm packing now. Be there in a few hours."

There was no way she was going to argue with him.

The pounding on the door below was comforting but even as she flew down the stairs she was scared, scared someone might be behind her or waiting for her at the bottom. She opened the door without any trouble, though, and two middle-aged officers stood waiting for her.

While one sat with her on the couch, the other walked through the house, looking. "I'm going to feel silly if it was my imagination. Or a ghost," she tried to laugh. The serious-looking officer, who introduced himself as Worley, smile grimly.

"Better safe than sorry," he declared. "Especially you being out here by yourself."

It didn't take more than ten minutes for the other officer to scan the interior and exterior of the house. When he came back, Worley stood up to greet him. "Miss Magill here is afraid she might have just heard a ghost," he stated.

"No ghost, ma'am," he muttered. "Unless you have a very active one."

"What do you mean?"

"Kitchen window is smashed. That's how they got in. Probably what woke you up. You're lucky you had someone call us when you did. This could've ended very badly for you."