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“She’s lying about something,” I guessed.

“Most likely.”

“Why?”

“All I can think is that she’s trying to protect someone.”

“You think she knows who killed Haywood?”

Raindrops dotted his shirt. “I don’t know if she knows . . . or if she suspects. Either way, she’s not saying.”

“Do you need to get back to her?”

“Sheriff doesn’t want me there right now, but her lawyer is with her. She’ll be all right. I believe her that she didn’t do it,” he added. “You know my mama. If she made up her mind to kill a man, she’d do it in front of God and everyone, no remorse.”

I hadn’t considered that, but he had a point. She hadn’t tried to hide her involvement in ruining my first wedding attempt with Dylan. In fact, she gloated about it, despite the backlash from townsfolk who cared about me. She claimed she’d do anything to protect Dylan and hadn’t cared what people thought.

Protect him from me, mind you.

However, her interference with my wedding plans wasn’t quite at the level of killing a man. I wasn’t as sure of her innocence as Dylan was, but I wasn’t convinced of her guilt, either.

“She was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. “Someone took advantage of that. We have to find out who that is, or there’s a real possibility my mother might go to prison.”

“I’ll help any way I can,” I said.

Ducking beneath my umbrella, he pulled me close to him. “Thanks, Care Bear,” he said softly. “I know my mama isn’t your favorite person.”

“No,” I said, “but you are.”

He smiled that smile he gave only to me, and I melted a bit right there on that sidewalk, blending in with all the other puddles.

Motioning with his chin, he said, “We should get inside. Since we’re not supposed to be here, let’s get in and get out quickly.”

I didn’t ask if he could get in trouble for this—I knew he could. Just as I knew he wasn’t going to quit this case just because the sheriff told him so. Not when his mama’s freedom was at stake.

It was the heart of why I knew Dylan and I would always struggle as a couple.

He loved his mama.

And I despised her.

He could poke fun at her, dismiss her biting comments, and sure, even get angry with her from time to time, but when it really mattered . . . he was on her side.

“You just missed Mayor Ramelle trying to break in,” I said as I followed him up the front walk, my rain boots sloshing through growing puddles.

He turned and looked at me. Moisture caused the dark hair around his ears to curl. “She what?”

I explained as he charged up the front steps with purpose, reached over the crime scene tape, and tried the front knob.

It was locked.

“What do you think she was looking for?” he asked.

My headache intensified as I closed my umbrella and leaned it against a post. “No idea. Maybe Haywood knows.”

“Here, put these on.” Dylan handed me a pair of black latex gloves, slipped on a pair himself, and ran a hand along the top of the doorframe looking for a key. Coming up empty, he then lifted the welcome mat to find nothing there as well.

As he kept searching, I knocked on the front door. “Haywood? It’s Carly,” I said loudly. “Do you have a spare key hidden out here?”

Dylan looked back at me, his green eyes narrowed in disbelief.

“What?” I said. “Might as well go straight to the source. He’s in there; I can feel him.”

A moment later, I winced at the sharp pain at the back of my head as Haywood floated through his front door.

Haywood’s vivid eyes looked sad and pained, and a sudden lump formed in my throat. My guess was that sometime during the night what had happened to him finally sank in.

“Hi,” I offered, the one word sounding strangled from the emotion straining my voice.

He gave me a halfhearted wave.

Dylan walked over to us. “He’s really here?”

“Right in front of you,” I said.

“Strange,” he murmured, shaking his head.

Haywood nodded.

It was off-the-charts surreal, I had to admit.

“Does he have a key out here?” Dylan asked.

Haywood pointed to the fancy deep vertical mailbox mounted to the trim alongside the door.

“Inside?” I asked, taking a step back to try to ease the pain.

He nodded.
Yes.

“Inside the mailbox,” I said to Dylan.

Lifting the black lid decorated with floral scrollwork, he reached his hand inside, and came out with a key. “Amazing.”

A moment later, we’d ducked under the yellow crime scene tape and were inside the house.

I took off my sunglasses, slipped them into my coat pocket, and looked around. For having been broken into, the place didn’t look too bad. It certainly had been thoroughly searched but nothing was literally broken and it would take only an hour or so to look good as new.

From my quick glance, I determined this hadn’t been an ordinary burglary. The big-screen TV was still on its stand in the living room. A silver tea set remained on the sideboard in the dining room. Expensive crystal sparkled inside a hutch.

Whoever broke in wasn’t looking to make quick money.

But what was he or she looking for?

The papers Mayor Ramelle wanted?

Keeping to the rules, Haywood had drifted away from me, giving me some space. I asked him, “You wanted to show me something last night . . . Was that item stolen during the break-in?”

Perking up a bit, he shook his head and gestured for us to follow him.

I grabbed Dylan’s arm. “Come on, he’s taking us upstairs.”

Dylan said, “He hasn’t relayed what the evidence could be?”

My wet boots squeaked on the wooden steps as we climbed. “No.”

We followed Haywood into a big room at the top of the steps, which was being used as an office space. A drafting table sat in front of double windows encased in thick trim. To the left of it was an L-shaped computer desk with a wide printer and a professional-grade scanner slash copier. On the right of the drafting table was a large wooden chest of drawers that reminded me of an apothecary’s cabinet. There were sixteen drawers in all, measuring about ten inches across, each with a rustic handle. Some of the drawers were on the floor, contents dumped out. And others looked untouched altogether. Scattered across the floor were odd-looking triangular-shaped rulers, pens, pencils, markers, calculators, sticky notes, paper clips, and tape measures. The dribs and drabs of an architect.

A faint scent of acrid smoke hung in the air, laced with an undertone of another odor . . . something I couldn’t quite place. I wondered where the smell was coming from as there wasn’t a fireplace in the room and there were no signs of a fire.

Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined one wall, a vintage threadbare rug covered most of the floor, and gray-blue paint gave a soothing feeling to the room. A comfy-looking couch anchored a sitting area where a mahogany coffee table was littered with magazines and books, including a hardcover from the library that was open facedown on the arm of the couch. I picked it up, and felt another pang for Haywood. He was never going to finish this book. Was never going to finish the house plans that were tacked to his drafting table with round stickers. Never going to slip his feet into the house shoes under the table.

His had been a life interrupted, and suddenly I was extremely angry at the person who’d stolen the future from this man.

Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the drafting table and noticed that the plans there weren’t for a new house.

They were the plans for the Ezekiel house. I supposed that made sense, as he’d been the architect on the refurbishment job. I studied them for a moment, fascinated with all the architectural details from the large basement to the widow’s walk.

“Take a look at this,” Dylan said as he crouched over a small metallic trash can in a corner of the room.

When I leaned over it, I saw it was the source of the smoke I’d smelled. Soot covered the inside walls of the can and white ashes were mounded at the bottom.

I glanced at Haywood, who’d hung back in the doorway. “Did you burn something in this last night before you went to the ball?”

He shook his head.
No.

“He shook his head, which means no. He didn’t,” I translated to Dylan.

Dylan glanced toward the doorway. “Do you know what was burned?”

Haywood’s eyebrows dipped low and he fidgeted.
No.

“No,” I repeated to Dylan, though I kept looking at Haywood. I had the feeling he’d just lied to me. But why?

Before I could question him, he floated into the room, making my headache flare. I winced as he pointed at a satchel under the desk. Then he floated away again and my pain eased.

“There’s a satchel under the desk he wants us to look at,” I told Dylan. As we walked over, I happened to glance out the window and saw a hooded figure standing across the street leaning against a lamppost.

It wasn’t another ghost.

It was Avery Bryan, the young woman Patricia had chewed out last night at the ball and who was staying with Aunt Eulalie.

As Dylan grabbed the satchel, I faced off with Haywood. “How do you know Avery Bryan?”

Surprise briefly filled his eyes before he blinked it away.

“Avery who?” Dylan asked.

“Avery Bryan,” I said, “but I was talking to Haywood.”

Haywood shrugged.

I narrowed my gaze on him. “You’re saying you don’t know her?”

Dylan looked up, realized I wasn’t talking to him, and went back to getting the satchel open. It was closed tight with a buckle and he was trying to feed the leather strap through the metal frame.

Haywood shrugged again and fidgeted.

Another lie.

Pursing my lips, I kept staring.

The more I stared, the more he became antsy until he finally had enough and floated down the hallway.

“He’s lying,” I said.

“Are you talking to me or him?” Dylan asked.

I smiled and knelt down. “You. Haywood knows Avery but he’s denying it. Why?”

“One more thing to figure out,” Dylan said as the flap of the satchel finally released.

“Eulalie suspects that he and Avery might be having an affair.”

“Who is Avery Bryan? Do I know her?” Dylan asked.

As he took out a stack of papers, a notebook, and a folded poster from the bag, I explained what Eulalie had told me earlier.

He sat back on his heels. “She had an invitation?”

“That’s what Eulalie said.”

Frowning, he said, “My mother neglected to mention that in her statement. She just said the woman was a party crasher. But if she’s somehow connected to Haywood and my mother knew it . . .”

I didn’t finish his thought: it gave Patricia motive, which gave the sheriff even more cause to arrest her.

“We need to talk to Avery Bryan,” he said, “and find out what happened exactly.”

I nodded. “She’s right outside, so finding her isn’t going to be a problem.”

Leaning up, he looked out the window. “Where?”

Peeking out, I saw she was now gone. There went that plan. “Plan B. She’s staying with Eulalie, so we’ll head over there as soon as we’re done here.”

Dylan looked at the pile of papers in front of him. “What is all this stuff?”

I opened a binder and flipped through pages. “It has to do with the Ezekiel house.” There were photocopies of articles dating back to when the house was built, marriage certificates, death certificates, birth certificates. Property records. Census forms.

Dylan showed me a tattered old piece of paper that had been folded into quarters. “Whoa.”

“What?” I asked, setting aside the binder.

He spread the paper on the rug. It was yellow with age, its edges worn. Deep creases, water stains, and insect holes had done a lot of damage. It took me a second to realize what I was looking at. A family tree. The Ezekiel family tree.

Dylan sat back and dragged a hand down his face. “This is definitely the evidence Haywood wanted us to find.”

“It is?” I was still scanning the information, my gaze skipping over generations of Ezekiels, starting long before Simeon and Fleur built the Ezekiel house. The tree had been added to over the years. Different inks, different handwriting, little notes jotted alongside certain names. Poor Mathias Ezekiel had died of scarlet fever in the late eighteen hundreds. Other names had vanished completely or only partially remained, victims of the poor condition the paper was in.

“Look, Carly.” Dylan tapped the bottom of the paper.

Stunned, I stared at the last name at the bottom of the tree. It had been penciled in with meticulous handwriting and circled.

Haywood Dodd.

My jaw dropped. If this was true,
Haywood
was the mysterious heir of the Ezekiel mansion, the one who was set to inherit it if found within five years after Rupert’s death.

My gaze zipped to his parentage. Retta Lee Dodd and
someone
Ezekiel. The first name was smudged beyond recognition. Something with a T in it perhaps. It was the branch beneath Rupert, so I assumed a son, but I never knew he had any kids at all.

“This has to be what he was going to announce at the ball,” I said softly. What a bombshell that would have been, too. No wonder he wouldn’t breathe a word about it. “This family tree must be what Mayor Ramelle wanted.”

Dylan looked pained. “You know what this means, Carly?”

I held his gaze and nodded.

It meant that Dylan’s wish for finding more suspects had just been granted.

Now not only was his mother still a suspect in Haywood’s death . . . but all the other Harpies as well.

Chapter Eight