again.
The woman finally turned in her direction.
And Priscilla let out a gasp.
The womanâs face was covered in some kind of dark substance.
It could only be blood.
Priscilla screamed.
10
A nnabel heard the woman scream as she steered the SUV back up the driveway. There was a small red car parked at the inn now, and a man standing near it holding two suitcases, and a woman a few feet away, screaming and pointing toward the woods.
Annabel hopped out of the car.
âWhatâs wrong?â she called.
âSheâs covered in blood!â the woman was shrieking
The man was trying to calm her down. âPriscilla, come back here!â
Annabel looked in the direction the woman was pointing. She saw nothing.
She approached the woman. âCan I help you? What did you think you saw?â
The woman turned a pair of frantic but obviously exhilarated eyes to her. âWas she a ghost? Does she walk the property?â
âI donât know who youâre talking about,â Annabel told her.
The man had joined them. âWe saw someone coming out of the woods. . . .â
âA woman,â his companion added. âSheâs gone now. When I screamed, she bolted back into the woods.â She frowned. âI shouldnât have screamed. I know better than that. We can sometimes scare ghosts as much as they can scare us.â
Annabel looked at the couple standing in front of her. They were obviously guests arriving at the innââghost tourists,â as Millie had called them. They had English accents. Theyâd apparently come a long way to experience the Blue Boyâs ghosts.
âWell,â Annabel said, âI canât tell you anything. Itâs my first day here. My husband and I just moved here.â Her gaze moved up to the front porch of the inn. âBut Iâm sure my grandmother-in-law can tell you whatever you need to know.â
Cordelia was standing there, her face set like stone. She must have heard the womanâs scream.
The couple hurried up to her, jabbering about ghosts. Annabel heard the old woman start to reply, but she didnât care to listen to what she had to say at the moment.
She decided she wanted to do a little exploring herself.
Her groceries would keep in the car for the moment. It was cold enough out. She started off across the grass in the direction the English woman had been pointing. If she had been alone in her claim of seeing something, Annabel would have dismissed her as a fanatic. When you come to a place wanting to see something, chances are you would. The human mind was susceptible to suggestion. Hadnât Annabel thought sheâd seen Tommy Tricky earlier?
But the man said heâd seen somebody as well. So chances were they really did see somebody. Chances were it was a real person, and the womanâs hysterical scream had indeed frightened the visitor away. Annabel hoped she found someone out there, so she could bring her back and introduce her to the English couple, and to Cordelia.
She wanted an end to ghost stories. She had no desire to be part of a place that depended on crazies coming to stay there. Annabel had been in a crazy house. She did not want to surround herself with lunatics and delusional people.
Sheâd had enough of that.
She pushed her way into the trees. A broken, brittle branch on the ground snapped as she stepped on it.
Jack was wrong not to tell her about the innâs reputation. Very wrong.
But if he had, she would likely have refused to come. It would have been too much for her. So heâd kept the knowledge from her, understanding how it would freak her out.
Annabel was going to tell him that he was wrong, and she was going to add that they were going to put a stop to the stories immediately.
Perhaps some terrible things had happened at the inn. But she and Jack were not going to make their livings from exploiting those tragedies.
Annabel stopped. There was something