"No, you don't." I kept my voice soothing. "But keep looking."

Her eyes scanned the trees that filled Forsyth Park, taking in the Spanish moss, swaying in the breeze, the shadows cast by the leafy green oaks. "I see something," Elizabeth whispered. "Something beautiful."

Those were the last words she said as she gathered up her skirt and walked away.

Within three steps she was gone, dissolved like a mist from times past.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Kelly said. She'd come back from the fountain without me even noticing and was standing by the bench.

The look I gave her must've spoken for itself.

Her eyes widened. "You did see a ghost!"

"Nicki?" Joe was beside her, frowning.

"Shhh," I said, shooting up from the bench. The chicks with the dogs were sending us curious glances. "Let's get out of here. I'll tell you about it in the car."

--- "That is so cool," Kelly said. "You helped a woman from the late 1800s. It's like there's no time limit on this thing."

"This thing?" I wasn't sure what she was driving at.

"You know..." She waved a hand. "... how long a spirit can hang around after the body's gone."

Kind of a creepy train of thought, if you asked me. "I never thought about it," I said, and I really didn't want to now, either.

"Are you okay, Nick?" Joe's fingers gripped my thigh as I drove, his touch warm and reassuring. "Is this one over?"

I nodded a yes, keeping my eyes on the road. This encounter, this episode, was over. The look of peace on the woman's face as she walked into the Light assured me of that.

"It's over," I said. "I'm okay, except that I'm starving. It's almost one o'clock; let's get something to eat before we go to Bijou's."

"Fine by me." Joe glanced in the backseat at Kelly. "Are we expected at any certain time?"

"I just told Leonard we'd be there sometime this afternoon," she said. "I wasn't sure how long it would take us to get here."

We looked for a place to eat near the Old City Market. The smell of fried chicken lured us into a diner called Homebody's, where we pigged out on crispy chicken, mashed potatoes, and pot-likker greens. There was even fresh-baked corn bread.

Halfway through the meal Joe's phone rang. He checked the caller ID and sighed. "Sorry," he said. "I have to take this." Then he answered, "Dr. Bascombe."

I could tell by his expression that he was going to be a while. He confirmed it by putting his napkin beside his plate and rising from the table. "What does the MRI show?" he asked the person on the other end. He jerked his chin toward the window to indicate he was taking the call outside, then went out on the sidewalk.

Joe was being considerate. We both hated it when people yakked on their cell phones during a meal.

"It's weird how ham hocks can add such flavor to vegetables." Kelly sprinkled more salt on the last of her greens. "I'd love to learn how to cook like this someday."

"My mom used to make the best black-eyed peas you ever tasted," I mumbled through a mouthful of chicken. "And biscuits. She made the best biscuits."

Kelly said, "None of my foster moms were very good cooks."

The fried chicken suddenly tasted dry. I knew it wasn't my fault that she hadn't had the happy childhood I had, but still...

"What was it like, living in foster homes?" Might as well not dance around it. I took another bite. "How many were there?"

"Three, mainly. I don't remember the first one very well-I was a baby. They were nice, I guess. I was moved to a different foster home when I was four or five." Kelly put down her fork and reached for a glass of sweet tea. "The Bakers were nice people, too. I lived with them and a bunch of other foster kids until I was twelve or so." She took a sip of tea. "I knew they were never going to adopt me, though, so I was pretty happy when the Charons came into the picture. They picked me out of a photo album and came to meet me at an adoption picnic. A few weeks later they took me home."

Wow. I'd would have been scarred for life after being handed around like an unwanted kitten, but I didn't say it.

Kelly shrugged. "I'm not sure what happened. We never bonded, I guess. I tried to be a good daughter, but it just didn't seem to work out. We didn't get along. I even ran away a few times, but the cops always found me hanging around the bus station and brought me back. It's not like I had anywhere to go, anyway."

"Then what made you run away?" I was curious. She didn't seem angry at her adoptive parents, so they must not have been too bad.

"It wasn't their fault. I found out they'd lost a baby-a little girl-and I wasn't eager to be anybody's replacement kid. I always had the feeling they were disappointed in me, like they'd picked the wrong kid from the photo album and regretted it."

My throat tightened.

"I got good grades. Earned a scholarship, even, and worked my way through school." She glanced up, her look slightly sheepish. "I even married up, just to please them. But nothing ever did."

"Joe?"

Kelly put down her glass and leaned back. "I can't believe I'm sitting here spilling my guts like this." She gazed around the old-fashioned diner, empty but for a couple of guys in the corner. "We're supposed to be having fun."

"Oh no, you don't." No turning back now-fun could wait. "You married Joe to please your parents?"

"Partly." Kelly glanced at Joe through the window, then stared at the table. "I cared about him, but mainly I just wanted to get away. The Charons had never been further away than Macon, Georgia, and never would. Joe took me to Boston and I never went back."

How could she not have been wildly, madly in love with Joe Bascombe?

"I always felt like Joe deserved better," she murmured, as if reading my mind. "I was the doctor's wife who didn't know how to cook, dress, or make the right small talk at cocktail parties. He never complained, but then again, he wasn't home very much."

"So you ran away again."

She didn't bother to deny it. "Yep. I ran away and joined the Peace Corps." Her laughter surprised me. "My childhood dream."

"Really? That was your childhood dream?" Personally, the thought of visiting third world countries was only appealing to me if there were white sand beaches, fruity tropical drinks, and palm frond huts that came with maid service.

Kelly nodded. "It's a great way to see the world and do some good at the same time. I've never regretted it."

Joe was still out of the sidewalk, so I felt safe asking the question. "Did you regret leaving Joe?"

She met my eyes evenly enough, though she took her time answering. "He's a great guy. I want him to be happy. But we made better friends than lovers," she said, and left it at that.

"Excuse me, ladies." The two guys from the corner had stopped at our table on their way out. One of them was offering a brochure. "We were wondering if we could interest you in a free ghost tour?"

Kelly and I looked at the brochure, then at each other, and burst out laughing.

"C'mon now," the guy said, obviously used to that reaction, "Savannah Spooks is a cool tour." He was short and chubby, mid-twenties, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt covered with skulls. "Spider and I know the creepiest places in Savannah. We usually charge ten bucks apiece, but for you lovely ladies, we'll do it for free."

His friend "Spider" was tall and thin, with a jet-black goatee and close-cropped hair, a silver crucifix dangling from one ear. He was by far the better-looking of the two. I noticed him staring at Kelly as he put in his two cents.

"Skully makes it sound like a bad pickup line, but it's for real. We give guided tours of some of Savannah's most haunted places, including Bonaventure Cemetery."

I couldn't help it-I laughed. Spider and Skully, of course. What else would their names be?

Spider frowned at me, obviously not amused.

"Sorry," I choked out, "private joke."

Kelly recovered quicker than I did. "That's really nice of you guys, but no thanks."

Spider looked disappointed, but Skully was obviously the persistent type. "Take one of the brochures." He urged it on me with a smile, chubby cheeks gleaming, and I took it. "Maybe you'll change your mind. We leave from the Velvet Elvis over on Congress Street every Friday and Saturday night at seven o'clock. We even provide the mosquito repellent."

Lovely. But I wasn't going looking for any ghosts. They found me easily enough as it was.

"You girls from around here?" Poor Skully wasn't giving up. "Need directions?"

I felt a little bad about the way I'd been laughing. They seemed like nice enough guys. "No, thanks," I said. "We have a map we got off the Internet."

"Those things are crap," Spider said. "Where ya goin'?"

Kelly surprised me by telling him. "The Blue Dahlia. It's a flower shop over on Victory Drive."

Spider looked at Skully, and Skully looked at Spider. Then they were the ones who burst out laughing.

"What? What's so funny?"

Skully was the one who answered. "Oh, it's a flower shop, all right. It's also one of the most haunted old houses in Savannah."

This time when Kelly and I looked at each other, neither one of us felt like laughing.

"What's going on?" Joe came in from the sidewalk. He snapped his cell phone shut, looking none too happy to find us talking to two strange guys.

Kelly spoke up. "Spider and Skully give ghost tours. They were just about to tell us about the Blue Dahlia."

Joe gave them the eye, then shot me a brief glance as he slid into his seat. "What about it?"

Skully was eager to share, unfazed by Joe's lack of enthusiasm. "It's haunted, man. Big-time. It used to be a bed and breakfast, but the old lady shut it down. We'd love to get some equipment in there-set up some recorders, a night vision camera. Probably get some orbs, maybe even some EVPs."

The way Skully said "orbs" and "EVPs" made them sound like religious experiences.

Joe wasn't impressed with the techno geek-speak, and neither was I. He took a bite of his now cold chicken, while I held back a sigh.

Kelly, however, was fascinated. "EVPs? That's electronic voice phenomena, right?"

Spider gave Kelly an approving look. "That's right. Ever heard any?"

She nodded, surprising me. "On the Internet. Some of them are really spooky."

Spider's thin face lit up. Kelly was smiling at him, and I realized she was actually flirting with this guy. Compared to a wholesome guy like Joe, a guy like Spider hardly seemed her type.

"Tall, dark, and brooding" was usually my type.

"Cool," Spider said to Kelly. "Ever been to a site called Spooked? I helped set that one up... it's got some great EVPs in the audio section."

What the hell. Getting laid would probably do Kelly a world of good.

"Have a seat, guys." I grinned at Joe to let him know there was nothing to worry about, guywise. "Tell us about the Blue Dahlia."

An half hour later we knew most of what there was to know about the old house our mother had grown up in, and more about Spider and Skully than I really expected to.

"The house was built in the late 1800s-a classic Queen Anne-by a ship's captain named Horace Montgomery." One of the things I'd learned about Spider was that he took Savannah history, and its architecture, very seriously. "He built it for his wife and children, but they didn't get to enjoy it long. He came home from a voyage to find his entire family had been wiped out by yellow fever."

"He was a smuggler, actually," Skully chimed in. "Rumor has it old Horace was a rum-runner. Rumor also has it that he went nuts. He didn't believe his family was dead, and dug up the bodies, one by one. Then he reburied them, but no one knows where."

One of the things I'd learned about Skully was that he didn't seem to take anything seriously. He wiggled his eyebrows at me and said, "Maybe there's bones buried in the basement."

"The house has had a series of owners, but nobody ever stayed in it very long until the old lady bought it," Spider went on. "'Course, she wasn't an old lady then." He shrugged. "When she closed down the rooms to boarders, the bottom floor was converted into a flower shop." He shook his head. "There've been a lot of strange stories about that house."

"And you know all this because... ?" I didn't know diddly about the history of any old houses back in Atlanta, much less whether they were "Queen Annes" or had any strange stories connected to them.

Spider gave me an impatient look. "It's our job to know. We're tour guides, remember? Savannah's full of ghost stories and haunted houses, and we know them all. The Pink House, the Hampton Lillibridge house, the Pirate House-"

"It started out as a hobby," Skully broke in cheerfully. "Then it became an obsession." He glanced at Spider with a grin. "For some of us, anyway. I'm just along for the babes."

I rolled my eyes, glad to see Joe grinning good-naturedly at Skully's optimism.

"Don't get your hopes up here, Skull Boy," he said. "Nicki's got a boyfriend, and a pair of sharp-toed boots. She knows how to use 'em, too."

Skully's grin was still in place. He was no threat to a guy like Joe, and he knew it. "I like a woman who knows how to stick up for herself."

Confident the dweeb could take a joke, I said, "Be careful I don't stick 'em-"

"Nicki!"

I kept forgetting that Kelly was such a good girl. Besides, I was just teasing. It was hard to be offended by a chubby guy who thought you were hot, particularly when said chubby guy already knew he didn't stand a chance.

Spider gave a noncommittal grunt, then said to Kelly, "What about you? Boyfriend waiting at home?"

Her cheeks turned pink. She gave Spider a shy smile and shook her head, toying with her ice tea glass.

"Anyway," Skully drew us back to the topic at hand, "this town is full of weird places. The American Institute of Parapsychology has named Savannah 'America's Most Haunted City.'"

"The American Institute of what?"

"The American Institute of Parapsychology," Kelly said, earning herself another admiring glance from Spider. "I read about it on the Internet. It's an organization dedicated to scientific psychic research."

"Scientific psychic research? Isn't that like an oxymoron or something?"

"Ha, ha." Kelly had that look on her face that warned me I was close to getting another lecture about taking life, and death, more seriously. "It's a very well-respected organization."