Wanda shrugged. “Whatever.” Then she faced me. “So, what should we do first?”

  I gathered my laptop from the kitchen counter and carried it over to the sofa as Roy and Wanda sat down beside me. Then flipping the laptop open, I powered it on and entered ‘Florence Wilson’ into the browser. “Let’s see. There are only about fifty thousand Florence Wilsons on here.”

  Wanda looked over my shoulder and her expression reminded me of a nosy librarian. “You can narrow it down by searching for the Florence Wilson who worked at the Haven Hollow Humane Society from 1978 to1980.”

  I entered the updated search parameter and was faced with a list of information. Scrolling down the page, I paused at the bottom.

  “Here’s something we might be interested in,” I said as I started reading. “Florence Constance Wilson at the Humane Society of Haven Hollow.” I looked up at Wanda. “There’s even a picture of her,” I continued as I turned the computer so Wanda could better see it. “She’s attractive.” The picture looked like it was fairly old—maybe from the late seventies, owing to Florence’s Farrah Fawcett hairdo.

  “Don’t you think that’s odd?” Wanda asked, looking from the computer screen to me.

  “Which part—that Florence was attractive or that she worked at the Humane Society?”

  Wanda pointed at my computer. “Neither. It’s odd her middle name was ‘Constance’.”

  “Why is that odd?”

  She shrugged. “Because I bet there aren’t many ‘Florence Constance Wilsons’ on the internet.”

  “So?”

  “So, do a search on her full name and see if you can find any records.” I was about to do just that when she placed her hand over mine, stopping me. “I’ll save you the effort—you won’t find any.”

  I frowned up at her. “So, what you’re trying to tell me is that you already got this far?”

  “Well, I did some research, Poppy, jeez.”

  “You could have told me what you already knew!”

  She smiled down at me. “I already knew that. Now, keep searching.”

  I spent the next fifteen minutes proving Wanda right. Florence Constance Wilson had no records that I could find at all—no birth certificate, no driver’s license, no marriage license and no death record.

  Wanda and I stared at the picture of the pretty woman with black hair as I sighed and Wanda shook her head. Roy, meanwhile, had resurrected his interest in Stranger Things.

  “We have a name and a face and that’s it,” Wanda said.

  I swallowed hard. “Let’s check the others.”

  We looked up Agnes Smith next, and the results were equally lackluster. Like Florence, Agnes had spent years volunteering, this time at a soup kitchen in town, and that was the only information we could find about her. Something else I thought strange—both women didn’t appear to have home addresses or phone numbers listed in their yellow page records. That was definitely out of the ordinary considering that, by the late 1970s, everyone had home phones.

  For all intents and purposes, these women didn’t exist. And it was the same regarding Imogen Flannigan. Only, in her case, I couldn’t even find a picture of her.

  Wanda and I exchanged a frustrated glance. “Any ideas?” she asked.

  “Let’s assume,” I started, “based on the picture of Florence, that she and probably the others were Baby Boomers.”

  “Okay.”

  “Then they would have been the same age as Betanya.”

  “But, as a witch, Betanya was actually much older,” Wanda said as she snatched up Betanya’s journal and frowned at it.

  “Okay, but Betanya probably looked around the same age as Florence, right? At least in the 70s or 80s?”

  Wanda cocked her head to the side before she nodded. “I could see that.” Then she opened the journal. “Regardless, Betanya talks about these women like they were her best friends.”

  “Is it possible they were Blood Witches like Betanya?” I asked. “Could that be why they just appeared out of nowhere—because they got expelled from their covens like you did?”

  Wanda shook her head. “Not possible. Blood Witches are rare. Almost as rare as warlocks and possibly as rare as wizards.”

  At the mention of ‘wizards’, Wanda crossed herself. Wizards dealt purely in black magic, thus they weren’t exactly law-abiding.

  “Not to mention,” Wanda continued. “Even though I’m a Blood Witch, I still have a birth certificate and Social Security number.”

  “Okay, then they probably weren’t Blood Witches. So, what do we know about them?” I paused but Wanda didn’t respond, so I answered my own question. “We know they were friends of Betanya’s after she became a Blood Witch, right?”

  Wanda nodded.

  “Okay, so she friended them after she came to live in Haven Hollow, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that could mean Florence, Agnes and Imogen probably lived in Haven Hollow, too?” Wanda nodded, so I turned to face Roy. “Hey, Roy, did you ever know anyone or know of anyone named Florence Wilson, Agnes Smith or Imogen Flannigan?”

  “They would have lived in Haven Hollow around the 70s or 80s,” Wanda added.

  Roy paused Stranger Things and looked over at us. “Um, can’t say that I do.”

  “Okay, nevermind,” I answered as I faced Wanda again. “Moving on.” I took a breath. “So these women were close friends with Betanya and yet we know nothing about them.”

  “So what?”

  “Maybe Betanya had something to do with erasing their identities?”

  “Hmm,” Wanda said as she chewed her lower lip. “Maybe, but, why would Betanya want to erase their identities?”

  “Who knows?” I answered on a shrug. “I mean, if we play devil’s advocate for a minute, and assume Betanya did change their identities or erase them, then it follows there would be no record of…” I stopped. Something suddenly made sense.

  “No record of what? Why do you look like you just figured something out?”

  I turned back to my computer. “Why didn’t I think of this before?”

  “What?”

  “We’ve been going about this all wrong.”

  “We have?”

  I nodded as I typed in a new search parameter, this time searching the archives for a much later time period—pre 1900. Wanda frowned over my shoulder as she watched me type and then hit enter.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Bingo!” I crowed.

  “Bingo?”

  “According to the archives in the Haven Hollow library, which are available online, there was an Imogen Flannigan born in Ireland in 1811. She traveled to New York in 1831 and settled in Charleston, North Carolina, before moving further West, to Oregon in 1856.”

  “1856!” Wanda countered, shaking her head. “We don’t know if that’s the same Imogen. And there must have been Imogen Flannigans born every other week in Ireland back then.”

  I held up my index finger. “Just go with it for a second. Let’s search Florence Constance Wilson.” My hands flew over the keyboard as I entered the search. “Here she is. Florence Constance Wilson was born in White River, Ontario, in 1886. She moved to the Midwest when she was fifteen and then her family migrated to Oregon. They were homesteaders near Dorena Lake. She married, had three children, and died in 1920. She died in Dorena except...”

  “Except what?” Wanda croaked.

  “Except,” I started as I read.

  “You’re going to give me an apoplexy with all these pauses. Except what?”

  “Florence... died when a smallpox epidemic swept the area,” I answered as I continued to scan the information on the page. “The bodies weren’t buried in the Dorena graveyard, though. They were transported out of town and buried in a mass grave here.” I looked up at Wanda then. “In Hollow Cemetery.”

  Wanda cleared her throat with difficulty. “Hmm, that could be… coincidence?”

  I frowned at her, but did some more navigating. “Here’s another picture of Florence. Take a look.”

  I plunked the laptop on Wanda’s lap, and we both stared at the screen in blank silence. The woman in the image had the same dark hair, except this time, back in 1915, Florence wore it in a neat bob around her rosy face. I pulled up the earlier image of Florence I’d found and then placed the two pictures side by side on the screen. No one could doubt it was the same woman.

  “This is impossible!” Wanda whispered. “If Florence died in 1920, how did she wind up alive in the eighties and volunteering in Haven Hollow?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  Wanda made a face at me. “No, Poppy, it isn’t obvious.”

  I gave her an apologetic smile. “Who else do we know that died decades ago and is now going around spreading sunshine and good cheer to anyone she meets?”

  “Libby,” Wanda answered immediately.

  “Yes.”

  I faced the images of Florence on screen again. “Florence was a zombie. All three of them were.”

  Wanda nodded. “Betanya must have raised them the same way I raised Libby, and that explains why there isn’t any information about them. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, they died when they died.”

  “Right.”

  Wanda looked at me then with a question in her eyes. “So what happened to them?”

  I shrugged. “For all we know, they could be dead—again.” I gazed at the pictures of Florence still on the screen. “It’s too bad we can’t find them. They might have been able to tell us what happened to Betanya.”

  Chapter Four

  Wanda and I pulled into the parking lot in front of the Half-Moon Bar and Grill. Once Wanda parked the Escalade, I spotted Marty and Henner waiting for us on the sidewalk outside—they were standing close together and clearly discussing something.

  After Wanda killed the engine, we hopped down to the asphalt below, and Marty cast a glance over his shoulder at the two of us. Then he murmured something to Henner and they abruptly ended their conversation.

  “Sorry we’re late,” I started. “We were—”

  “We aren’t technically late,” Wanda interrupted. “I texted Henner, remember?”

  “We just showed up ourselves,” Marty said as he gave us both a big smile.

  “And if you hadn’t given us the extra time,” Henner added. “RJ might not have had the experience he just did.”

  “The experience?” I repeated, looking at Henner in question.

  He nodded. “Yeah, I just got off the phone with him and… he caught some weirdo looking through his bedroom window.”

  Wanda and I exchanged glances—I could feel my eyes widening and her eyebrows were already reaching for the dark night sky. I looked back at Henner and took a deep breath. “This guy… he wouldn’t have been short, bald, with blood-stained clothes, five-o’clock shadow, and a comb-over, would he?”

  The guys faced me and both appeared perplexed.

  “How did you know?” Marty asked at the same time that Henner said, “That’s exactly how RJ described him.”

  “The same guy was peeping through Astrid’s bedroom window, too,” Wanda replied with a shrug.

  “And Finn’s.”

  Marty shook his head fast, breathing in deeply. Then he faced me again with a frown. “Uh… wait a minute. Some guy was peeping through a second-story window?”

  “I don’t claim to understand the ways of peeping Toms,” I answered, with a shrug. “I only know it wasn’t a ghost.”

  “Are you sure?” Marty questioned.

  I nodded. “The guy left footprints in the mud under the window.”

  “Footprints?” Marty continued as he eyed me narrowly. “Does that mean you went looking for him, Pops? By yourself?”

  I shook my head. “Roy, uh… Roy happened to stop by to say hi and when we, um, when we told him what happened, he investigated.”

  “And it’s a good thing he did,” Marty answered—whatever hang-ups Roy had with Marty, the latter didn’t seem to reciprocate them. And thank God for that—I could only handle one jealous man in my life and, even then, I wasn’t sure how well I was handling him.

  Marty nodded at me. “At least Roy is good for something.”

  “Anyway,” Henner said, giving Marty an expression that wasn’t encouraging, before he faced me again. In general, Henner was the peace-maker of our group. He didn’t like it when anyone was on the outs with anyone else.

  “We’d figured the guy probably was a spook,” Henner continued. “But, we just spent the last hour figuring out he wasn’t.”

  “How’d you do that?” I asked.

  Henner faced me. “We ran every test with our ghost-hunting equipment we could and, turns out, the guy had to have been as corporeal as you and me.”

  “Yeah, Poppy just told you that,” Wanda said, sounding irritated.

  Henner smiled. “Well, I’m just corroborating Poppy’s story.”

  “While this… intruder might be corporeal,” Wanda continued, “he definitely has some supernatural powers or abilities.”

  “Why do you say that?” Henner asked.

  “Because, he blocked me from running a tracking spell on him.”

  “Interesting,” Henner said as Marty added, “We called the Police.”

  “We reported it, too,” I told him. “Maybe if enough people call this guy in, Taliyah and her deputies will be able to track him down.”

  Henner shuffled his feet. “Hope so!” Then he looked at me and then Wanda. “You ladies ready to eat?”

  We nodded and followed them up the front steps and Marty held the door for us. Once we walked inside, Shelby Stomper, the hostess and the wife of centaur, Stanley Stomper, greeted us with a big smile. I didn’t know Shelby well, but she was always friendly. She took four menus from her podium and led us to a booth in the back of the restaurant.

  A moment later, our server appeared. He was a young man named Gary (according to his name tag) and I’d never seen him before. Not that that was such a surprise, since I’d only been living in Haven Hollow for a year or so. But, even so, this town was a small place (population 683) so strangers weren’t a common occurrence. And, no, Gary didn’t fit the description of the Peeping Tom.

  “Gary must be the guy who replaced Fifi,” Marty said after Gary took our drink orders and allowed us time to peruse the menus.

  “Right,” I answered as I remembered Fifi was no longer working for Roy. She’d quit in order to open Hallowed Homes.

  “Huh,” Marty started. “Looks like Roid changed up the menu.” I glanced down at it and nodded as he looked at me. “What are you gonna get, Pops?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

  “I hope Roid kept the open-faced turkey sandwich ‘cause it was my favorite.”

  “Yep, he kept it,” Henner answered and pointed to the option in question. Marty just nodded.

  “I think I might try the blue-cheese burger with extra fries,” he answered as he closed his menu.

  “Yuck!” Henner gasped. “Operation: Indigestion.”

  The rest of us laughed. “No one is making you eat it,” Marty countered. “You can stick with your tried and true.”

  “Which is what?” Wanda asked.

  “An order of fries with a side of fries and fries for dessert.”

  “Well, I’m not hungry, so it’s a whiskey sour for me,” Wanda announced.

  Henner snorted when she didn’t say anything else. “Is that just the first course or is that the appetizer for a bourbon and coke?”

  “The whiskey sour and the bourbon and coke are the appetizers,” she answered. “For the main course, I think I’ll order a keg of amber ale, a bottle of Gewurztraminer, and a bottle of triple malt with a quadruple shot of Crown Royal on the side.”

  The guys laughed, but fortunately for the rest of us, Wanda only ordered the whiskey sour when Gary returned.

  “You need food, Wanda,” I whispered as I nudged her.

  “Ugh, you’re so bossy,” she grumbled as she, begrudgingly, then ordered the seafood platter appetizer.

  I ordered one of Roy’s famous steaks and Henner, yes, ordered a large fry with numerous dipping sauces.

  As we awaited our food, we laughed and joked and caught up on the latest Haven Hollow gossip, which wasn’t much. Then we talked a bit about this mysterious stranger showing up in numerous windows until our food arrived. After that, everyone was quiet for a good twenty minutes while we stuffed ourselves so full of food, I for one couldn’t move. When the plates were cleared, we settled in with an after-dinner drink.

  That was when Wanda, in her Wanda manner, asked, “So, Henner… how about you tell us the truth regarding why you really want us to help clear out your grandmother’s house?”

  The color drained from Henner’s face and he reminded me of a deer in headlights for a moment or two, before he remembered himself. Then he swallowed hard, tossed his whole drink back and wiped sweat off his brow. He took a deep breath.

  “All right. Here goes.”

  “So there is more?” I asked.

  “I knew it!” Wanda exclaimed triumphantly.

  “Henner?” Marty asked.

  Henner nodded. “Something weird is going on at my grandmother’s house.”

  “Something weird?” Wanda repeated. “Weird like what?”

  “Like one night a couple of weeks ago, I heard footsteps and when I went to investigate, I found the front door wide open.” He took a breath. “So, I figured there was someone in the house.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed, eyes wide.

  “I went searching to see if anyone was in the house and in one of the guest bedrooms. I found bloody handprints on the walls and blood on the floors.”

  “Are you sure it was blood?” I asked, shocked.

  Henner cocked his head to the side as he considered it. “I mean, pretty sure? It was some kind of red liquid.” Of course, my mind immediately returned to Finn’s description of the weirdo in his window with red stains all over his shirt.

  “Well, now that’s not something you hear every day,” Wanda admitted, her attention firmly planted on Henner’s face.

  He nodded at her. “And that was when I realized the housekeeper, Mrs. Nicholson, had disappeared.”