Last Dance by Linda Joy Singleton

wait to get his cell phone.”
    “You’ll see him soon enough anyway. He’s headed for Peaceful Pines.”
    “Ahead of us?” Thorn complained. “Come on, let’s get moving.”
    We hurried into the yellow jeep and headed for Peaceful Pines. Unfortunately that meant going through Pine Peaks. As we neared town, cars increased and traffic slowed to a turtle’s crawl. The banner announcing the Chloe Celebration waved cheerfully overhead as we inched into downtown.
    “Not again.” Thorn slapped her palm against the steering wheel. “I hate traffic jams.”
    “Look on the bright side. If we’re stuck, so is Dominic.”
    “Good point. Still, traffic sucks. It’ll take an hour to drive five miles at this rate.” Thorn pressed on her horn and gave an impatient beep. “Hey, move it already gray car.”
    “There’s a line of cars in front of him,” I told her. “Be patient.”
    “But I’m not patient. I will be so glad to get home where I can be myself again.”
    “Put on your black wig if it’ll make you feel better.”
    “And risk Mrs. Snope or some other nosy friend of my aunt’s ratting on me? I can put up with this look for a few more hours.” Then she blasted the horn again.
    My gaze wandered out the window and I noticed a TV crew. My first impulse was to duck down low in case the camera focused on the traffic. But when I noticed the slim older woman being interviewed by Heidi, I watched curiously.
    “Hey, Thorn.” I nudged her in mid-honk. “That’s Cathy, the cotton-candy-haired woman I met yesterday.”
    “The ghost’s best friend?”
    “Yeah. She’s probably telling Heidi the same story she told me.”
    “Getting her fifteen minutes of fame,” Thorn said with a snort.
    “I bet she gets more than fifteen minutes. She told me they used to call her and Chloe the ‘Stormy C’s’ because they were so wild.”
    “Everything’s wild in a town that celebrates a ghost.” Thorn pointed across the street. “Check out that guy wearing a tin-foil hat.”
    “Major weird,” I said, swiveling to look. “But he’s got it all wrong. Foil hats ward off aliens, not ghosts.”
    “Did your grandmother tell you about aliens, too?”
    “No,” I said with a laugh. “I saw it on a Mel Gibson movie.”
    Amazingly, traffic started to move and minutes later we turned on the rural road leading to Peaceful Pines. It was bumpier than before, rutted with muddy puddles.
    The sun had vanished; gray clouds swirled with gusty winds as we pulled into Peaceful Pines’s parking lot. I spotted Dominic’s truck, only he wasn’t in it. When I looked over at the office, I saw the door closing behind him.
    “Good!” I said with satisfaction. “While he’s with the manager, we can get to Eleanor first. He’ll have to wait for Mrs. Fontaine’s dog to stop barking before he can find out which cottage is Eleanor’s. But we already know.”
    I shut the jeep door behind me, then led Thorn through the parking lot and beyond the clubhouse. We followed the path to the cozy, white cottages, each separated by a small yard and neatly manicured patch of lawn. I read cottage numbers until I came to Number 261.
    But the building was dark and no one answered the door.
    “Knock louder,” Thorn suggested. “Mrs. Baskers could be hard of hearing or in the shower.”
    “Or still in Florida,” came a sarcastic voice behind me and I turned to find Dominic standing there with an amused smile.
    “How do you know?”
    “The manager told me there’s a hurricane warning so the plane was delayed again.”
    “Are you sure?” I said with sinking discouragement. “If that dog was yapping the whole time, you might have heard wrong.”
    “Yes, I’m sure,” Dominic replied. “And the dog only yaps because he hates prissy haircuts.”
    Thorn tilted her head at him. “So you’re a dog expert?”
    “No,” he replied with a closed expression.
    “He has a special way with animals,” I said vaguely. I knew about Dominic’s