Page 28 of Haunted Ever After

He huffed a laugh of his own in response. “Stuff that’s great about this town. That the tourists don’t know about. And the thing is, we kind of like it that way.”

“Like a dive bar that you don’t want the tourists to find, because they’d ruin the vibe?”

He blinked. That was…well, that was very close. “Pretty much,” he allowed. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that ghosts…hauntings, whatever you want to call them…they’re everywhere around here. To the point that they’re just not a big deal. Don’t get me wrong,” he rushed to add as a shadow crossed over Cassie’s face. “Living with a ghost is a lot. Believe me, I know.”

Cassie tilted her head to the side. “You do?”

“You think Elmer just lives in my phone?” He shook his head. “After his wife died, he moved into the apartment upstairs from the café. The one I live in now. And when he died…well, he didn’t move out.”

“So y’all are, what, roommates?” Her voice pitched a note higher, her eyebrows arched, eyes wide.

Nick nodded. “Elmer came with the place, and the previous owners didn’t want to deal with him. So I got the business for a song. Your house was a bargain too, right?”

It didn’t take long for Cassie to catch his meaning. “I’m just not sure if I can get used to it.” Her tone was quiet, voicing something she didn’t want to admit, and Nick’s heart pitched southward toward the pit of his stomach.

But he kept his voice neutral, when all he wanted to do was plead. “Maybe not.” He wanted to connect their minds, so she could automatically see his perspective. But that was not only creepy but a scooch misogynistic, so instead he stuck with his original plan.

“I get it,” he said. “Being ambushed in your own house is the opposite of a good time. But that’s not what living in a town with ghosts is all about. I wanted to show you some of the cool things about it.” No pun intended, but she didn’t know that yet. “Okay, yeah, we’re a haunted town. But that doesn’t necessarily mean scary. For example…” They were almost at the stoplight now, where the main road opened up into four lanes going out of town. He gestured in front of them at the nondescript gray building by the street. “This is The Cold Spot.”

“Okay…” Cassie examined the building, and he tried to see it through her eyes. It didn’t look like much from the outside. Hell, it didn’t look like much on the inside, either, but that wasn’t where they were headed. “Wasn’t this in the book? I remember a picture of it. It used to be a gas station?”

Nick nodded. “These days it’s a bar. Tourists don’t come here much since it’s kind of far from the downtown area. It’s more of a locals-only place.”

“So we’re here for a drink?”

Nick shook his head. “We can, if you’re in the mood for a beer. Or the worst nachos you’ve ever had. But that’s not why we’re here.” He led her around the back of the building, where an old Studebaker rusted gently by a service bay door that had been welded shut decades ago.

Cassie laughed nervously. “Well, this doesn’t look sketchy at all. Is this where the serial killer is gonna…”

Nick knew the moment that she hit it. Her voice faded as he knew it would, and confused wonder suffused her face.

“Right?” he said.

“What the hell?” Her voice was little more than a whisper. She turned in a circle, her hands outstretched, trying to touch the air around her. “Where is this coming from?” She looked toward the bar, and he knew exactly what she was looking for: a stray air-conditioning vent, or a fan. Something, anything, that would explain why the spot she was standing in was a good twenty degrees colder than where Nick stood. Countless people over the years had done the same thing, and no one had ever found an explanation that made sense.

He stepped forward too, joining her in that space. It was like stepping into a blast chiller. The sudden chill raised goose pimples as the ever-present slick of perspiration that lived on his skin in the Florida summer instantly evaporated. He sighed happily, eyes falling closed in a slow blink like a contented cat, an involuntary reaction to the blissful cold.

But she’d asked him a question. “We don’t know where it comes from. Mr. Lindsay didn’t cover it in the book, and no one’s come across any accounts of anything weird happening around here.”

A little of the wonder slipped from Cassie’s face. “What does that mean? Like…someone was forgotten?”

He hadn’t thought about it that way, and now the thought made him frown. “I don’t know. Maybe. Must have been something from a long time ago, though. Maybe even from before the town was founded. It’s been checked out, more than once. One of those cable shows even came out, did a whole investigation with infrared cameras and all kinds of fancy equipment.”

Cassie smirked; she knew enough about the town by now to know how that had gone down. “I bet that went great.”

“About as well as you’d expect.” That crew had been a shitshow. A bunch of social media stars with their bells and whistles, telling Nick, and anyone else in Boneyard Key who would listen, how to look out for spirits and what to do if they saw one. Ghost-splaining, that was what it was. Elmer had a lot to say about those guys; Nick’s phone had blown up for days afterward.

He stepped out of the cold spot, where the heat and humidity of the evening was like a wet slap to the face, and extended a hand to Cassie. “This place gets really popular in the summer. Especially if we get a hurricane and lose power.” It was an odd but familiar sight during those times: people lined up to cool off in the town’s cold spot after a day of chainsawing trees and clearing away hurricane debris.

“I can imagine.” She took the hint—but not his hand, unfortunately—and followed him back around to the front of the bar. “So this place isn’t mentioned in the book at all?”

He shook his head as they started back down the street. “My theory is that Mr. Lindsay wanted this to remain a locals-only legend. We don’t want tourists hogging up all our cold.” He grinned in response to her laugh.

“Then I appreciate you showing it to me.”

“Well, sure,” he said easily. “You’re a local now, right?”

Cassie didn’t answer the question, and Nick tried not to notice. Instead she looked over her shoulder, back toward the bar. “We’re not going inside?”

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