Paul tilted his head to indicate Well, maybe. “I got a message from someone who was in Robert’s platoon in Vietnam. He said the soldiers there knew about the POW bracelets, but couldn’t decide if it was a tribute to the missing soldiers or a protest to the war. They didn’t care much for protestors.”

“And you couldn’t find Robert, either? Find out why he left so abruptly?”

It seemed to work. Paul’s expression changed to one of concentration and he looked directly at me. “That’s the strange part,” he said, as if the rest of this business had simply been routine. “He sent me back a message that he’s in the area, but doesn’t want to come here and discuss this matter just now.”

“Why?” I asked.

“That is the curious part,” Paul said. “Why did he seem so intent on locating the bracelet just a few hours ago, and now he won’t find the time to talk about it?”

“What about Maxie’s phantom ghost?” I asked.

Paul looked coy. “I have a theory, but it is unsupported by the facts as we know them,” he said.

Just then, a huge crash came from behind the house, shaking us and making a terrible noise that caused everyone, especially those not especially well anchored to the floor, jump.

I looked up at Paul. “Find Maxine,” I said, my voice a little raspy. He was gone in a second.

Before he could return, and before I could get to the back door to take a look, Alison and Melissa appeared at the top of the stairs. “Did you hear that?” Alison asked. It seemed a silly question; the noise was enough to wake . . . Paul and Maxine, if I had stopped to think about it. But they seemed quite awake to me.

“Paul went outside to look,” I told her. “There’s no need for anybody else to follow him.” I could see she was already looking toward the back door. “Did you check on Mac?”

“His room looked okay. I didn’t want to wake him up if that noise didn’t.”

“I’m sure he’s okay,” I said. “It didn’t sound like anything hit the house.”

Paul and Maxine—who was now wearing a black T-shirt with the slogan “Well, Blow Me Down” emblazoned on the front—emerged through the boarded-up French doors to the backyard. “It’s not serious,” Paul said once they were in the room. “A very large tree limb came down and landed in your backyard. It glanced off the shed, but it didn’t do any significant damage. It’ll just take some work with a chain saw once the storm has passed.”

Alison looked relieved, but didn’t say anything because we all heard a noise at the entrance to the den. Mac, in a terry-cloth robe over a T-shirt with a picture of Jimi Hendrix on it, was coming in from his room. He wore white socks on his skinny ankles, highly visible in the remaining candlelight. He looked like either Cheech or Chong; I can never remember which is which.

And what was weirdest of all: He was carrying the measuring cup I’d been looking for before dinner.

“Is everything okay?” he asked Alison when he reached the landing. “I heard a really loud noise.”

“Everything’s okay, Mac,” she said in what Melissa calls her “hostess voice.” “There’s no damage. Go ahead back to bed.”

“It’s almost six,” he answered. “I might as well stay up.” He started to walk toward us.

“What’s that in your hand?” I asked him, knowing full well what it was.

Mac looked down at his right hand, almost as if he’d forgotten it was there. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I found this next to my bed. Any idea what it was doing there?”

I took the cup from him. It was empty. “None at all,” I answered.

“And my hand smells like chicken,” he added. “Far out, huh? Made me hungry.” He laughed to himself.

“Maybe we should get some breakfast together,” I said to Alison. “The stove is gas, so there’s no reason we can’t cook, anyway. Maybe we could make a little something more than just coffee. Would you like some breakfast, Mac?”

The guest looked surprised. “I thought food wasn’t included.”

Alison smiled. “We make exceptions for hurricanes,” she said.

“Well, if it’s not too much trouble,” Mac answered.

“You sure it’s safe?” Maxine asked. “I’ve seen how you cook.” Alison’s mouth twitched, but she resisted the urge to glare in Maxine’s direction.

“I can help,” I volunteered.

Mac had reached the sofa and I stood up to start toward the kitchen. “I’ll do it, Mom,” Alison said with a tiny amount of edge in her voice. She’s not interested enough to be a great cook, but she does know how to brew coffee and can make some breakfasts. Although without a toaster to make frozen waffles, I wasn’t sure what else she could produce, but I decided to let her be the innkeeper and nodded.

But Alison stopped halfway to the kitchen when she heard me gasp, and Melissa’s eyes were fixed at the same spot that had caught my eye a moment ago—the glint of light from Mac’s arm.

He was wearing a POW bracelet.

Chapter 6

Everyone—living and dead—in the room stopped in their tracks, not that the ghosts really have tracks. Everyone, that is, except Mac, who was auditioning comfortable places to sit. He settled on the easy chair facing the sofa.

“Is that what I think it is?” Paul asked. I nodded, and so did Alison. His right hand went immediately to his goatee.

Mac barely had a chance to settle into the easy chair and look up when Melissa saved us. Before he could notice he was the center of attention, she cleared her throat and said, “That’s a really cool bracelet you’re wearing, Mac. May I see it?”

Alison’s guest, who was being careful to keep his long robe closed all the way to his white socks, seemed puzzled by the question. “Bracelet?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Melissa answered, pointing at Mac’s left forearm. Alison looked concerned, and Maxine moved closer to Melissa, just in case. She’s very protective.

He looked at it as if it were someone else’s. “Oh!” he said. “Sure, of course. I’d forgotten.” He leaned forward as much as he could and held out his wrist. “It’s called a POW bracelet,” he answered. “Do you know what that means?”

Melissa stole a quick glance at her mother, and Alison shook her head. “No, sir,” she told Mac. “What is it?”

The older gentleman explained, as I had, the origins of the bracelet. “I’ve had it for at least forty years, I guess,” he said, then looked at Melissa as if he’d forgotten she was there. “I’ve never taken it off in all that time. And it’s not just nostalgia.” He looked at Melissa. “Do you know what that means? ‘Nostalgia’?”

Melissa didn’t look for signals from Alison that time and nodded. “It means thinking about something that happened in the past and how you miss that time,” she said.

“That’s very good,” Mac responded. “You’re a smart girl.”

Well, that was obvious, of course. But I held my breath a bit when my granddaughter pushed the question a little further, even as Paul hovered down to look more closely at Mac’s face. Paul says facial expression is important when interviewing subjects. “You’re not thinking about a war, are you, Mac? That’s not the kind of time you’d have nostalgia for, is it?”

Alison looked a little concerned, and Paul said, “Easy, Melissa,” but Mac just smiled.

“No, you’re right,” he answered. “A war is a very bad thing, and that’s why I spent years protesting it. I burned my draft card and refused to go fight a war I thought was immoral. Spent a few nights in jail for what they called illegal assembly and incitement to riot.” He seemed proud of that.

“Did you go to Canada?” I asked, trying to buy time for Paul and Alison to think. “A lot of the war protestors ended up there to avoid being drafted.”

Mac smiled strangely, like he was remembering something both funny and sad at the same time. “No. The fact is, I had a high draft lottery number, and they never actually called me up. The whole thing was crazy; just a product of the military industrial complex.” I knew that was true of my husband, Jack, too—the Selective Service System had set up a “lottery” based on birth date, and if you got a high number, you probably weren’t going to get drafted. He’d been lucky.