"I don't know," Michael admitted. "The ghost didn't talk or anything. It just rushed at Tiller and drew down a lightning bolt that scattered Tiller, Bulmer, and me."

"You were nearly hit by a lightning bolt?" Maria asked. Michael realized there was a near-death-by-lightning footnotes she hadn't been aware of as well.

"It was nothing," Michael said. "The bolt knocked the three of us off our feet. That's all." He nudged the plates forward. "Better get these out before we get mobbed."

Maria sighed in disgust as she gathered her orders. "We're not done here."

Michael nodded. "Kinda got that."

Liz lagged a half-step behind, waiting till Maria left. "Have you ever seen ghosts before?" Liz asked in a low voice.

"No."

"Maybe this is a new power manifesting," Liz suggested. During the time that she'd known Max, Michael, and Isabel, their powers had become stronger.

Michael shrugged and started cleaning the grill. "Maybe. Or maybe it was just something that happened because we'd been telling ghost stories and the storm settled in. Maybe I didn't see anything after all."

Balancing five plates on the round server tray, Liz turned toward the dining room again. When she finished delivering the order to the waiting table, Liz retreated to the wait station for the tea pitcher and coffeepot.

Maria joined her just a moment later. "Can you believe

Michael? Can you believe that he'd see a ghost and not tell me about it?"

"I don't think he's sure he saw a ghost," Liz said.

"What about the lightning bolt?"

"Coincidence."

"Around those three? No way."

"The ghost was Tiller's father," Liz pointed out. "Not anyone Michael knew."

"Look, after the shift finishes today," Maria said, then glanced out at the dining area. "Okay, if this shift ever ends, we'll check around with the realtor and some of the other businesspeople along the street who were here before you and your parents were. Maybe something happened here."

"What?" Liz asked.

"A murder." Maria looked at her. "You think I'm being overdramatic?"

"Yes."

"Then we can keep the operative theory that your mom is wigging out?"

Liz grimaced. "Okay. We'll ask around, but I think there has to be a more reasonable explanation for… "

Car horns blared outside the restaurant on the street.

Glancing up, Liz watched as a thin scarecrow of a man darted across the street out in front of the Crashdown Cafe. She recognized the man as one of the town regulars.

Leroy Wilkins seldom stopped in at the Crashdown Cafe to eat, but he dropped in often for a cup of coffee and to exchange gossip. Thin and wiry, on the edge of looking emaciated, Wilkins was supposed to have been some kind of prospector back in the sixties and seventies. His hair and long gray beard stuck out in several directions. He wore faded and patched jeans, a flannel shirt in the same dire degree of wear, and a battered cowboy hat that might have once been black but now carried an indelible patina of desert sand.

More honking shrilled in the wake of Wilkins's frantic run crossing the street. An SUV couldn't stop soon enough. Tires shredded the pavement. The SUV rocked forward, catching Wilkins before he was able to get clear. Wilkins sprawled across the front of the SUV for a moment, looking like the fresh kill proudly shown off by a mechanical predator.

Shoving from the SUV, Wilkins got up again and ran toward the Crashdown Cafe. He reached the door wheezing, his face mottled red from exertion.

Instinctively Liz looked behind the man. Anyone running like that was being chased by someone… or something.

5

Worry gnawed at the edges of Liz's mind as she watched Leroy Wilkins claw at the Crashdown Cafe's front door like a feral animal. His arthritic hands kept slipping on the handle. Wilkins managed to get the door open and slide inside. He turned to face the door and the plate-glass windows at the front of the cafe.

"No!" Wilkins bleated hoarsely, raising one hand as if to ward off a blow.

Liz stared out into the street. Besides the stalled traffic, she could see nothing else.

"Keep him back!" Wilkins cried out. He lifted both hands in front of his face and kept stepping back into the cafe. "Keep him back! Somebody help me!"

Several of the nearby patrons stood and abandoned their meals, not wanting to be anywhere near the old prospector.

"Do you see anybody?" Maria asked Liz.

Liz shook her head.

Wilkins turned and fled again. Before Liz could move, the old man was on her, grabbing her by the shoulders and staring into her eyes.

"Make him stop!" Wilkins begged. Saliva flecked his lips and shone in his beard. His breath was foul and harsh enough to peel paint.

"Who?" Liz asked. The old man's fingers dug into her shoulders painfully. She struggled to get away, but he only tightened his grip.

"Swanson!" Wilkins exploded. "Swansons out to get me!"

Liz didn't know who Swanson was, and she didn't see anyone over the old man's shoulder, either. She felt Wilkins trembling, though. "I don't see Swanson," she said.

Taking a step to the side, Wilkins kept Liz between himself and the front door. He peered out at the street. Then his grip tightened on her again, almost hard enough now to make her cry out.

"You're lying the old man shouted. "He's out there! I can see him! He's been followin' me for days!"

From the corner of her eye, Liz watched Michael slip from the kitchen through the door beside the pass-through window. Michael took his apron off, balled the garment up, and tossed it to the floor behind him as he started for Wilkins.

"Swanson!" Wilkins brayed in his hoarse voice. "You're not gonna get me! All that business that we done between us, all of that's over with! You're dead!"

Dead? Liz's mind flipped and spun. Wilkins is talking to a ghost?

Michael reached for Wilkins. The old man still wasn't aware of Michael standing there. Before Michael's hand fell on Wilkins's shoulder, a cloud of swirling debris… fast-food containers and cups, newspapers, and bits and pieces of unidentified matter… rose up from the street.

Liz didn't think the swirling wind was too strange. Dust devils were a common occurrence out in the desert. But she'd never seen one that grew the way the dust devil in front of the Crashdown Cafe grew. In the space of a few heartbeats the dust devil increased in size large enough to cover the cafe's front door and most of the glass window that looked out onto the street.

Liz glanced at Michael, wondering why he wasn't doing something about Wilkins. Instead, Michael had frozen in place, watching the front of the cafe.

What does he see? Liz asked herself. There was no doubt that Michael saw something. She stared hard through the glass, turning most of her attention from Wilkins, ignoring the pain in her shoulders.

All she saw were papers swirling in midair. Some of them slapped against the glass of the door and the window, creating eerie tapping noises, the kind she'd heard on sound tracks of cheesy horror movies. A silvery glimmer sparked out on the street, something that raced in between the traffic. But the glimmer was gone before Liz could be certain she'd even seen it.

In the next instant the dust devil slammed against the front of the cafe. Glass shattered as the windows gave way before the assault.

"NOOOO!" Wilkins shouted, yanking Liz backward. He stumbled and almost fell, only maintaining his balance because Liz kept hers.

Michael launched himself into action, stepping forward and grabbing one of Wilkins's arms. He tore the panicked old man's hand from Liz's shoulder, then spun her out of her captor's grip.

"Noooo!" Wilkins howled, raising both arms in front of him. The wind caught up to him, ripping his cowboy hat from his head. "Don't, Swanson! Don't do… " His frightened plea ended in a sudden detonation of thunder.