of the flood, she thought with a shudder.
Run. Get away, a voice in her head warned. Instead she kept moving forward.
She could hear a noise in the background now. Not the saw. Was it more like the beating of a drum? Wrapping her hands over her arms, she rubbed her chilled skin. It felt as though she had stepped into a supernatural place. Or some supernatural force had taken over the graveyard. Taken over her.
Shadows flickered around her, creating the illusion that the little cemetery was haunted by the ghosts from the past. And something from the present too—a force that pressed against her, making it hard to breathe.
She looked up, seeing the tree branches overhead, swaying in the wind, shifting the patterns of light and dark around her, blurring her vision.
Someone called her name, a ghostly sound carried away by the wind.
She straightened her shoulders, struggling to put the idea of specters out of her head as she moved reluctantly toward the nearest crypt. Brushing away the leaves, she saw that the name was almost completely worn away, but as she squinted at the carved letters, she saw that a Margot Gascon was buried here.
Who was the woman? Morgan didn’t know. But she understood that it was important to look at the other names. One name in particular. She must find it.
She was moving frantically now, hurrying through the cemetery. A grave at the back drew her. That was the one. Yes. She knew it, even though she couldn’t see the name yet.
Leaning over the flat top of the crypt, she brushed frantically at the leaves, then tried to read the worn letters. At first, she couldn’t make any sense of the words. With a shaking hand, she traced the carving. The stone felt like ice against her fingertips. When the name came into focus, she gasped.
It said Andre Gascon.
###
Instinctively, she leaped back, then bumped into something that hadn’t been there before.
Not something. Someone.
Two separate and distinct thoughts vied for prominence in her frantically scrambling mind. The men from town had followed her to this isolated location and were going to finish what they’d started on the road. Or one of the ghosts she’d sensed in this place of death had snuck up behind her.
If the men were after her, her next act might have been rational. Fumbling in her purse, she pulled out the gun she’d just bought and slipped her finger through the trigger guard as she whirled around—prepared to shoot the enemy.
Her heart leaped into her throat when she found herself facing Andre.
He was wearing a tee shirt, jeans and muddy work boots. His face and shirt were streaked with perspiration, and he was staring at her with an expression that mirrored her own shock.
“Put down the gun,” he said in a steady voice.
“You’re dead,” she gasped, backing away from him, bumping into another crypt. Somewhere in her brain, she knew she wasn’t thinking rationally. Andre was standing in front of her—alive and well. He had been out in the bayou working. And he had followed her into the cemetery.
But she kept seeing the white burial chamber imposed on his image. And she kept the gun pointed at him, the weight of the weapon reassuring.
“No. I’m very much alive.”
“But . . . your name.” Without lowering the weapon, she gestured toward the crypt.
“That’s my grandfather.”
“Your grandfather,” she repeated. Suddenly she felt dizzy. Closing her eyes, she pressed her free hand to her temple. “Andre. What just happened to me?” she whispered.
He answered with his own question. “Where did you get that gun?”
“In town,” she said, lowering the weapon, feeling now like it was weighing down her hand.
“Put it away, before somebody gets hurt.”
“Right.” As she eased her finger away from the trigger and carefully put the weapon back in her purse, realization slammed into her.
“I could have shot you,” she wheezed.
“You didn’t.”
“What’s happening to me?” she asked again, pressing her fingers to her temple.
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly it was important to explain why she had been so startled. “There are no dates on the gravestone,” she whispered.
He kept his voice even. “They’re at the foot of each marker.” He moved past her, brushed away leaves and pointed.
She made out the dates. Andre’s grandfather had been born in the late eighteen hundreds, died in the nineteen eighties.”
“You knew him?”
“When I was a boy. He was pretty old when I was born,” Andre said, then cleared his throat. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yes.” She wanted to get as far