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day.
    Bobby wandered around, looking at the various stones and avoiding the cameras, until we got started again. It was another quarter hour before we came to the piece de resistance—or one of them, because Ulric promised that yes , we would get as close as was allowed to the location of the recent murder. We were at Hale House, the site where the remains of the infamous Sheriff George Corwin were buried after his corpse had been stolen by Ulric’s current alter-ego, Philip English. English had held the body hostage against Corwin’s estate, insisting he be paid back for the property that was seized when he was accused of witchcraft.
    “This,” Ulric said, making eye contact with the girls up front who were hanging on his every word, “is one of the primary places people have reported encounters with the deadly sheriff. People describe a cold, dark weight compressing their chests and squeezing their hearts, or ghostly hands around their throats, or tugging at their feet as if to end their death dance on the gallows.”
    Oh, he was good. I nearly felt it myself. I didn’t have to breathe, so no worries there, but the pressing on my chest … the feeling of being watched and studied. I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder for … something. I didn’t find it. Not that I expected any different. Still, the creepy feeling just wouldn’t go away.
    “This place always gives me the creeps,” Ulric said, echoing my thoughts. “It’s as if Old Sheriff Corwin is still out looking for rowdies and rule-breakers.”
    “Have you ever experienced anything yoursel f ?” a man asked. It seemed to be the same one who’d spoken up earlier about the murdered girl. Now that the group had shifted over the course of the walk, I could see him—deeply weathered skin, a dark close-cut beard, baseball cap, navy blue wool jacket with brown leather sleeves, and a matching navy ball cap pulled low with a fighting turtle logo front and center.
    He could have been anyone, but he wasn’t. He was someone specific … someone I recognized. I just didn’t know who. I half-hoped he’d look straight at me and half-hoped that he wouldn’t, in case I was just as familiar to him.
    Who’s that? I mind-spoke to Bobby, afraid that even a whisper might draw the man’s attention.
    Bobby looked quickly over to me and back. Why? Who do you think he is?
    I huffed. Do you recognize him or not?
    Not.
    I relaxed. It was probably just one of those cases where someone reminds you of someone else, like an actor or your Uncle John. And then it hit. I knew where I’d seen this guy before. The weight on my chest was probably dread. He was from that ghostbuster-type reality show, Ghouligans .
    Crap. We weren’t in danger of exposure from recognition. We were in danger of a lot worse. If he noticed us. He didn’t have a camera or crew with him, so maybe he was just scouting things out, like for some future episode. No instruments meant he’d have no way to tell we weren’t your garden-variety tour guides. By the time Ghouligans got around to filming, we’d be long gone. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully?
    Ulric was winding up, and I tapped Bobby’s arm to pull him into the shadows with me as I mentally gave him the bad news.
    Never seen the show , he told me. Do they ever find anything? Like hard evidence?
    My old friend Becca had been the Ghouligans addict, but the couple of times she’d convinced me to watch with her, their sightings had been pretty sketchy, I thought. Heat signatures and noises you could just barely make out if they were magnified, like, a thousand times and slowed down or sped up or filtered for effect, but if you were a true believer you’d find it totally convincing. Becca had. I told him as much.
    Nothing to worry about then , he replied. He sounded soothing, which so had the opposite effect on me.
    He was right, though, right? Why was I so on edge? Maybe Brent had nailed it and there was just something about Salem. Or maybe