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in San Antonio. Sylvia was long gone—nobody knew her here. She was Alana DuBois. “You’ve got the wrong person,” she snapped, keeping her eyes straight ahead. “I’m not the one you’re looking for.”
    “Sylvia?”
    Alana swallowed hard again, beginning to trot. “I don’t know you,” she squeaked.
    “Sylvia? Sylvia? Sylvia?” The raspy singsong followed her down the street, enveloping her like an icy wind.
    Alana whirled at the corner, glaring behind her as she pushed the hood back from her face, trying to see where the voice was coming from. “I don’t know you,” she screamed. “Leave me alone.”
    She opened her mouth to scream again and suddenly her throat was filled with jagged light. She felt it burning against her skin, slicing into her ears, her nose, her eyes. A great wave of light, turning her into light herself. She became a shimmering candle burning with cold fire in the middle of the street.
    The red velvet cloak disintegrated into ashes at her feet. Her body clenched in silent spasms, organs, bones, and skin melding together into a small dried husk.
    After a few moments, the wind caught the ashes that were all that remained of Alana DuBois, bearing them away into the empty spaces that lined the street.
    ***
    Rose paused at her computer, a shiver snaking up her spine. “What the hell?”
    “Something unexpected?” Skag appeared at her shoulder, staring at the screen.
    She shook her head. “I felt something weird. Just . . . someone walked across my grave, I guess.”
    Skag snorted. “What a very unfortunate turn of phrase you have sometimes, Rose.” He disappeared again.
    “Oh, bite me,” she muttered. But after a moment she clicked on another lamp at the other end of the desk. All of a sudden the room seemed way too dark.

Chapter 4
    Evan studied the stack of résumés on his desk and felt like sighing. His requirements for a research assistant weren’t exactly stiff—just someone who knew his way around a library and an online search and who maybe had the smarts to do a few interviews. He’d hoped the tight job market might throw out a few hungry grad students or maybe an out-of-work reporter. Instead he’d gotten a lot of people who didn’t seem to have a clue about what the word
research
meant. The one kid who’d seemed promising had turned out to be a devout believer in UFO’s and ghost hunters. Evan had a feeling the boy wouldn’t be exactly unbiased in digging for facts on William Bradford.
    Now he glanced down at the other promising résumé and back up at the woman who went along with it. Rose Ramos didn’t exactly look Latina. She did, however, look a lot like the librarian she’d apparently once been. Or at least like the librarians he’d known when he was a kid. Her hair was pulled back tightly in the kind of low ponytail that made his forehead ache in sympathy. Her formidable black-rimmed glasses took up half her face. Her loose cotton blouse and knee-length black skirt gave no hint of what her figure might be like.
    Which was, of course, none of his business anyway and certainly not relevant to the present situation. Evan grimaced. He needed to focus. Based on Ramos’s résumé, she might be his last best hope for a competent research assistant.
    “You’re a reference librarian?” he asked.
    Ms. Ramos nodded. “I was. For three years. I have a degree in library science from UT Austin.”
    “Why did you leave?”
    She shrugged. “Bad times for libraries. Staffing reductions.”
    Which was a nicely vague nonanswer. Evan decided to let it go for now. “Are you familiar with what I do, Ms. Ramos?”
    She nodded. “I’ve read a couple of your books. The one on the Fox sisters and the one on ghost hoaxes.”
    He tried to think of a way to ask the next question without sounding like a complete asshole.
Oh well, just go for it.
“What did you think of them?”
    “They’re very well written. And I like your attitude.”
    “My attitude?”
    “A lot of