Southern Ghost by Carolyn Hart

Author:Carolyn Hart
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-31T18:44:36+00:00

Chapter 18.

Ross listened tensely to the news through the crackle of static on the car radio. The station faded in and out, but he heard enough. Campuses were closing across the country, in California, in Illinois. in Massachusetts. Witnesses were saying no one had fired at the National Guard. Witnesses were saying the students, walking to class, were gunned down for no reason. The Guard was claiming an attack.

Students were marching. . . . The station faded out. Ross turned the dial and Hank Thompson's mournful voice filled the car. Ross turned off the radio. He was almost home.

He'd made the right decision. He squared his shoulders, gripped the wheel tighter.

He could see his father's face, proud and arrogant. Always the Judge's somber eyes lighted for him.

What would his father say?

Annie gripped the door as the Maserati bumped down the deep-rutted, overgrowth-choked, dusty gray road. Cones from the slash pines crunched beneath the tires. Giant ferns glistened with dew beneath spreading live oaks. Holly and sharp-edged yucca, saw palmetto, and running oak flourished. Annie, for an instant, envisioned the land as it appeared to long-ago travelers: wild, untamed, inimical, with an almost overpowering fecundity.

The road curved left.

Max jammed on the brake at a flurry of movement in the foliage. Annie hung on tight. A blue-gray hawk zoomed across the road, swooping to pounce on a pinkish copperhead stretched in a sunny spot on a rotting log.

It was the only time Annie had ever felt sorry for a snake.

She wondered how much she would have loved the Low

Country two hundred years ago. She wasn't altogether crazy about this present-day, off-the-beaten-path forest. She loved sassafras, sweet gum, and red bay trees, but nicely pruned and cut back, thank you. It was exciting to glimpse white-tailed deer, but the sudden thrashing in the undergrowth and the sight of bristly black hair and an ugly snout with razor-sharp tusks made her long for the confines of a well-kept clay tennis court.

Annie hunched tensely in her seat. Any kind of horror could occur in the midst of these longleaf-pine flatwoods.

"Do you think it's much farther?" She tried to sound casual.

Max, as always, wasn't deceived. "Don't worry, honey. As long as you don't step on a diamondback, you'll be okay."

She did not consider his answer especially reassuring.

"Oh, hell," Max swore, and the Maserati jolted to a stop.

One of last winter's nor'easters had toppled a dead pine.

Breaking as it fell, a portion of the trunk blocked the road. A huge limb had splintered the wooden bridge over the sluggish stream.

Max glanced at the mileage counter he had punched when they left the blacktop. "It's about a half-mile farther. Look, Annie, you can stay here and—"

She was already opening her door. "In for a penny," she announced stalwartly, wishing she had put on hiking boots and jeans and a long-sleeved cotton top instead of white flats, a pleated pink-rose cotton skirt, and a delicate white cotton blouse with a lacy embroidered collar. She had considered it a fetching outfit (and perfectly appropriate) this morning at the St.

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