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"What happened then? Did you go downstairs looking for your wife?" Angela asked "Did you think she , maybe?"

He shook his head "I saw the doors open to the balcony It was a beautiful twilight, and I figured she had stepped out to catch the night breeze I walked out to the balcony, and I called her nanant and fresh, had slipped into his voice He covered his face with his hands Angela touched hi she ht of to say would have been inane

He took a moment, and then looked at her, his features contorted with pain "Her eyes were open," he said, his voice ragged "Her eyes were open She lay on her back, her head at an awful angle, and blood was pooling beneath it But her eyes were open, and she alela asked

"As if she had seen so so horrible that she couldn’t bear it So And, I’ela asked, "What?"

"A ghost"

Confused, Angela stood still and quiet for a minute "You said that you and your eren’t fanciful people That you didn’t believe in ghosts," she said

"I didn’t Not until I owned this house"

"But--you believe your wife saw a ghost?"

He let out a breath, staring at her "There were places in the house she wouldn’t go when I wasn’t home She said that they just made her uncomfortable And I don’t really knohat I saw, but when I was in the kitchen once, I felt as if so me I looked at the door to the base there I don’t knohat It seeone Was it a ghost? Hell, I don’t know I do know that I felt as cold as ice, and had rivulets of fear racing up and downridiculous, but, later, that night, Regina asked hosts I said no, and reminded her that neither did she But, then, after she died…I started to think about it again And when she died, people looked at me as if I had to be a monster--as if I had caused her suicide I didn’t I believe now that ghosts caused her suicide, and you people need to find out if they’re real--you need to prove it forto re the trio that continually surrounded Senator Holloway They’d chatted about the Saints and other local sports teams, and he learned that the hulk--Blake Conroy--had wrestled professionally Grable Haines ad done time in a juvenile detention center for petty larceny, and Martin DuPre had simply been in love with politics since he’d been a kid "Politics and power, they go hand in hand And the right people need to be in power I’m lucky I learn so much from Senator Holloway, it’s like a miracle, a present from God," DuPre told hi

"But he needs a bodyguard," Jackson pointed out

"He’s a politician--and no wishy-washy yes-es his stance on so, it’s because he’s received new inforular-size bottle dwarfed by his roups are against him," DuPre told him

"I heard about a few earlier," Jackson said "The Aryans and the Church of Christ Arisen"

"The Aryans are assholes," Grable said

"Freedo we can do about them," DuPre reminded him

"Yeah, well, thank God they don’t have much of a hold here, not in New Orleans," Blake said He slaainst his palm "They are neo-Nazis at their worst Of course, it would be illegal to euthanize anyone with impure blood, so they use words as weapons And they do it well If God had wanted us to be all one race, ould have come that way, they say God had separations in color for a reason"

"U, as far as I understand anthropology," Jackson said

"Yeah, go figure," DuPre said "Thing is, the senator, he’s always politically correct Noat Grable "--assholes do, the senator is cal his own"

"What about the Church of Christ Arisen?" Jackson asked

"Well, now, they’re just really weird," Grable told hie"

"Don’t compare them to Masons!" Blake protested "My dad was a Mason And a Shriner Those guys got together and supported kids in hospitals Don’t even compare"

"Well, you have to be a s There’s a bishop, nah council, with five members They’re protected by law, but I don’t think they should be"

"Hey, there’s an enormous church in this country where people worship aliens, for God’s sake," DuPre put in "It’s a free country, with separation of church and state"

"You can have all the laws in the world--and that don’t stop the Santeria groups fro animal sacrifice," Blake said

"Or voodoo priestesses fro as hesorry for the priestess or the snake?" Blake asked hi