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“Avoid Vortex for a while,” he suggested.

“Why? He’s going to be banging Amy non-stop to prove himself,” I retorted.

Widowmaker began laughing. “Never a truer word spoken!”

Nanci

Guests were arriving, and I saw Drake and Phoe arrive with at least half of Rage MC behind them. The invitation had been thrown open to all our allies. Phoe bounded in, grinning, in a black-and-red dress with sugar skull makeup.

“How did it go?” she demanded.

“It was great. We had a good day.”

“Oh, I know that—Emily and I were here,” she exclaimed.

“Did you see what happened?” Amy asked.

“Yes. How cool was that? The crowd loved it; it was perfect and so good,” Phoe chortled, and my eyes narrowed. “Hey, there’s Clio. I need to talk to her about something important. Give me a minute.”

Phoe disappeared, and I turned to Amy and Meadow. “Tell me you picked that up.”

“Yeah, strange answer to give,” Amy agreed.

I sat down and began working things out. Phoe had been in town for hours while we’d been at Rage.

“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed, drawing people’s attention. “It was you!” I accused, pointing at Phoe. She didn’t even bother looking repentant.

“Happy Halloween!” she yelled, throwing her arms out in triumph.

Inglorious shoved forward. “You are behind the hauntings?”

“Yup.” Phoe grinned, which looked satanic with the makeup. “You’re very welcome for the profit.”

Inglorious turned slowly to Drake. “You said it wasn’t her.”

“And she threatened us with another fright night. Nope, you had a fuckin’ town to keep her busy,” Drake replied, grinning.

“You let your psycho wife loose on us?” Inglorious howled. “We’ve been pulling our hair out!”

“Problem?” Drake snorted.

“You fucker,” Inglorious seethed.

Phoe approached him and offered him a sad look. “You’re not really mad?” She shoved into him for a hug, and I shook my head. Damn, Phoe was good.

Inglorious looked down at her, his mouth working. “How?”

“The day you spent at Rage, I had a team come in. We’d already prepared everything; it was just a case of setting things up.” Phoe shrugged. “They hid little transmitters that could play sound and images.”

“You drove us mad. How did you slime me?” Nightmare demanded.

“Yeah, that one wasn’t me,” Phoe replied, frowning.

“Who was it?” he snapped, looking around. Nobody owned up to it.

“The woman, three horsemen, the sheriff, and Merritt Mike—all you?” Inglorious clarified.

“Not Merritt Mike. He certainly wasn’t me,” Phoe said. She frowned. “I’ve no idea where he came from.”