“No, she’s staying,” Ashley said. She still had a thousand questions, and Logan wasn’t leaving until she got some answers. “Everything is for here. I’ll pay.”
Gus eyed Logan. “You over twenty-one?”
“… Yes?” Logan tried.
Gus shrugged and made his way back to the kitchen, leaving them alone. Never in the history of the Chokecherry had Gus actually checked someone’s ID. It was an unspoken rule—every teen in Snakebite came here for cheap beer and fries, and as long as they promised not to drive and paid their check in full, Gus had no problem serving. The police in Snakebite didn’t care, and the type of police who did care would never set foot in a town this far from civilization.
Logan settled into her side of the booth. She wore her discomfort plain on her face, and Ashley wasn’t sure if it was the bar or the ghosts or that she just didn’t want to be here with the girl who’d just told her that her father’s ghost had rattled off a bunch of incriminating things. She couldn’t blame Logan if it was all of the above. A Johnny Cash song blared from the jukebox across the pub. A gnat buzzed by Ashley’s ear.
She leaned forward until Logan met her eyes. “I think we should talk about—”
“Yeah, I know,” Logan snapped. “I just … can I have some time to, like, process?”
“Sure, yeah,” Ashley said. She looked at the etched tabletop and studied the woodgrain. “I’m freaked out, too. I’m the one who saw it. I guess I’m just confused. I mean, your dad isn’t dead.”
“Right.”
“So that’s two now.”
Logan arched a brow.
“Two ghost-spirit things I’ve seen of people that aren’t dead.”
“Two?”
“Tristan,” Ashley clarified. “This means he’s probably alive.”
Logan pressed her face into her palms and dragged her fingertips down her face, stretching the skin under her eyes. “It doesn’t make any sense. I am so confused.”
Ashley was confused, too. Seeing and hearing Tristan was one thing, but this was something else entirely. Tristan was only a glimpse. He was moments of familiarity, there and gone as quick as a flash of lightning. Seeing Logan’s dad was real. He’d been so lifelike it seemed impossible that Logan didn’t see him, too. Brandon Woodley had been there in the cabin, standing in front of her. She could’ve reached out and touched him if she hadn’t been so afraid.
“Your dads never said anything about the cabin before?” Ashley asked.
A shadow passed over Logan’s expression. Ashley got the sense that she’d stepped on loose terrain. She didn’t know much about Brandon Woodley or Alejo Ortiz. She didn’t know anything about who they were before they left Snakebite, or who they were now. Why they’d disappeared for so many years. She ran her thumbnail along a crack in the table, searching for the right words.
Ashley leaned in. “I just wanna understand what I saw.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not gonna tell anyone about it. If that’s what you’re worried about. It’s probably good we saw it, though. If someone else saw what we saw—”
“—what you saw,” Logan clarified.
“—they might think it looked bad.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Are you blackmailing me?”
“Oh my god, no.” Ashley ran a hand through her ponytail. “I just meant, could you tell me a little more about him? Both of your dads, actually. You know more than anyone else.”
“I didn’t even know they were from here until a few months ago.” Logan rolled her eyes. “Why are you asking? So you can go snitch? I know they didn’t kill anyone.”