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shake. “That’s the first part of the spell, Li’l Chucky. You wanna work in this room?” she asked him. “You wanna maybe make clients wait in this room for their appointments?”
    “No,” he wheezed. “No, I . . . Jesus—”
    Jane dropped his belt, slapped his face, and had his pants again, the motion so fast I wasn’t sure what I had seen. “No blasphemy, no swearing, no dirty language. Got it?”
    Chauncey nodded. His color was looking better and Jane sat him on the steps to the upstairs. “So it’s a haint, not a demon?” He asked when he’d caught his breath. Jane nodded. “What’s part two of the spell?” he asked her.
    Jane. Not me.
    I stifled a small smile, watching my friend at work. I had never seen this part of her.
    “You spend too much time in the room, Li’l Chucky,” she said, “and things start flying around. Hammers, ladders, broken furniture from upstairs. And I’d say the flying debris is aimed at anything human, and with fatal intent. Now.” She pointed to me. “This nice woman put her life in danger yesterday to figure out what was wrong with the house. She thinks she can undo the spell and free the property for development, but it’s dangerous. So here’s the deal. You pay her a flat fee for her efforts. And you pay her another fee, plus expenses, when she’s successful. You draw up the contract today, and as soon as her husband and I are satisfied, she goes to work. You get left with a usable building with a great history and a haunted house tale to delight your clients. Maybe hang a plaque on the wall to tell about it.”
    “How much?” he asked.
    Evan named a price that made me wince.
    “I spoke to the contractor,” Chauncey said. “He had a deal with the Hainbridge coven for a lot less.”
    “They can’t do the work. It’s a complicated spell,” Evan said. “They called in my wife and she can. So you work with her or you can think about it for a few days, while the contractor starts another job somewhere and you get left with an unfinished building.”
    “I have a contract with Hainbridge General Construction,” Chauncey said.
    “With an ‘act of God’ clause in it. Haints fall under that category.”
    “And you can’t negotiate with a haint,” Jane said, amused.
    “Will she do the job for what I was paying the coven?” he hedged.
    “No. And it isn’t extortion,” Evan said, eyes narrowing. “Haints are dangerous. What my wife will give you is a solution to a bigger problem than you knew you had. Let us know when you make a decision.” With that, Evan hustled me out of the house and Jane followed, her boots pattering down the front steps.
    Before we reached the bottom step, Chauncey raced from the house, squealing like a child. A metal bucket barely missed his head. Jane must have been expecting it, because she caught it out of the air and handed it to him, shaking her head. “Bet you had to touch the stove to see if it was hot when you were a kid. Idiot.” But it sounded like good-natured ribbing more than insult. To me she said, “Later, Molly.”
    Big Evan said, “See you around Jane,” and opened my car door for me. I got in. Evan came around to his side and got in, his bulk making the old rattletrap rock. Jane keyed on her used Yamaha motorcycle. And Chauncey caved. “Wait,” he yelled. Jane turned off her bike. We got out of the car. To Evan, he said, “I can’t afford the fee you named. I can go, maybe half that.”
    Evan and he dickered for a few minutes over price and I had to turn away. My services were going to cost a lot more money than I thought they were worth, but they finally settled on a four-figure sum that meant I could get a new refrigerator and put something toward that new car we’ve been saving for.
    “I’ll draw up the contract,” Chauncey said. “I can fax or e-mail it over in two hours.” He looked at me and said, “Can you get rid of the haint today?”
    I almost said yes, but Jane shook her head, very