To Guest: Thanks for reviewing, they've been much appreciated. Glad to know I've fixed the summary, it took me a while before I finally found a way to word it the way I wanted to. ;)

And sorry for the long update. School and no sleep have been absolute brain killers and nap fuel. XP

"JOE!" Frank instantly ran to him, Nancy right behind him.

He turned his head to look at them, and swallowed. "Hey, Nance."

"What the hell happened?!" She answered, "Are you alright?"

He sat up with their help, and stood. "Sure, sure."

"What happened, Joe?!" Frank looked around, "Did someone break in? No, something would probably be broken…" He caught sight of a purple bruise on Joe's arm, and rolled the sleeve up to reveal three finger-shaped bruises.

"If she was standing at a different angle, the other two fingers would have bruised me, too." He shook his head, blinking. "No one broke in. At least, not technically."

"Dammit Joe, tell us what the hell happened!"

He blinked, and stared Frank in the eyes. "She came back, Frank. Lil' girl…"

"Who?" Nancy asked.

The older brother looked at her, and led Joe to the dining room. "When—when was this?"

Frank had seen the pictures Joe took that first time. The ladybug that appeared on the ground after Charlotte Ann's appearance showed up on camera film, so both ruled out a hallucination as a solution. This proved that theory. Unless it was a physical person dressed up this time around and some sort of hologram or something last time? His mind reeled.

"I don't know—what time is it?"

"Quarter till' four."

"Then around forty minutes ago. Here's," he laughed, "a welcome fruit-plate, Nance. "

"Because THAT'S what I care about right now," She half laughed, half groaned.

"What did she do?" Frank asked. "I mean, besides this," He held up the bruised arm. "That'll need some ice."

Nancy reluctantly nodded, "I'll go get some."

As they got settled, Joe explained what happened, and gladly accepted the icepack. "—And then I woke up. I dragged myself in here after, but she hit my head pretty hard...Or, whatever she did with that finger, it knocked me out cold…"

"Um," Nancy closed her eyes, trying to form the words in a nice way. "You…You saw the ghost of a little girl?"

"Right. You haven't heard our side of the story yet. C'mon," Frank pointed to a staircase, "Joe and I need to show you something. I'll get your bags. Joe, can you walk okay?"

"I'd better, or that ghost is paying for my hospital bills!"

And so they led her upstairs to the guest bedroom to drop off her belongings, and then into Joe's bedroom and over to his desk.

"We printed these out after the first time Charlotte Ann made her little debut into our lives," Joe handed them to Nancy. "It was right after I opened your letter. That first one's of the ladybug that was there after my mother came in, and Charlotte disappeared . . . That one's just of the corner over here . . . Another ladybug picture . . . And that's one out of two pictures," His voice was soft, somewhat shaky from remembering that evening. "That's the best picture I got, the other one's blurry."

The picture was of the corner of the room, like the first one, but it had a grayish-silver mist on the left side of the frame. At least, half of it was a mist. What looked like a seriously ticked off little girl was either molded into or behind it like a wall. Only the left side of her face and left arm shown—the one eye was narrowed and packed with as much hatred, more even, than any innocent child could muster. Her mouth was curled downward in a snarl, and a fist was clenched.*

Nancy nodded gravely, and looked at the final picture. Joe was right, it was blurry. The mist and face were still there, only it seemed like more of her face was revealed. Maybe.

She handed them back to Joe. "Charlotte Ann McGillis, wasn't it?"

"Yeah."

"The ladybug song?"

"Yeah," Frank answered this time.

"And," she gulped, "I suppose you two want to know where I heard it?"

"You've already told me the basic run-through of your case, but no details on the song. Have a seat if you want to."

She sat on the bed. Joe sat next to her, while Frank preferred to stand.

"What do you hope to get from me telling you this?"

Joe shrugged, "Something that'll explain why there's a little ghost girl haunting us and blaming me for her death. You know, the basics."

So, Nancy told them about the hallucinations, and told them every detail she could of Miss Charlotte Thornton and the faulty radiator—but that was still another case. She pointed this out.

"That may be," Joe said, playing with a pencil, "but it was all created by your subconscious mind. There might be something that gives us some kind of lead to this. Could anyone have sung it for you when you were younger, or…?"

She thought for a second, taking a deep breath. "I . . . My . . . My mother…might have…"

Both boys inhaled sharply, and Frank paused in mid-step of pacing as the air grew heavy and awkward. They knew Nancy's mother passed away when she was younger. The case had nothing to do with her mother. They wanted to change the subject, especially Joe (who did NOT do awkward!), but every detail counted.

"Mom—Mom might have sung it to me when I was a little girl. But when I say little, I-I mean little-little. I like to share the memories I have of Mom, but that doesn't mean I remember much from my toddler years."

Joe nodded, wrapping an arm around her in a side-hug. "It's okay. Why don't you call and ask your dad? I bet he'd remember. All we need is why you chose that song, or any song for that matter."

She reluctantly nodded. "Okay. I'll call him, and catch the others up."

"Others?"

"Bess and Ned," She grinned. "They know I'm here, guys."

"Do they know about Charlotte? Thornton, I mean, not the little girl that died. And the visions?"

She was slightly taken back by this: Nancy had called Bess and Ned a few times throughout her case, and several after. Of course she had told them! "Well, what about your visions? Why would she blame you for her death?"

Frank gave her a sharp look, and stopped pacing.

Joe inhaled sharply, and exhaled slowly. "It…It's because…I, ah, I walked in before the murder took place. Not during. I tripped, tried to warn her. It-it was just too late," He looked down, voice so soft it could barely be heard. "I held her when she died, Nan. The last person who spoke to her, the last face she saw. I don't know why she still blames me for her death…"

She took his hand and squeezed when that usually smooth-flowing voice broke on 'face.' "Joe, you tried to warn her."

"You stayed behind to help her," Frank added, placing a hand on his brother's shoulder. "You made sure she didn't die alone and scared."

"Yeah…But she apparently doesn't think so."

"There's got to be a reasonable explanation for this!" Nancy exclaimed, "There's no such thing as ghosts!"

Both brothers were silent.

She laughed at them both, incredulous and unbelieving of what their downcast eyes implied. "Seriously guys?"

Joe shrugged. "Nan, you had to have seen it for yourself. That, that thing that just attacked me, it wasn't human. But it left me with this," he waved the arm, "and a splitting headache."

"Frank? Surely you..? I mean, have you seen her too?"

He looked at her and forced a chuckle. "You know me, Nance. I don't believe in any of that stuff for a second . . . maybe there was some kind of gas or drug Joe was under, making her appear like what she was, when in reality Charlotte Ann was someone in a costume. But I still don't know what the heck to believe. Joe snapped pictures of a real ladybug, right where that thing was not a minute before. And then he caught those other pictures on the same camera, when there was nothing there, and even Mom said it was freezing in here."

"The camera might've been rigged!" She insisted.

"We already thought of that," Joe stated, putting the pencil on the nightstand. "Checked it out, but the physical proof was there."

"So what are you saying? That a little ghost girl is haunting you? Joe, you aren't the cause of her death! Why would she haunt you?!"

"Believe it or not, spirits…" Joe swallowed, and laughed at himself. "God, these words are actually coming out of my mouth. Spirits can latch onto something, or someone, when they die. I guess when Charlotte Ann died, and considering the circumstances…" He shrugged. "I've heard a lot about spirits who were murdered not being very nice."

Nancy nodded. Despite Charlotte Thornton being a hallucination the whole time, she still counted that as some sort of supernatural experience (at least, mentally)—it had certainly felt like one! As close to experience as she would ever get, she had thought. She sighed, "So what can you do about it?"

He shrugged again. "Catching Jeb's homicidal friend is at the top of our To-Do list in more ways than one. There are too many innocent children dead to risk anything."

Frank added, "Time isn't on our side for sure. Things literally can't get any better from where we are until we have at least a suspect."

She smiled. "And I'll be more than happy to help in any way I can. Do you have any leads?"

Frank took a file from the desk, and handed it to her. "We have a few people in mind. Those are mostly just pictures and some background in—yeah." She had already opened it. "That guy, Alec Vemine, he was Jeb's child psychologist."

Nancy gave him a look.

"Jeb was classified as a Class A psycho when, for the sixth grade science fair, he brought in a dissected frog."

"And when we say dissected," Joe added, "we really mean that the frog's guts were everywhere on the table. The project was apparently to see if a frog had the same inner body system as a human's—he wanted to go with an actual human experiment, only he didn't have a subject."

"Joe…Not funny."

"What? It's the truth! The principal missed that little detail in hiring a janitor to be around little kids…"

"Because the psychopath's file was nowhere to be found. Hacked into the system and erased everything, it took tons of paperwork just to find this much out. And I doubt he really wanted to dissect a human, Joe. His biology teacher just wanted a project involving one of the inner body systems of humans."

"Moving on," Nancy said, turning to an older woman with long gray-white hair. "Who's she?"

"Jeb's mother, Anna," Frank answered. "We interrogated her two days ago. She admitted to freaking out and almost committing Jeb when he was just four years old, and she caught him playing Operation with a dead bird and a sharp stone."

She nodded, "Wow. So this started when he was little-little. Was he ever committed to a ward?"

"Yeah, after a few months of therapy after the science fair, they knew they weren't getting anywhere. So, his mom agreed to send him. Graduated about three years before becoming a janitor at age twenty-one."

"What about the father?"

"Died in a car crash when Jeb was two. A drunk-driver T-Boned him just out of the city limits."

"Yikes."

"Yeah. But as far as safety goes, he's clean. Insanity doesn't run in the family . . . that we know of. Anyway, the rest of those pictures are of colleagues from the school or anyone who's even bothered to talk to him enough to be considered a friend. We've talked to most of them."

Joe shook his head. "None of them have any criminal records, and most are teachers from preschool to third grade. Which means girls with Masters Degrees that aren't that much older than hot-head over here," he nodded to his brother, smirking when Frank swatted him, "or really old women, or women with families. There're only, like, two male teachers there!"

Nancy nodded. "Typically, most male teachers are with older kids. Since we're talking about little kids, they tend to feel more comfortable around females, like a mother."

He shrugged. "Either way, all of them are checked out and clean."

Frank stopped pacing, giving him an exaggerated look or horror. "That little Miss Cherry Richmond was checked out, alright…"

"Hey! She was flirting back!"

"She had a ring, Joe."

"It could've been a grandmother's or something!"

"Yeah, and her signature on the Master's Degree hanging on the wall could've been faked!"

"What?"

"The signature? From when she graduated? Her maiden name is Elliot. Had you actually been looking anywhere but her gorgeous and beautiful face, you would've seen it!"

She laughed as his own face turned red.

"Nancy," Joe turned to her with a pillow in hand, "You may not want to stay. This will probably get ugly…"

"I still need to call my father and tell him about my flight and the case, anyway," She laughed. "Let me get out of the battle zone before you hurt someone with that thing!"

"Pillow fights are serious business between siblings and sleuths, my dear Miss Drew. Oh, and tell everyone I say hi."

"Same from me," Frank added, "but you might as well consider my brother's face here pillow-bound!"

"Will do!" She left just as the younger sibling threw the pillow at the other.

*- When I wrote this description, I imagined Sayonara from "The Ring." In a gray-misty form.