Angie Tyler sat on a very old stump of what had been a magnificent oak tree at one time. She was alone from all the chaos going on at the top of the famous battlefield hill. The coroner from the state had been called to officially declare the death of Hunter Eventyn and was busily taking information from Rollie as well as others that had witnessed his sudden attack.

Angie though, was staring at the lower field where the body of Hunter Eventyn’s favorite horse lay still in the tall grass. No one had gone down there yet to see perhaps why and how the horse had succumbed to her fall. She closed her eyes a moment, remembering how death had looked her in the face once before…the seconds of a life turned to a freed soul had been witnessed by her only one time before, as she held on to her father in his final moments of life. He had said nothing…she had been hysterical. Had she wasted those precious moments in her hysteria? She had looked directly at Hunter Eventyn before he suddenly fell to the ground. His eyes had glanced at her or maybe just above her…

She shivered slightly, drawing her legs up against her chest, hugging her knees. She could see activity around the plantation house. There was a media frenzy developing with local as well as national news and she even noticed that a few of the tabloid TV news shows were setting up their cameras as well. It looked to be as if there was going to be a news conference and she frowned thinking how strange that it had been orchestrated so close to this unforeseen death.

"He was a very eloquent man…" the voice behind her said, as she turned and looked up at Stu Westburn. His face was still drained of color as a far away expression seemed permanently etched on his face at this point.

"Yes he was…." Angie replied, patting the stump for him to sit down. With Rollie busy at the moment, she thought she might as well attempt to get him to talk about what was really going on around there.

Stu took the seat as she unfolded her legs and leaned forward, still looking outward, toward the James River now.

"What’s really going on here, Stu?" she asked, her voice gentle but with an edge of exasperation.

Stu bowed his head, then looked up to see that Angie was still looking away from him.

"It’s complicated…"

Angie turned around to face him at that moment, her eyes meeting his with a clarity that startled him.

"More complicated than trying to fool all of us with some special effects toys of your own? Who is kidding who here?"

Stu swallowed hard and then clenched his fists tightly together before opening them, palms rubbing against his Confederate uniform pants.

"Yes, okay….I’m sorry about the screwdriver…I didn’t mean for it to hurt you. Judd and I had worked the projection out to barely miss him and well, that you would see the imprint of what looked like a hand in the handle. It was my error that I left it too long in the CO2. It cracked, ruining the imprint and I didn’t think you would pick it up with your bare hand right away!"

Angie opened her mouth in shocked surprised, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to control her mounting anger.

"Judd? Judd Tolsen? He was in on this, he acted so surprised! I mean…"

"Well, he was surprised in a way…he’s not that great of an actor and well, I took the opportunity earlier than what he and I had arranged and well, shot it through the window of the van and uh, scraped his face a bit as well."

"WHY?" Angie stood up, her hands in the air, the color in her cheeks rising.

Stu sighed; "I was hired over three months prior to Tyler F/X getting the contract for this film to bait you with purchasing the Jasper chip from Logitech…it was intended to be a launching promo for the chip as well as the movie. Logitech is a subsidiary of Quantum International. They are also, uh, the runaway production cover for the company that is producing this film. And, well- you might as well know, Sanderlin is a partner in that company…I do know that. I can see now, that he is using Mr. Eventyn’s death for a little promotional session at this moment."

Stu stood up, looking over at the crowd forming around a podium that had been set up. He looked genuinely upset but Angie was not impressed.

"You son of a bitch! You used me! You used Rollie! So, you and Judd and Sanderlin and hey, even the writer, Hunter Eventyn!…cooking up all these little ghostly events to spook us on the set and off, for what? Publicity?"

"Yeah….that’s me- company whore for hire! But hey, Mr. Eventyn- he wasn’t in this, you hear? The only thing I know about him is that he was in pretty poor financial shape…he was hoping that the film would help him save the plantation, that’s it!"

Stu had gone from being ashamed to trying to preserve Eventyn’s honor at the same time. Angie didn’t know what to think. She put her hands on her hips and paced back and forth in front of him, her eyes beginning to tear up.

"You hurt people, you understand? I don’t know how you did the stuff to me and Rollie in our hotel room or how you swung the double deal with both of us last night- I mean, you really fooled Rollie and that’s hard to do!" Angie said, heatedly.

Stu looked surprised, raising his hands; "I don’t know what you’re talking about! I found Rollie in my room this morning, muttering in a corner. I was the one who drove him here in your van. I don’t know anything about what happened to you or anything about a hotel room…"

"Oh stop it! You lying bastard!" Angie was crying now, backing away from him.

"Angie! I swear! Okay…" he told her, coming toward her as she shook her head, "Look, I admit- I did do the screwdriver- and Judd and I did the headpiece the next day with imprints in the headpiece with CO2 dipped thermal mitts and yes, I did the image work over Lucinda Scott’s head and behind Rollie. I also did those spirit orbs, okay? But that’s IT!"

"No! Don’t try to tell me that those pictures that you took on the hill were real? How stupid do you think I am?"

"Angie! Please! That’s what got me so excited…that the old man was telling the truth. It was like vindication for me! I felt like I hadn’t really sold myself out completely, don’t you see? I was just as shocked when you saw the apparitions on the third floor at Eventyn! I did take a meter reading in that room. Jesus! The place registered below zero…!"

"Stop it! I don’t believe you! I can't believe anything you say!" she cried out, putting her hand out in front of her to warn him. She looked up, the tears rolling down her face, as she called out beyond him; "Rollie! ROLLIE!"

Rollie could see that Angie was having some sort of argument with Stu Westburn below from where he stood on the hill. He had just finished talking with the coroner and the investigator when he heard her call out to him. Her voice was strained as well as desperate.

By the time he made it halfway down the hill, Angie met him, hugging him as she wept inside his arms.

"What? What did he do to you?" Rollie asked, with anger as he then released her, overreacting. He pushed by her then, not hearing her plea to stop. Stu stood his ground and waited for him.

The sound of Stu’s jaw being hit by Rollie’s fist resounded in Angie’s ears as she reached out and grabbed Rollie before his second swing.

"No! Stop! Rollie, please!"

Rollie turned around to her, the adrenaline still pumping in his veins as he turned back around, realizing he had put Stu to the ground.

"Angie, what? I thought he…"

"Oh God, that hurt!" Stu Westburn cried out, adjusting his jaw with a pop as he tried to sit up.

Angie went down on her knees beside Stu, still angry with him but now, trying to stop Rollie from killing him as she looked up at her incensed husband. The look in his eyes was one that she had only seen once before….with Loubar.

Rollie sat back in the van, having not said a word for over five minutes. He had stopped asking Stu anything. Stu had told Rollie everything that he had told Angie as well as profoundly apologizing for everything. He had been unable to tell Rollie what had happened to him and Angie in their hotel room or for that matter, what had happened to them that morning. He swore that those occurrences had not been part of any plan that he knew about or could have possible orchestrated. Angie was standing away from them, looking out of the van’s front window toward the news conference, listening;

"That’s right, sir….a haunted set since day one. We’ve been seeing ghosts around here on a daily basis! We have very reputable people seeing some very strange things…."

She couldn’t hear what the reporter asked next, but Gary, strangely enough, with microphone set-up in front of him responded with the ease of a PR man; "now, I wouldn’t say that…but then again, ghosts can certainly not hurt our profit margins next summer when the movie is released…and Quantum Productions is looking forward to that opening night!"

"Will you continue to film, now that all of these accidents and sightings, and well, death has occurred?" a reporter asked, shoving her own microphone up closer to Sanderlin’s make-shift podium.

"I think we owe it now, more than ever to Hunter Eventyn, to continue this movie. He would have wanted this. He wanted the mystery of what happened back during the time of the Seven Pines Battle near his plantation to be exposed for the world to see…and to feel. This man was passionate about the past and his ancestors. I only hope we will continue to do justice to his script and to his family," Sanderlin replied, his concern almost melodramatic at that point.

"Give me a break! Sanderlin’s getting to be a better actor than John Grant!" Angie said, under her breath as she turned away and looked back toward the two men in the back of the van.

"Stu…" Rollie asked, after hearing the responses that Sanderlin was giving over microphone, "how would you like to be redeemed?"

Stu, who had been wondering what part of the country he could find to live in after leaving the set and what he could do for work, looked up at Rollie with surprise. He knew that this couple had been hurt seriously by what he and the others had done and yet, here was this man offering him a scrap of forgiveness?

Angie saw the look in her husband’s eyes, the sparkle. Rollie had been quiet for a reason. He had been cooking something up in that Tyler mind of his!

"I don’t deserve it…" Stu began, lowering his head.

"You’re right, you don’t, but say…working as a double agent has it rewards, in a manner of speaking…" Rollie offered, bluntly.

Stu perked up a bit, seeing that Rollie had smiled for the first time since sending him crashing to the ground earlier. He rubbed his sore chin for the moment and nodded his head.

"Did you hear the news? Poor old Mr. Eventyn! My God, this is the craziest movie shoot I have ever been on!" Lucinda exclaimed, as she looked in the makeup mirror to see Angie’s reflection as she stood behind her, watching and waiting.

"Yeah…terrible…" Angie said, softly as she bit her lip and then carefully worded her next sentence.

"Luce…when is Marvin coming up?"

She watched Lucinda’s face drop slightly, a slight panic look reflecting back at her as the makeup woman finished the last touch-up and stepped back.

"Uh, not for a week! Why?"

Lucinda began to flush slightly as the make-up woman brought out a small fan and began to blow it directly into Lucinda’s face.

"Oh, Rollie needs to talk to him about some business he’s interested in, nothing to do with you and him…okay?" Angie replied, seeing the distress she was causing.

"Oh…well, he could always call him, you know…" Lucinda snapped, rolling her eyes.

"Sure, you’re right…hey, have a good day, huh?" Angie replied, backing away.

"Yeah, right! People dying all around! Ghosts everywhere! I’m not having fun!" Lucinda complained, pouting slightly.

"Did you find out?" Rollie asked, as Angie got back in the van. Stu had left to gather up his equipment from the hill, having not retrieved it in entirety from the night before with his drunken state.

"Yep, not for a week…and she told me to tell you to call him!" Angie replied, chuckling.

"Okay, call him, I will, to get his bum down here! We can kill two birds with one stone here."

"Oh, you Yenta, you!" Angie commented, suddenly wrapping her arms around him.

"So, Stu tell you why he was up on that hill last night?" Angie asked then, looking up at him.

"Yeah, three sheets to the wind, pissed off and guilty about us," he replied, kissing the tip of her nose then.

"Rollie? What happened to us this morning? Stu is even stumped!"

"Dunno, but it bloody well scared the hell out of me…" he replied, holding her tightly then.

"Do you think it was, well- really a paranormal thing? Jeez, I feel stupid even saying it, but I swear Rollie! I did see Siobhan up there in that hallway at Eventyn! And him! Whoever he was, he scared me to death and her!"

"I believe you saw them…but who or what made them, that- I’m not so sure about…" he answered.

"I feel silly for saying this but I feel like I have this sworn duty to Hunter Eventyn to help him settle his ancestral strife. I mean, it consumed him!" Angie said, starting to sway in Rollie’s embrace.

"He did leave it upon us, didn’t he? There at the end, to "drag the will-o’-the wisp out of his hole…" Rollie quoted, raising his eyebrows as he tightened his hold on her back, dropping his hands to her waist and hips.

"Yes…but which bad ass was he referring to?" Angie reminded him before clarifying her question; "living or dead?"

"Hmm, maybe both…" Rollie answered softly.

"Hey," she said in a whisper….

"Yeah?"

She kissed him, her lips warm and sensual to him as he pressed against her, his hands coming up and caressing her shoulders and then down to her lower back as he felt the reaction of her breasts against his chest.

"Where’s Bluey when you need him to lock the place down and shut the shades…" Rollie murmured as she smiled.

"We don’t do this enough," she then added, moving away from him as he began to ache. She flipped the lock down switch from Ambler's control panel as he grinned.

"No, we don’t…and uh, whoa!" Rollie began to say as Angie sank down to her knees, her hands unbuckling his belt.

"Angie?"

"Yep, all me, just me…no ghost!" she affirmed.

Rollie lay on the floor of the F/X van, lying on a army blanket that they carried in the van for out the way location shoots. He smiled as he kissed the top of Angie’s head as it rested against his shoulder, her cheek on his chest.

"Do you realize what a fantasy I had about making love in this van?" he asked, chuckling as she lifted her head up and looked up at him, her chin resting now on his chest.

"Yeah? I bet it wasn’t with me…" she replied, smiling impishly.

"Hey! Of course it was!" Rollie replied, trying to save himself.

"Uh, nope! Now, I had one that was with you here in this van like six years ago…" she countered, rising up on one elbow.

"What? You mean sweet little Angie, my little assistant, so busy with her computer?" he asked, knowing that what he had said would agitate her.

But she just grinned; "Sweet….yeah, boss- that was me!"

They could hear lots of commotion outside and someone banged on the van’s door. They both were silent as the rapping finally stopped.

"Guess it’s time to get up and work, I’d say we have a lot to do here shortly if we’re going to flush out the ghosts," Rollie told her, starting to sit up.

Angie pulled herself up as well but surprised him by straddling him.

"I’m not finished with you yet," she told him as she moved her hips slightly over him.

Rollie groaned slightly; "You’re killing me!"

Another hard rapping at the door caused them both to jump and realize that there was definitely something needed of them. Scrambling for clothes, Rollie was up to the front, tucking his shirt in as Angie whipped the blanket up and threw it over Ambler. Her shirt was barely over her head when Rollie opened the door.

"Get your van outta here! They need to make room for the fire engines!" The movie crew chief had shouted at Rollie, his beefy red face showing his exhaustion as Rollie looked out the door and saw people scrambling around. Angie ran forward in the van and down the stairs, joining him.

"Oh my God!" she cried out as she grabbed Rollie’s arm, coughing.

The top floor of Eventyn Plantation was on fire with thick, billowing clouds of smoke pouring from the windows of the west wing. Flames leaped through the roof eaves as the sound of a power cable that had been attached to the roof edge snapped and hissed. It flew to the ground and sparked a fire in the bush against the house.

"I can’t believe this!" they heard a man cry out as several people were assisting him, all coughing. The smoke was extremely thick as it settled around the house and immediate yard.

It was Charles, Hunter Eventyn’s butler and he appeared dazed. But Angie was the first to see that under his arm, wrapped in a dusting cloth was a painting. As he passed them, getting some assistance from the movie set medics with a puff of oxygen, Angie could see the unmistakable frame and image of the woman in the portrait as the cloth flipped up in the smoky breeze.

Siobhan O’Bralley Eventyn had made it safely out of the burning house, that was, her painting had…