The Red Garter operated from 1872 to 1923. Four women worked there: Constance, the madam who ran the books. Clara, murdered by a client at twenty-five. Evangeline, taken by smallpox at thirty-four. Riley, dead of childbed fever and angry about it for over a century.

The building is the Silver Button Inn now. A hotel in Georgia with exposed brick and local charm and four ghosts who have opinions about the guests.

Forty-three members of Women of Virtue and Universal Truth have booked their annual convention. WVUT fights against marriage equality, defunded a women's shelter for serving "the wrong kind of women," and is led by Greta Bloomspoon, a woman who built her reputation on moral authority.

The ghosts are initially content to watch. Then Clara finds Greta's diary.

The entry is from 1962. Greta was fifteen. She stole a ruby ring from her mother's jewelry box and blamed Delilah Morrison, a fourteen-year-old Black girl who worked in the kitchen. Delilah spent eighteen months in juvenile detention. Her life never recovered. She died at forty-two.

The diary also contains every corrupt deal, every diverted donation, every lie WVUT has told for decades.

Constance hasn't killed anyone in a long time. She takes no pleasure in it. But she was an honest woman who did honest work, and there are sins that a century of death doesn't make her willing to forgive.

The WVUT convention is about to experience some unscheduled programming.