Gabriella and Amelia got to her mother’s house about an hour and a half later. By that point, Patrick and his team were already inside, hanging cameras here as well. Patrick looked up as the two of them walked in.

“What, no knock?” he said. “You’re coming into an active investigation scene.”

“It’s my mother’s house,” Gabriella said, holding up her crowded key ring where the key she’d lent to James was back in place. “I have a key.”

He looked like he might say something regardless, but then saw Amelia beside her. “Where’s your captain?”

“Flu,” Amelia said. “It’s me and Gabriella today.”

“Are you planning to stick around this time?” Patrick asked.

Gabriella had turned to see if her mother was home, but swung back around at the words, barely believing he’d actually said them. Amelia looked politely furious as she turned to Gabriella with a slight shake of her head, and it was the only thing that kept her from taking a swing at Patrick.

“I didn’t go through the interview process,” Amelia said, her voice calm and professional. “I barely got through the initial discussion.”

“You owe us an explanation,” Saskia said, looking nervously at Patrick.

“I don’t owe you shit,” Amelia snapped, the fragile mask of calm cracking. “I’m sorry the last guy ditched you and used me as an excuse. I visited once, I didn’t commit to anything, and I am not your captain.”

Saskia’s face went bright red, and she stepped back slightly. Gabriella had to wonder why she had come at Amelia like that, even after she and Bradley had explained the real situation the other day. But then Saskia looked nervously at Patrick and the familiarity there was like a punch to the gut.

Patrick wasn’t likely to bring Saskia into the woods and murder her, but there was too much of a resemblance for Gabriella to feel comfortable with this. Not that there was anything she could do as they all stood here, poised to strike.

“I have a lead I want to pursue,” she said, breaking the silence before Patrick could sink his foot further into his mouth. “According to the information we got from the county’s historical society, this property used to be a tavern. At least part of the house is the original structure and about half the backyard is also the original property. Do you guys know the legend of Virginia Richelieu?”

Patrick shook his head, but Saskia nodded. “Kind of,” she admitted. “Her name is familiar. She disappeared after getting her heart broken? I’ve heard the story, especially when I was a kid, but there were never any solid facts. Do you think that’s connected?”

“That’s what we want to check,” Amelia said. “If we can connect directly with the spirit, we’ll be able to do a more effective cleansing and help them move on.”

“And if we do a general cleansing, it’ll be done today and we can all move on to our other work,” Patrick said. “If you haven’t noticed, we’re a little busy up here. A little understaffed.”

It was pointed and deliberate, and Gabriella had no desire to help him avoid what was coming this time. Instead, she turned to Saskia. “Can you help me go over the information I have when you get a sec?” she asked. “I think two sets of eyes will get it done faster.”

Saskia looked at Patrick, who turned to Gabriella. “You’re the consultants,” he said. “So how about you go do that while we do the actual work?”

This fucking guy. She wondered if he’d speak to James, Bradley, or Graham like this and had a feeling she knew the answer already. He was rude to them, but not nearly as dismissive. Gabriella turned to Amelia, but Amelia was looking at the front door.

Mom was standing there and her face was thunderous. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “You and you, get out of my house. This investigation is canceled.”

Gabriella tried to plead with her not to do this, but she was overshadowed by Patrick’s outrage. “You brought this to the Foundation,” he said as he gathered up his equipment, Saskia scurrying around to unhook what they’d already set up. “You’re the one who wanted a solution to your problem. We are that solution.”

“Not if you’re going to continue to treat my family this way,” Mom said.

“Mom, it’s okay-” Gabriella started, but Mom shook her head and she shut up immediately.

“I’ll be talking to the Foundation,” Mom said to Patrick. “I’ll tell them exactly why I want this case closed and I’ll share exactly what you have been saying to my daughter, my nephew, and their team. Who, by the way, seem to be the ones actually bringing results forward.”

Patrick went crimson, but stayed where he was, glaring at all of them. “It’s your funeral,” he said after a few seconds. “If you want to live with a vengeful spirit, go for it. Don’t call us again.”

He picked up his bag and stormed out, Saskia following after with a quick glance at Gabriella, Amelia, and Mom. “Sorry,” she squeaked out as she hurried out the door.

The silence that followed was so loud it rang in Gabriella’s ears. “Mom,” she said finally. “Don’t cancel the investigation. I don’t want you to be unsafe here.”

“And I’m not going to feel safe with any results that man gets me,” Mom said. “I’ll talk to the Foundation, don’t worry about it. Is James here?”

Gabriella shook her head. “Flu, still,” she said.

“Ooh, no. Poor thing. I’ll talk to him when he’s better. But I’ll call the contact I spoke to originally later and explain exactly what happened.”

“While we’re here, maybe we should go over the information you found,” Amelia said to Gabriella. “We can’t actually do any official investigation since it isn’t our case. But we’re scheduled to be here for another thirty minutes and we might as well use it.”

They went into the kitchen and Gabriella pulled out everything they’d brought with them with hands that were still shaking, spreading the papers out on her mother’s antique wooden table. She was just about to launch into the details of what she’d found when Amelia’s phone rang.

Amelia glanced at the display. “Shit,” she muttered, then answered. “Hello? Yeah, hang on.”

She set her phone down on the table and hit the speaker button. “Alright, Bradley, you’re on speaker,” she said. “Shouldn’t you be drinking Gatorade and watching Unsolved Mysteries?”

“Yeah,” Bradley snapped, his voice ragged. “But I just got a call from Patrick, the Hillsborough shitbird. Apparently, he couldn’t get through to James, so my cell phone was the next logical choice.”

“James is sick too,” Amelia said.

“So he’s not there.”

“Just us,” Gabriella said. “And Mom.”

“So there’s one reasonable human being, at least,” Bradley muttered. “What the fuck happened?”

“I’m not going to have some guy in my house, insulting my family,” Mom said.

“So you pulled the case?”

“Not officially, yet,” she said. “But I kicked them out and they’re not welcome back. And I know you can’t do it. So yeah, I guess I pulled the case.”

“Right.”

Gabriella could almost hear him scowling and pinching the bridge of his nose in the silence that followed. “Alright,” Bradley said. “It’s your right to cancel a case at any time. We need your consent, since we’re on your property and these things can be delicate.”

“Then I’m canceling it.”

Bradley sighed over the phone. “I’m on entirely too much cold medicine for this conversation,” he said. “But please just sleep on it, okay? I’ll call James and we can all-”

“I’m calling James,” Amelia said. “You’re on a sick day and you aren’t working any more than you are right now. I’m hanging up on you in three seconds.”

“Fine, whatever,” Bradley said. “Call James. But don’t officially cancel the case yet. This spirit is too volatile and we don’t know where we stand with it.”

“I have some leads,” Gabriella said.

“Everything’s fine,” Amelia said. “Alright, I’m hanging up now, bye-bye.”

She hung up before Bradley could swear at her. “He’s right though,” she said to Mom, who was sitting on the other side of the table. “If we stop the case now, we’ve already stirred things up with the ghost. Who was already pissed before we got here. This kind of work gets worse before it gets better. So let’s just take a break and then we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Mom nodded, but Gabriella could tell she was reluctant.

---

They drove back to headquarters a little while later. Amelia updated Madelyn on everything that had happened during the afternoon while Gabriella once again stared out the window at the blur of trees going by. Thinking back to that conversation, with Mom kicking the Hillsborough team out, made her stomach twist with guilt. She shouldn’t be risking her own safety just to avoid Gabriella’s feelings getting hurt. She wasn’t actually that upset, she was just pissed off and irritated she had to work with that guy. But now the case was ruined, and she felt responsible.

Gabriella was an adult. She could handle it. And she couldn’t help thinking maybe her mother was looking for a reason to cancel the case and took the excuse when it arrived. She’d been so reluctant to get the Foundation involved. Not because she knew something that they didn’t, she’d have managed it herself if she did. But because she didn’t want to be dealing with an investigation in her home. Could it be that this had been inevitable?

“Are you okay?”

Amelia’s voice broke through Gabriella’s swirling thoughts. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said. “Just frustrated.”

“It happens,” Amelia said as she pulled off the wooded back road and into a more suburban neighborhood about ten minutes from Headquarters. “Cases get dropped for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes because the investigator and the client aren’t a good fit.”

“She could handle Bradley, but the second Patrick started being rude, she threw him out.”

“I don’t think Bradley was talking down to everybody and refusing to do the job correctly,” Amelia said. “Besides, they looked like they were getting along just fine.”

Gabriella groaned. “Oh my God, stop.”

Amelia laughed as she slowed down for a red light up the road. “It’s okay,” she said. “This is just part of the job. We’ll regroup tomorrow.”

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 13