After quickly calling Madelyn to reassure her that she was alive, Gabriella went straight back to headquarters. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but she arrived just as Amelia was pulling in. “What are you doing?” Amelia asked as Gabriella pulled the mostly empty camera bag out of her passenger seat.

“Come in, me and Madelyn will update you.”

A few minutes later, they were all sitting in the living room as Gabriella filled Amelia in on the case. Amelia grimaced. “Yeah,” she said. “Honestly, we might want to send it directly to Father McEnerney. Even if it isn’t demonic, the religious imagery makes me think that whatever is doing this will only work with a member of the clergy. It’s stupid, but I’ve seen it before.”

Before Gabriella and Madelyn finished their shift, the three of them turned on the videos. Every one showed the empty backyard. Nothing out of the ordinary showed up as they fast-forwarded through hours of tape, not even the forms the Gundrills had described in their initial interview. But the voices were there, swearing and snarling over the calm yard. When they watched the tapes that hadn’t been hooked up to the Wi-Fi, the voice was just as clear as those that were connected. This eliminated the theory of someone messing with them over the internet as the growling voice still sent shivers down Gabriella’s spine.

Then, at the segment time-stamped two in the morning, she heard the sound of hers and Colin’s footsteps on the icy grass. Gabriella quickly switched the video back to its normal pace, just as the booming voice appeared. She saw herself on the screen, the image cutting in and out with her flashlight beam as she took down the camera. Then the screen went black.

“I took out the batteries there,” she said.

“ANOTHER STEP AND I’LL CUT YOUR THROAT.”

The statement was almost as clear as it had been last night. Gabriella managed not to scream, but it was close. Madelyn and Amelia looked at her in alarm. Gabriella nodded. “You’re sure you took out the batteries?” Amelia asked.

Gabriella reached into her coat pocket and pulled them out. “Positive.”

The sounds of Gabriella and Colin’s voices were muffled, the powerless camera clearly recording them as they backed away from the remaining equipment. Then the sound cut abruptly, lining up with when they left the backyard.

After a beat, Amelia nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “You did the right thing leaving the rest of the cameras and if anyone tries to argue otherwise, both me and James will keep that from happening. I’m going to see how Father McEnerney’s workload is looking and talk to him about taking this. He’ll be thrilled, but I don’t see a better option that doesn’t involve an entity terrorizing these people if they go back home.”

“And their kid,” Gabriella added.

“For real though, keeping a kid safe will make him more likely to move it up the to-do list.”

Gabriella had no idea what to do now. The shifts were so jumbled that she honestly wasn’t sure if she should even go home. But then the door opened and Graham walked in.

“Hey,” he said with a wave, making his way up the stairs.

“You sure you’re good to be here?” Amelia asked.

“Twenty-four hours,” he replied. “And I know our captain is still out because he’s currently dying at our house and I need to get out of there.”

“If you’re sure you’re ready,” Amelia said. “It’s going to be you and me. These two are heading home.”

Gabriella felt like she should offer to stay. But she was so tired that if she waited much longer to drive home, she’d probably fall asleep behind the wheel. A few minutes later, she and Madelyn were both on their way out. She gave Madelyn a wave and headed toward her car.

Her phone rang as she was about to buckle her seatbelt. Groaning, she glanced at it. And then felt that now-familiar rush of anger, hope, and sadness that she did whenever Elliot’s name popped up.

She didn’t want to answer it, she just wanted to go home. But he’d worry if she didn’t, wouldn’t he? And if he was calling instead of texting, it might be important. So she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Gabriella?”

“Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m getting off work,” she said. “What do you need?”

It came out a little harsher than she intended it to, but she was too tired to care. And judging by the silence that lasted for a moment after, he had noticed.

“I just wanted to check in,” he said. “My dad said your mom was having trouble with the investigation.”

“And you’re calling to tell me ‘I told you so?’”

She turned on her car, grateful to be back in a familiar driver’s seat. “No,” Elliot said. “I’m glad it’s done, but I didn’t want you getting hurt.”

“It’s not done,” she snapped, pulling out onto the empty street. “Or, it might be with Hillsborough. But there’s something in her house and it hurt her. I’m not going to just stop trying to figure it out. Are you really going to still sneer and play skeptic when it pulls you off the frigging ground?”

He was quiet again. “Look, I’m exhausted,” Gabriella said when he didn’t answer. “I’m going home to go to bed.”

“I really do want to talk to you,” he said. “I don’t like that things are like this between us.”

And whose fault was that? But he sounded sincere, like it hurt him as much as it had hurt her over the past few days.

“What do you want to talk to me about?” she asked, exhausted tears building in her eyes. “Seriously? You were right the other day, we’re just not as compatible as we thought. And we’re not going to suddenly get compatible. It’s not like a difference in movie opinions, it’s your disdain for my entire career.”

“I don’t-”

“You do,” she said. “And I’m too tired to fight right now. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She hung up, hating this feeling of being completely drained and numb. But there was nothing she could do about it right now, so she was going to go home, eat, and go to bed.

---

Bradley was back that evening when Gabriella came in for the night shift. Like Madelyn and Graham, he looked like he was still a little off, but she was just grateful to have more people at work again. Even knowing they’d probably fight all night, at least there was another person there.

“Father McEnerney took over the Gundrill case,” he said as she walked in, not bothering to say hello. “So that’s off our plate. Your mother and I talked earlier and she’s not going to close her case just yet. She still wants to, but I asked her to take a cooling-off period and she agreed. But she submitted an appeal to take Patrick off of it, regardless.”

Your mother and I talked earlier. God, her father had been dead almost a decade and she still couldn’t decide exactly how unnerving it was to hear those words again, especially from Bradley of all people. And she was almost glad James was still sick because he would have leapt on that. “Would that be possible?” she asked as she sat down on the other side of the computer bank.

“Yeah,” Bradley said, his eyes still on his screen. “It’s a pain in the ass though. But so’s Patrick, so it’s not that much of a change.”

“If she does decide to pull the case, I’m still going to solve it,” Gabriella said.

Bradley’s hands stilled on the keyboard, but he kept looking at his screen for a second. Then he turned to her. “Alright,” he said. “It’s not like we haven’t done that before. What do you have?”

It took a moment for all the words to come together in her head. We. And no comments about her intelligence or work ethic? “Oh, um, a lead on a missing woman last seen in a tavern that the county historical society all but confirmed is my mom’s house. Hang on.”

The papers she’d left out the night before were all tucked to the side of the coffee table. She pulled them out, laid them flat on the table, then organized them so that they were back the way they had been. “Basically, I don’t have enough evidence to prove it,” she said. “But my mom’s house is a former tavern. And the county historical society had a pamphlet that talked about a woman who disappeared on her way up to Nova Scotia. It’s just a lead, I have no solid information, and this woman might be entirely fictional. Saskia recognized the story though and I think she’s from the area.”

“But you won’t have her if we take over for the fucking brain trust up there.”

“I’m not asking anyone else to do it outside our work,” she said. “I’m not assuming anyone’s going to do this off the clock or like the way we handled the mischief at the cemetery.”

“So we need to find out if there’s a connection between this woman and your mom’s place.”

“And if there is, if she’s the ghost that’s there, the one my mom keeps calling Agatha.”

Bradley took a swig of Gatorade from the bottle that was sitting next to his workstation. “So, we have a few options,” he said. “We wait for the appeal and make sure all the red tape is accounted for.”

“Which will take how long?”

“A year, if we’re lucky.”

“Absolutely not.”

She knew it was unprofessional, but he seemed unfazed. And if he was in a cooperative mood, she was going to take advantage of the opportunity to make some progress. “Didn’t think so,” he said. “Second choice: we just do it ourselves. Unfortunately, it won’t be as easy as it was with the mischief at Halloween.”

Considering that case had been a nightmare between dealing with the entity and hiding it from the Foundation, she was afraid of what “not as easy” might entail there. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, this time it’s already an active case,” Bradley said, still sounding oddly patient with her questions. “We’ll have some advantage because we are officially on the case due to yours and McManus’s connections. Consultants, but official consultants. But we’re understaffed and you have to have noticed the way we’re all dropping like fucking flies from this flu. We can do it in between our own work, same as the mischief. Do a long, clean investigation. However, trying to keep it from the Foundation, or Shithead up there, is going to be next to impossible. So we’re all looking at an almost definite disciplinary action.”

That didn’t sound good. It was worth it, at least for her. But the others might not feel the same way.

“I have to be honest,” Bradley said. “You need to think carefully about asking anybody to risk that.”

Her enthusiasm deflated a little. For once, he wasn’t sharp, but he was right. “McManus especially,” Bradley continued. “He’s got two disciplinaries on his record in the past year. A third might cost him his job.”

How did James have multiple disciplinary actions? She tried to think back, but there was nothing from his leadership that came to mind. “Wait…” she said. “That case last summer? The Fitchburg State one? He got in trouble for that?”

“It was stupid, but yeah,” Bradley said.

So there was one. But what else? “They’d fire him because of that?”

“No. They’d fire him because he still has an official written reprimand for irresponsible action in the field when Robin set him up.”

The other shoe had dropped. She wanted the floor to swallow her up and never make her see anyone else again. That usual air of disdain was back in Bradley’s incredulous tone, like he couldn’t believe she’d forgotten. Not that she had, but she’d thought the consequences had been resolved.

“But it wasn’t true!” she protested, her face on fire now.

“Yeah, but who gives a shit about the truth?”

Any sense of camaraderie that she might have felt forming had vanished completely in seconds. It had been nearly a year since she’d fucked up and while she knew it wasn’t like what happened was gone, she’d hoped everyone had moved past it. But apparently, it was always going to come back to haunt her.

“It’s in the appeals process now, but we filed it in August. So clearly things are moving smoothly as ever at the Foundation,” Bradley continued.

“Then I won’t ask him,” Gabriella said. “I won’t ask anybody to risk that. I’ll do it.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t disagree. “We have no other cases tonight,” he said instead. “Whatever you want to do, do it. Just don’t leave.”

“Of course not.”

The words came out harsh and defensive in a way that made her even more frustrated, but he barely reacted. Instead, he drank his Gatorade, then let out a long-suffering sigh. “You could probably get it done pretty quick, if you’re smart about it,” he said. “Confirm the ghost’s identity as much as you can. Then check the property for her belongings. Maybe that fucking creepy picture, that would be my first guess if I was looking for a haunted artifact. Just get something of hers.”

“I’ll do a spirit board session in the house and try to contact her to find out what it is.”

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“Fine,” she finally snapped. “Then what do you suggest?”

“Not a spirit board session alone without the proper technique,” he snapped right back. “Try a necklace, ring, her old rock collection. Find something, bury it respectfully somewhere, release her, then cleanse the space. It’s not rocket science. Jesus, think like a professional for thirty fucking seconds, Gabriella!”

Why did she possibly think this night was going to go fine when she was stuck with this irritable, arrogant fuck? “Tomorrow morning I’ll go and check the property,” she said. “As far as I know, we’ve found all the rooms in the house, but maybe there’s a secret storage nook or some other place where there might be a belonging holding the spirit there. If there is, I’ll find anything out of the ordinary and bury it. Then get her and her energy out of the house. Happy?”

“Thrilled.”

She scooped up her work from the coffee table and stood up. “I’m going to go work in the other room.”

“Suit yourself.”

She was tempted to respond and get the last word, but didn’t give in. Instead, she took her papers and laptop straight back to the gray bedroom, closing the door behind her and resisting the urge to scream into a pillow once she was alone.

---

She stayed in there by herself for the next few hours, trying not to stew as she looked into historical inns in Greenville and the surrounding towns. She’d realized while pacing furiously around the room and trying not to cry, that she needed to confirm that this was the particular tavern where Virginia Richelieu’s story had occurred. By midnight, she had three possible places, including her mother’s house. The first one she dismissed immediately. It burned down in 1840 and was never rebuilt. There was a Cumberland Farms on the spot now. The second inn seemed like a possibility at first, but it didn’t seem to have a tavern attached at any point.

So it was definitely her mother’s house. Just like she’d told Bradley in her fit of angry planning, she would go up tomorrow when she got out of work and search the house for hidden storage spots. She didn’t have any other plans, so she might as well. Her mother was spending a small fortune staying at hotels and Patrick didn’t seem to be helping her get those expenses reimbursed. Hopefully, James could help when he was feeling better, but the costs were building up and Gabriella didn’t want her to go back to the house before they were sure that the spirit was settled.

By midnight, she was satisfied with her plan and her hunger was beating out her anger. So she finally left the room and made her way toward the kitchen for lunch.

She could see Bradley lying on the couch, facing away from her. She didn’t want to get into another argument, not right now when she was still feeling on edge and touchy. So she didn’t say anything and just went into the kitchen to pull her lunch box out of the fridge.

It was a boring lunch. A peanut butter sandwich, an apple, and a piece of the zucchini bread she’d made the other day. She’d forgotten a drink, so she filled a glass with tap water, then sat down at the messy dining room table to eat.

She glanced over to where Bradley was reading a book in the dim lamplight. He glanced over at her, nodded, then went back to his book. Fang was purring beside him on the couch. Things were quiet and hopefully they’d stay that way, especially if she was going to be doing an off-the-clock solo investigation in the morning.

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 15