The next morning when Gabriella got to work, James was nowhere to be found. As much as she wanted to discuss what had happened with him, she was also relieved to see he’d maybe actually taken his own advice and gone home for once.

She walked into Headquarters and spotted Bradley and Madelyn in the living room. “How are you doing?” she asked Madelyn, who was curled up on the couch with a cup of tea.

“Better, thanks,” Madelyn said. “Thankfully not contagious, so I could come back. How’s your mom?”

“Good,” Gabriella replied. “She’s staying with me for a few days since this was definitely something along our lines.”

Bradley had been working at the computer bank and ignoring the conversation, but now he looked up. “Our lines how?”

“Her house is haunted,” Gabriella said, bracing herself for whatever shit she was about to get as he looked at her. “She’s been insisting it’s harmless, but we’re both pretty sure it was what pushed her down yesterday.”

Instead of criticizing her for not bringing it earlier, or for bringing it at all, or for just existing in the first place, Bradley nodded. “Which county?”

“Hillsborough.”

He pointed toward the filing cabinet. “Case submission forms are in there, top drawer. Fill it out, then put it on McManus’s desk. I’m sure you can find a place among all the coffee cups.”

She went to say thank you, but he was already staring back at his screen, typing intently. So instead, she walked over to the filing cabinet and, after searching for nearly five minutes, pulled out a single worn piece of paper.

“Copy it!” Bradley barked before she could even bring it past the printer. “That’s my only copy and they’re going to charge us for another.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Gabriella muttered, but she moved toward the copier anyway.

She brought her copy of the submission sheet over to the messy dining room table and sat down. But as she brought her pen to the first line, she suddenly realized she wasn’t sure how to do this correctly. While she was used to the mundane way they handled these situations here, she couldn’t help but marvel at the way she was supposed to just put her mom’s experience into this small selection of checkboxes and blank spaces. She knew on a reasonable level that every case felt much bigger and more terrible to those who were impacted by it. But that fact was sinking in a little more as she considered the correct way to fill out the paper.

After a few minutes, it looked woefully underfilled, but she’d answered all the questions. She stood up and slipped into James’s office to drop it off. The room was dim, orange light seeping in around the old window shades and catching the dust motes drifting in the air. It smelled like stale coffee in here, which was unusual. The captain’s office might get messy, but it was never actually gross. She stepped in, intending to crack the window, only to spot James asleep on the hideous floral couch he’d gotten from one of their aunts.

And here she was, thinking he’d actually gone home for a little while. Gabriella tiptoed past him, weaving between teetering stacks of books in order to get to the desk. He was never a particularly uncluttered person, but with both Amelia and Madelyn out this week, then Gabriella having to leave early yesterday, James was working nearly every waking minute.

While Bradley’s predicted piles of coffee cups weren’t actually taking over the desk, every inch of its surface was covered in supplies, papers, and case folders. She set the sheet down, shifting a stack of reports and a single dirty coffee mug aside. Then, after a few false attempts, the window behind the desk opened, a welcome burst of cool air coming in the top. Mission accomplished, Gabriella turned to slip out the door. Unfortunately, she failed to notice the box directly beside the desk and immediately stumbled over it, swearing as she caught herself.

“Gabs?”

In the dim light, she could see James sitting up, gripping the ugly green blanket that she also recognized from one of their aunt’s houses. “Gabs, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said. “What are you even doing here?”

He laughed and laid back down without answering. She walked carefully toward the door and left, closing it gently behind her. Then she turned around to see Bradley and Madelyn looking at her.

“What?”

“Is he in there?” Bradley demanded.

“Yeah, he’s sleeping on the couch.”

“He told me he was leaving,” Bradley said, standing up with a force that rattled the computer bank. “That goddamn, motherfucking…”

He trailed off into a half-audible diatribe as he looked at the closed office door. Madelyn looked amused from where she was sitting, but said nothing. Gabriella waited patiently for Bradley to run out of steam before talking again.

“Don’t go in there, he’ll just come out here and work. We both know it.”

Bradley looked from her to James’s office door, then back at her again. He sighed.

“Fine.”

She’d been here long enough that she didn’t find him quite so intimidating anymore, but still, the fact that she’d just won an argument with Bradley was a novelty. Even if she was irritated with James too, she was going to take the victory where she could get it. Bradley sat back down at his computer and Gabriella went to the one on the opposite end of the bank to start her own shift.

“So what’s going on with your mother’s house?” Madelyn asked.

Relieved to be changing the subject, Gabriella sat down. “It seems like a standard enough haunting, but the ghost did some damage once when I was there and she didn’t want to report it.”

“What did it do?”

“It threw a glass. I tried to get her to report it to the Foundation, but she said it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Most people say that,” Madelyn said, her voice sympathetic. “But she’s willing to report it now?”

“Yeah,” Gabriella said. “I think she was hoping it was a benign presence, but apparently it isn’t.”

“What are the signs?” Bradley asked, back to typing something on his computer.

“The usual things,” Gabriella said. “Doors opening on their own, footsteps on the stairs, feeling a presence. I took some readings, and they were a little weird, but not earth-shattering.”

He nodded, still typing. “What are you even doing over there?” Madelyn asked him, peering around Gabriella like she was trying to see the screen from her spot on the couch.

“I have to do the overnight report,” Bradley said. “I’m the most seniored person here. Or at least I thought I was until it turned out that stubborn fucking…”

He trailed off again, his typing intensifying into a staccato hammer before simmering back down. He wrapped up whatever he was writing and turned to Gabriella.

“We won’t be the team in charge,” he said. “It’ll be Hillsborough’s case, but since you’re a witness, they’ll probably want you to be part of it. Depending on their situation, they might call all of us in. Are there any other witnesses besides you and your mom?”

“Elliot saw the glass break last fall,” Gabriella said. “But he doesn’t believe in ghosts.”

Bradley blinked at her and she realized the trap she’d fallen into. Behind her, she could feel Madelyn watching what was about to happen.

“Your boyfriend doesn’t believe in ghosts?” Bradley asked, voice tight with disbelief.

“I mean, lots of people don’t believe in these things,” Gabriella argued, waving a hand around the room. “It’s not like it’s weird.”

“No, but you’re a paranormal investigator. And you’ve been dating him for how long? And he doesn’t believe in anything you do for a living?”

“Have you not told him?”

Shit, Madelyn really was an instigator, wasn’t she? Gabriella knew the thought wasn’t fair, but couldn’t help the irritation as she cringed, wishing she’d just said she and her mom had been alone with the ghost.

“I’ve tried?” she argued helplessly.

Neither of them looked impressed. “I’ve told him about cases,” she continued, knowing her argument was weak and getting weaker as she spoke. “Like the one the other day.”

“And what, did he just tell you it was all pretend?” Bradley pushed. “Did he say your work was fake?”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

They both just stared at her. “He thinks my work is historical restoration,” Gabriella muttered.

Bradley looked like he might say something else, then shook his head. “Not my fucking business,” he finally muttered, then turned back to his screen.

Gabriella turned to Madelyn, who winced in sympathy. “I guess I’m going to have to really tell him now if I’m part of this investigation,” she said.

“Looks like.”

Bradley hit the print button with increasingly aggressive motions, then got up to get the printout. “I’m going to submit this, then we have yesterday’s case to follow up on,” he said. “Two more just came in as well, so if you’re dying to know the details, they’re right here.”

He picked up two pieces of paper from the case printer and dropped them on the coffee table in front of Madelyn. Then he got his report off the computer printer and stalked down the hall to the back bedroom.

“I always love days when he’s in charge,” Madelyn said, taking a leisurely sip of her tea. “It’s so relaxing.”

“How’s Amelia?” Gabriella asked, spinning in her chair so that she was facing the coffee table.

“She was throwing up all night,” Madelyn said. “It’s the same thing I had, so hopefully she’ll kick it quickly.”

She reached for one of the papers, nudging the other toward Gabriella. Gabriella lifted it and scanned the contents. This one involved a UFO sighting in the nearby Leominster State Forest. A couple men were hiking and saw glowing lights in the sky that didn’t seem to fit the usual suspects. It probably wasn’t going to come too much, but maybe that meant they could get rid of it quickly.

Hang on. Gabriella squinted at the paper, researcher instincts kicking in as she tried to remember the details of the UFO research she’d put together a few months earlier. Did this one fit the pattern?

She hurried over to the collapsing plywood shelf that was the branch library and began pulling out binders, looking for the dull brown one that contained all of her findings. It was tucked beside an American history textbook and a book on marine cryptids of the Northeast that might have been load bearing. She carefully wedged the binder out and flipped it open.

“What do you have?” Madelyn asked.

“UFOs,” Gabriella replied as she scanned the pages, flipping quickly through them. This case didn’t fit the pattern she’d found over the past century of sightings. So maybe it was just some guys doing drugs in the woods. But she wouldn’t say no to an in-and-out case.

Even if the idea of going into Leominster State Forest made her stomach twist. It had been nearly a year since she’d run from Robin in those woods, desperately trying to escape his attempt on her life. A few sessions with a Foundation psychiatrist had helped some, but if she needed to go on this case, she’d have to get herself in the right headspace for it and quickly.

Bradley came back a minute later. “What do we have?” he asked as he filed his report in the creaky filing cabinet.

“Another haunted house,” Madelyn said. “It’s in town, over by the common.”

“Great, let me see where it is on the schedule,” Bradley said, going back to his computer. “Gabriella, what about yours?”

“UFO in the state forest,” she said.

He was quiet for a minute, and she wondered if he was remembering it too. But a moment later, he looked up at both of them.

“UFO is first,” he said. “Me and Madelyn in the field, Gabriella on comms.”

Gabriella had assumed she would be in the field. A few years earlier, before Gabriella had joined the team, Madelyn had been severely injured on a case. It had limited her mobility considerably, so she tended to be the one on comms. But she clearly wanted to get back into the field. Gabriella wasn’t sure if the software had assigned them these positions or if Bradley had chosen them, but Madelyn looked quietly excited beside her while she was relieved she wouldn’t be going into the forest just yet. So she’d take it.

“Haunted house is this afternoon,” Bradley continued, reading off the screen. “McManus is in at two, so we’ll have two in the field for that. Alright, we leave in ten minutes.”

Madelyn slowly got to her feet and made her way over to the supply closet on the other side of the stairs. Still holding the UFO binder, Gabriella took the spot at the computer she’d been at yesterday when Elliot called.

“The UFO didn’t fit the pattern,” she said, turning around to where Bradley was packing a bag at the dining room table.

“What pattern?” he asked, clearly only half paying attention.

“I gathered data on UFO sightings in the area over the past century a while back,” Gabriella continued. “I just cross-checked what they sent today with what I had. The description of the craft and the circumstances were both outliers compared to the others.”

“When did you do that?”

She’d been expecting some kind of acknowledgment. Not necessarily praise or thanks, not from Bradley. But she at least thought he’d known about the assignment. “Last fall?” she prompted. “James asked me to pull the information together so we could have it on hand.”

“Oh.” He zipped his bag. “It’s honestly an enormous waste of time. The sightings were anonymous, or the Foundation lost track of the reporters and didn’t want to admit it. So we won’t have any evidence here.”

She didn’t know if he was intentionally including her research, and the weeks of work she put into it, as part of that enormous waste of time, but it stung anyway. “Yeah,” she said. “Anyway, it’s all in the binder. If you want it.”

Her tone was sharper than she’d intended it to be and she could tell he noticed, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned to where she had the binder beside her at the comms computer. “Great, thanks,” he said.

Better than nothing. “Yeah.”

He glanced at her and her face felt warm, but she didn’t look away. Instead, she held his gaze until he looked down at his bag. “Madelyn, you ready?” he called.

“Yeah!”

Bradley turned back to Gabriella. “Stay on visuals the whole time,” he said. “It should be an easy job, but we need to be ready for anything. I’ll send you our coordinates every few minutes.”

She nodded. Bradley was always cautious about establishing backups when only one or two people were out on a case. Sometimes overly cautious, at least according to James. But Gabriella had been alone in the woods with Robin that night, with nobody on comms or backup. The only person who had known they were leaving headquarters was Bradley. And she’d never know for sure, but she had a feeling he had been suspicious of Robin’s motives even as they were leaving the house to go to where Robin had ultimately planned to murder her.

Madelyn walked over, a black backpack slung over her shoulder. “Ready,” she said.

“Got your weapon?” Bradley asked.

She gestured to the blade on her hip. “Phone?”

“Pocket.”

“Folding cane?”

“Backpack.”

“We’ll be parking at a public access point,” Bradley said to Gabriella. “We can set up visuals there before we go into the forest.”

---

The case was straightforward to the point of being pretty boring. Gabriella didn’t know if it meant she was getting jaded or if it meant that the UFO case really was actually dull. But once she got the hang of staying on comms in a way that allowed her to communicate without Bradley getting huffy about anything from her breathing in the mic to not knowing how to take a screenshot, it was all pretty simple. Since there was no witness to interview right now, they were only out there for about half an hour before heading back to headquarters.

James came out of his office shortly after Gabriella had confirmed that the others were driving back and disconnected the comms. He wandered into the kitchen, then came out with a cup of coffee a moment later.

“Hey,” he said through a yawn.

“Bradley’s going to kill you,” she said in greeting.

“I’d like to see him try. What’s going on?”

She gave him the details of the case as he sat down on the couch, blearily drinking his coffee. As she mentioned the lack of connection between this and other UFO cases, James nodded.

“It makes sense,” he said. “I mean, think about all the cases that are reported every year. Then narrow it down to the ones the Foundation receives. Then narrow it even further to the ones the Foundation actually investigates. If we only look at those ones, then yeah, this case seems like an outlier. But in the grand scheme of UFO sightings, this doesn’t seem to be out of left field.”

She thought back to Bradley’s disinterest in her research earlier. “So does that mean the data I compiled isn’t useful?” she asked.

James shook his head as he swallowed a sip of coffee. “Not at all,” he said. “Just that it’s one small piece of a much bigger puzzle. Why are you so discouraged all of a sudden?”

Gabriella shrugged. “I’m not,” she said. “I just want to make sure that what I’m doing is useful.”

This was a familiar discussion, and she felt a little bad bringing it up again. They had enough to worry about without pouring her own insecurities back on top every time someone looked at her funny. Clearly, James was used to this conversation by now because he just looked at her.

“Of course it’s useful,” he said. “Every little bit of information we have is something that we can use. Anyway, how’s your mom?”

She launched into that story again, remembering about halfway through to tell him there was a form on his desk. She had just wrapped up when the door opened and Madelyn and Bradley walked in.

“It’s fine by me. You were clearly up for it today,” Bradley was saying to Madelyn as they came up the stairs.

They came around the corner and he scowled as he saw James. “You were supposed to leave,” he said. “Just like you always make me do.”

“I said I was taking a break,” James said lightly as Madelyn and Bradley dropped their bags on the dining room table, then came back into the room. “Plus, it’s my office. I can be in there if I want to.”

“While you completely disregard the rules you set for everyone else, you fucking-”

“You know, I had a dream you were yelling at me,” James said, his voice pleasant as Bradley stopped mid-sentence and stared at him.

James glanced at Madelyn and Gabriella. “I was also late for math class and couldn’t find my textbook,” he continued as though nothing had happened. “It wasn’t one of my better ones. Alright, let’s see what else is going on here.”

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 5