“That guy’s a dick.”

“You think everyone’s a dick,” James told Bradley as they pulled away from the Hillsborough headquarters about thirty minutes later.

“No, that guy was a dick,” Gabriella said.

Bradley glanced back from the passenger seat to where she was sitting alone in the back row of the van. In front of her, Graham was stretched out on the middle seat. He laughed.

“Sorry, James,” he said. “That guy was kind of a dick.”

“Yeah,” James finally relented. “But I feel for him, you know? Not the blaming Amelia part, that’s fully on his old captain jumping the gun. But he’s clearly overwhelmed. I mean, we didn’t even meet the rest of the team we’re going to be working with.”

“Yeah, he’s overwhelmed, but he was way too protective of their turf or whatever,” Gabriella said. “He made it seem like he was going to pee on the side of my mom’s house to mark his territory. Like he thinks we’ll try to take the credit from him.”

“I mean, we do have a better track record than they do,” Bradley said. “If we’re doing him a favor, he can shut the fuck up.”

“Guys,” James said with a sigh as he slowed to a stop at a red light. “We can’t go into this on the defensive. It’s never going to work. He’s right, he’s in charge. And I’m fine with it. Just try and overlook the attitude, okay? It’s just a few days. And at the end of it, Auntie Carrie will be all done dealing with ghosts in her nice house. So we just need a bit of time and patience.”

Something they all had so much of, especially right now. But the idea of her mom being safe in her home strongly outweighed the desire to not work with Patrick. So Gabriella nodded. “Fine,” she said. “But if he’s rude to my mom, I’m not putting up with it.”

“He wouldn’t dare,” James said. “Not when she’s got Bradley to protect her honor.”

“James!”

“McManus, you piece of shit.”

Gabriella and Bradley started in on him at the same time, their voices blending so Gabriella could barely hear what she was saying. But James just smiled and kept driving.

---

They pulled into her mother’s driveway about forty minutes later. It was short and wide enough for probably five cars. Gabriella could see her mom’s car parked off to the side, intentionally leaving space for the teams to park.

“Nice place,” Graham said, looking around at the frosted front yard.

“She’s been fixing it up,” Gabriella said, accepting the hint of pride in her voice. “Elliot’s been doing a lot too. His family’s landscaping business does several houses around here.”

James let out a low whistle. “My mom’s going to be so jealous I saw it before she did.”

“Don’t tell her I told you, but since the Christmas party didn’t work out, I think she’s planning a spring housewarming.”

“Well, let’s get the ghosts out before then, yeah?” James said as he shut off the engine.

They all emptied out of the van and started walking toward the front porch. She saw Bradley looking around the property, cataloging things as they went. James was too, but he looked like he was admiring the place. “No way,” he said after a moment, grinning and hurrying toward the front of the porch.

There was an old wagon there, decoratively displayed with some fake flowers spilling over the side. It was worn, with chipped red paint that had faded to a dusty maroon. James stopped and pointed at it. “Guys, this was mine when I was a kid.”

Gabriella hadn’t known that, but it made sense. Graham laughed and came a little closer to look at it. Meanwhile, Bradley just nodded with seeming disinterest and kept observing the exterior of the house. Gabriella wanted to tell him to just go look at the damn wagon and make James happy, but she wasn’t about to start that fight. Not right here outside of her mother’s house.

With one last affectionate look at the wagon, James shook his head and started up the wooden steps to the porch. He rang the doorbell as the others followed.

A moment later, the front door opened, and Gabriella’s mom was standing there. It felt extremely odd to be here as part of the team right now and she wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to behave. But her mom solved that for her by pulling James into a tight hug the second she saw him.

“Sweetheart!” she said, squeezing him tightly.

He hugged her with equal enthusiasm. “Hi Auntie Carrie.”

She let go and gave him a fond grin. Then turned to Gabriella. “And of course, my daughter.”

And then Gabriella was swept into a warm, familiar hug. Exactly like the ones she got every time she was here. Which was multiple times a week on a good week, not so much lately. But she was seeing the place through a stranger’s eyes right as she stood here, wondering what it must be like for the others.

As her mom let go of her, she turned to see what they thought of the house. James was still smiling and Graham was looking around the porch, nodding absently in approval. At the bottom of the stairs, she could see Bradley standing in front of the wagon, fixing a crooked flower stem.

“Come in, it’s freezing.”

Mom led them into the front hallway, letting the door swing shut behind them. It was a heavy wooden door that connected with a satisfying bang when it closed.

“Mom, this is Graham,” she said, motioning toward Graham. “And Bradley.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Mom said. “Graham, I’ve heard stories. All good things, of course. And Bradley, we spoke last week, didn’t we?”

“We did,” Bradley said, crisply professional. “Thank you for your cooperation with all of this.”

“I didn’t want to get you all involved,” she said. “And I know the local team is meeting you here for this. But it was too much, Gabriella was right. While we’re waiting, I’ve got coffee on, come in the kitchen.”

She’d added more decorations to the kitchen since the last time Gabriella had been here. Antique tin boxes lined the tops of the cabinets and a small cafe sign was tipped against the window. As they walked in, James stopped to look at the painting of a young girl with her cat right outside the kitchen. Gabriella had been here so many times that she’d stopped paying much attention to it. But James peered closely at it, pausing in the doorway to do so.

“Who’s this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Mom said. “I bought it at the antique shop, I thought it’d be a nice touch.”

“It’s…”

James trailed off and Gabriella knew he was trying not to say the picture was creepy. Beside him, Bradley was nearly turning purple with the effort. Graham was in the kitchen now, looking at the cafe sign, then the side yard through the icy window.

“So you’ve been here eight months?” he asked, gently moving the gingham curtain aside to get a better look outside.

“About that,” Mom said. “I bought the house over the summer, but wasn’t able to get in until September.”

“And did the previous owners say anything about any phenomena?” Bradley asked.

Mom pulled out a handful of coffee mugs and Gabriella went over to the fridge to get milk and creamer. “Nothing,” she said. “But they’re not legally obligated to do so. Not that I would have automatically canceled the sale just because there were ghosts in the house. My mother’s house was haunted, Gabriella and James can tell you all about that.”

James laughed as he pulled the carafe off the coffeemaker and began pouring coffee into the waiting mugs. “It definitely prepared both of us for this kind of work.”

He handed a full mug to Gabriella’s mom, then another to Gabriella, giving her a wink. She smiled. Yeah, it was still weird to have the team here in her mother’s kitchen, but she was relaxing into it. Plus, it’d get weirder still when Patrick and his crew showed up in a little while. So she might as well enjoy this time first.

“It was harmless at first,” her mom continued as James continued passing out mugs of coffee. “But then it hurt me for the first time. And that’s when Gab insisted I get you all involved. I’m glad I did, because there’s definitely still something going on here.”

Mingled outrage and exasperation flared and Gabriella tried to press it back down. “More’s happened?” she asked, hoping her frustration wasn’t evident to her mother.

It clearly was, if not to anybody else. “Nothing that bad,” she said, looking Gabriella dead in the eye. “I promise. But it seems like that was the start of things getting louder with Agatha. I’m hearing footsteps in the attic every night, as well as doors opening down here.”

“And you’re sure nobody’s getting in?” Bradley asked.

“It’s just me in the house,” Mom said. “Gabriella is the only other person with a key. And I have multiple locks on each door. I’m a woman living here alone, I’m used to taking those kinds of precautions.”

Bradley nodded, seemingly satisfied. Then he paused. “Wait, who’s Agatha?”

“The ghost,” Gabriella said. “We don’t know her real name. Or theirs, I guess. If it even is a spirit.”

“The Hillsborough branch will do a full interview with you in a little bit,” James said. “They just did Gabriella’s. Is there anybody else who’s witnessed anything here?”

“Elliot did,” her mom said, nodding toward Gabriella. “And his father was the one who brought me to Urgent Care last week, but he didn’t actually witness what happened.”

“So they’ll want to get a statement from Elliot too,” James said.

“This is the same Elliot who doesn’t believe in ghosts?” Bradley asked.

Shit. Mom looked at him, then at Gabriella. She suddenly felt like she was in trouble, even if her mom didn’t look angry. “Still?”

Gabriella tried to argue, but it flickered out somewhere before it could get out of her and all she could do was move her hands helplessly. “I’ve tried?”

“It’s not required,” James said quickly. “We’re obviously not law enforcement or anything, so we can’t force anyone to do anything. But the more information we have, the better.”

“The one I witnessed was the same one that he did.”

“It’ll work if it has to,” Bradley said.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Her mom was still looking at her, but didn’t say anything else. Though Gabriella had a feeling this conversation wasn’t quite over yet.

---

Hillsborough was supposed to arrive at noon. At twelve-thirty, the team was still lingering in the kitchen, waiting for them.

“Maybe the investigation they were on ran long?” Graham said. “We’ve had that happen before.”

“Yeah, but we at least answered our phones when it happened,” James said, clearly done giving the benefit of the doubt as he shook his head and disconnected from his third attempt to call Patrick.

“Maybe they got eaten,” Bradley suggested as he carefully shifted a few of the knick-knacks on the counter to inspect the wall behind them.

Gabriella and Mom were sitting at the table with the few highlighted photocopies that Gabriella had been able to get on the history of the house and property. It wasn’t much, not nearly enough to base an investigation on. The house had been built in the early 1800s, but the exact date was unknown. The earliest owners were lost, she’d only been able to get names back to 1920. Gabriella didn’t know the town at all, so none of the names were familiar, but it was too little to work off of anyway.

“That’s also a possibility,” James said. “I didn’t want to call the branch directly in case they got marked down by Boston for missing a call or something, but come on. We’ve got shit to do today.”

Gabriella saw him dial again, then turn toward the window as the phone rang. She turned back to her papers. “So I think what I’m going to do is bring this information to the historical society,” she said to her mom. “Hopefully they’ll have some more, but this should be at least a starting point.”

Mom smiled, and Gabriella felt that warm glow of pride. While her mother didn’t always love the fact that she and James worked in this field – far too dangerous and understaffed – she knew how much Gabriella loved research. So being able to show off a little bit of her research skills was a nice bonus to the case, if there had to be a case at all.

“Patrick!” James said, distracting her from the property information she’d been about to explain. “Where have you been? You guys were supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

If Gabriella hadn’t known James her whole life, she wouldn’t even see the anger on his face. But she could see the way his mouth twitched, just slightly.

“And you didn’t think to call us?”

Another pause as he nodded, then rubbed his forehead. “Fine. Yeah, man, I get it. But we’ve been waiting here and we’ve got cases of our own at home, you know?”

His mouth was a thin line as he listened to whatever response Patrick had. “Fine, that works,” James said. “We can start the investigation and catch you up when you get here.”

Pause. “I’m not trying to- okay, fine. But we need to be out of here by three-thirty. Okay, yeah, see you soon.”

He hung up and shook his head, disgusted. “I’m sorry about this,” he said to Gabriella’s mom. “He said they ran late and are on their way. But they don’t want us to start investigating yet.”

“Any reason why not?” Bradley asked, from where he was clearly investigating the corner of the room. He ran a finger along the bottom of a shelf, then replaced the spices that were stored there. “I mean, any good one?”

“Not a good one, no. He just doesn’t want me taking over the case.”

So he was willing to make Mom wait in order to assuage his own insecurities as captain? James glanced over at Gabriella and she knew he could see her feelings written on her face because he shook his head.

“Gabs,” he said. “I know it’s shitty, but there’s really nothing we can do about it. We’re consultants, not the official team.”

“So because the official team sucks, Mom has to deal with a ghost trying to hurt her?” Gabriella demanded.

“It’s the same in every field,” Graham said sympathetically.

She looked at her mother, who shrugged. “He’s right,” she said. “It’s alright, we can wait a bit.”

“Yeah, well, while we wait, I’m going to take some readings. Which way is the basement?”

Bradley’s voice was smoothly polite and Gabriella could see James was torn between yelling at him and letting him be the expert in passive-aggression they all knew he could be. Gabriella’s mother raised an eyebrow, but pointed toward the cellar steps. “Be careful,” she said. “It’s dark down there. The bulb burned out and I can’t reach to replace it.”

“I’ve got a flashlight.”

Without even glancing at James for permission, Bradley went over to the basement door, unlocked it, and disappeared down the stairs. James sighed.

“Officially, I need to tell him not to, but I’ll also see what kinds of readings he’d get if he was to do some. Are the spare light bulbs in the cellar? I’ll replace it while we’re down there.”

Mom thanked him quietly, and James hurried after Bradley. Graham took out his phone. “I’m just going to step outside and check in with Amelia and Madelyn,” he said, slipping out of the kitchen.

“Are you alright?” Mom asked once they were alone.

Gabriella nodded again, huffing a laugh. “Yeah,” she said. “Just frustrated. I’m trying to be patient, but they’re a mess. And they’re blaming us for it, since their captain quit while our second in command was considering applying for the captaincy there.”

Her mom frowned. “If they’re not treating you well, I don’t want them in my house.”

A bolt of panic struck Gabriella, and she hurried to fix the damage she’d done. “They’re not that bad, really,” she said, the words tumbling over each other. “The interim captain is just stressed. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Her mother still looked a little skeptical, but Gabriella held her gaze until she nodded. “Alright,” she said. “I believe you.”

Thank God, she’d managed to save a case before her big mouth could wreck it again. “Thank you,” she said quietly.

“I will say, it’s interesting to see you and James in work mode,” her mom said with a smile. “And I like your friends.”

“They’re all good people,” Gabriella said. “We’ve got two more back at headquarters, I think you’d like them too.”

Her mother stood up and walked over to the counter. “So what do we do now?” she asked, knocking the used coffee grounds into the trash.

Gabriella tried to ignore the idea that there was a ghost right behind her and they were missing their opportunity to get it to leave. “I guess all we can do is wait.”

---

CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 7