About fifteen minutes later, Robin pulled the car into the small gravel parking lot at the edge of Leominster State Forest. This wasn’t one of the major park entrances that Gabriella was used to, the ones that had a well-lit gravel parking lot and other people. But she could see that it led to the beginning of some of the State Forest hiking trails.

The lot was tiny and otherwise empty, but there were signs barely visible in the darkness showing the way onto the paths. A single streetlight illuminated a small patch of dirt lot as Robin turned off the engine and they got out of the car.

Gabriella opened the back door and grabbed her bag out of the seat. She glanced inside to confirm everything was there, then zipped it up and slung it over her shoulder. Holy water, salt, and a blade. Her standard gear, but he hadn’t told her if she needed anything else.

Robin pulled out a bigger bag and slid it onto his back. “Alright, let’s head out,” he said as he passed her a flashlight.

“Do I need anything else?” Gabriella asked, glancing back into the car where an assortment of equipment was scattered on his back floor.

She turned on the flashlight and it flickered a couple times before settling down into a watery beam of light. It illuminated the shadowy brush along the sides of the lot. What kind of ghost were they going to be dealing with here? Robin said it was a simple haunting, so hopefully it was just some house in the middle of the woods. They’d take care of it, go back to the house, and then she could try to get a moment alone with James so that they could talk.

“Nope,” Robin answered her cheerfully, glancing up at the moon above them. “Alright, follow me!”

He led her to the path entrance closest to his car. It was wide and neatly swept, almost surprisingly so. But as they got a few steps further into the woods, the vines were already creeping out from the sides of the dirt path, brushing against Gabriella’s sneakers as she walked. She shone her flashlight down on them and caught a familiar reddish-green hue on some of them.

Great, poison ivy. Why hadn’t Robin given her any information before they left the headquarters? At the very least, he could have given her time to get some long pants on if he knew they were going into the woods.

“So what exactly is this?” she asked again as they began to walk steadily down the thickly lined trail. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the strange energy readings, does it? I’ve been looking into the state forest for connections, but nothing has jumped out at me yet. One of the houses is located within the borders of the forest, but there doesn’t seem to be anything linking to the others.”

“Standard haunting, like I said before,” Robin said as he deftly stepped over some branches on the path ahead of her. “It’s a little ways up here, just off the trail in a small stone foundation. You’ll know it when you see it, trust me. But it’s the usual. Screams, moans, shadows that nobody can explain.”

“But nothing physical?” she asked. “Any other manifestations? Who reported it?”

In the weak moonlight coming through the heavy coating of leaves above them, she could see Robin turn and smile indulgently at her. “You’re so good at this job,” he said. “I meant what I said in the car. Though, I have to admit, when James said he wanted to bring on his cousin, I wasn’t so sure about it. Nothing personal to either of you, of course. It’s just that bringing on family members rarely works out in any job, let alone a job that requires so much training and trust.”

“Thanks?” she said, wondering if she should feel insulted. And why was he bringing up family and trust right now? If she didn’t know better, she’d think Robin was needling her about James. But why would he do that? He already knew she was hurt by what happened. And that her relationship with James was probably never going to be the same. He didn’t need to rub any salt in that wound.

Robin laughed as he turned back around, but it sounded a little brittle. Gabriella didn’t blame him if he was nervous. It was dark and they’d already lost sight of the tiny parking lot. The path was getting a little rougher already, and the half-buried stones she kept hitting were starting to hurt the soles of her feet as they pressed through her thin sneakers.

Suddenly Robin sped up his pace, walking hurriedly through the branches growing over the path. Gabriella matched his pace, pushing aside the branches slapping her face as she tried to catch up. The path had brought them so far into the woods already that the trees completely swallowed the few street lights visible behind them, leaving them moving only by the light of the moon and their weak flashlight beams.

A stick cracked under her foot and she stumbled a little, catching herself as Robin slowed and turned around. “Keep up,” Robin called, voice still cheerful, but a little more strained now. “The ghosts aren’t going to wait around for us.”

She hadn’t been on many cases yet, but Gabriella couldn’t help the uneasy feeling forming in her gut as she skipped over another small branch and sped up a little to catch up with Robin. Did anyone except Bradley even know they were out here? They should really have someone working with them at base, just in case. Sure, Robin probably knew exactly what he was doing. So it wasn’t like they needed the team here. But what happened if Robin got hurt? She had no idea what she was going to do if something like that happened. Not that it was likely to happen, Robin was a professional.

But she knew all too well that accidents happened.

“Should we call and let them know our location?” she asked Robin, who was pushing the branches aside as the path grew thinner in front of them. “Before we lose service in the woods?”

“No, no, they know.”

A branch snapped back in her face and Gabriella caught it in her hand before it cracked her tooth. Something was wrong here. She was new, but she wasn’t so clueless that she couldn’t pick up the signs. But why would Robin bring her out here like this? It wasn’t some random person. This was her boss. The one whose job it was to keep her alive. The idea of him trying to hurt her was ridiculous.

Maybe she was just being paranoid. She didn’t want to be rude to Robin, or make him think she didn’t trust him. So she was just going to keep her mouth shut and get her nerves under control so that they could do the job and be done. Then she’d work on whatever was wrong with her that made her so wary.

Then Robin stopped. Nothing on the path had changed, he just stopped so suddenly that Gabriella almost walked into him. She jerked to a stop and nearly stumbled over the bramble now overgrowing the path. Robin didn’t seem to notice anything as he stood with his back to her, gazing into the darkness ahead.

“Robin?” she asked.

“The Foundation won’t help us,” Robin said, still facing away from Gabriella.

“What?”

“I tried to get them to increase our budget and cover all the bills,” he continued. “But they kept telling me I was doing fine as it was. That the team was doing well and there was no extra money to pad our budget. This was bullshit, I know what kinds of endowments they have. They’ve got more money than Harvard does. But they rejected all of my grant applications. We’re just too good at our job.”

He laughed, but it was sharp like broken glass and something in it made the hairs on Gabriella’s neck stand up. This was wrong. Something was so so wrong right now. She glanced back in the direction they’d come from, but the darkness had swallowed the path.

“I thought if something went wrong, they’d realize they have to give us more money,” Robin was saying, his voice a monotone as he continued to avoid looking at her. “But then Madelyn got hurt. She was so badly hurt, Gabriella. We didn’t think she’d make it. But she pulled through and we were all so relieved. And when they did nothing beyond paying her medical bills, I knew that it wasn’t enough. All I had done was just hope and hope that maybe they’d realize we needed more help. But all they offered was another position. I asked for more, but they said the position was all they could give. Take it or leave it. So I took it. And I took whoever happened to come along to fill it. And if something were to happen to them on the job, something worse than what happened to Madelyn, then the Foundation would have to realize we don’t have the resources we need in order to keep everyone in our region safe.”

Gabriella knew she should run. Even as her mind denied everything that was happening in front of her, the rest of her being was screaming at her to get out of here. But she couldn’t. Something kept her rooted to this spot as Robin spoke.

What did he mean, something worse than Madelyn?

“R-Robin?” Gabriella managed to choke out.

“Nothing short of someone dying on the job would get us what we need.”

There it was. There everything was. In that second, as Robin looked away from her and Gabriella tried not to cry, it all just fell into place. Like the information was dropped directly into her brain. That’s all she was. She wasn’t a teammate, she was a tool. She was here to serve a purpose and then be discarded.

She was here to die.

She should run. But just like that night in the apartment, when that thing followed her home from the case, she had frozen in place.

Wait, had it followed her home? Or had it been there already, waiting for her?

Robin finally turned around and in the dim light of her flashlight beam, she could see what looked like genuine anguish in his eyes. They were red-rimmed, maybe even shining with tears? But then her eyes dropped to the blade glinting in his hand.

“Gabriella,” Robin said, shaking his head “I’m so sorry.”

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CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 20