Cody was sitting on the living room couch with Madelyn beside him, his long, curly hair falling around his bowed head. From one of the chairs, Fang watched him suspiciously. Bradley met James in the doorway and brought him down the hall toward the bedrooms.

“He showed up about fifteen minutes ago,” he said. “He wouldn’t give me his parents number, he just said they wouldn’t give a fuck.”

“I mean, they also didn’t show earlier when the other parents were there,” James said. “Have you interviewed him yet?”

“I was going to, but he was scared and I figured if you were here, you would give him a minute. Madelyn made him some of that tea.”

“The apple ginger?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we torturing information out of the kid?”

Bradley huffed a laugh. James wasn’t going to show how touched he was that Bradley would use him as an example when dealing with kids, but he was. And he’d been right, this was exactly what James would have done. 

“I can talk to him,” James said. 

“I’ve got it,” Bradley said. “You don’t have to stay, I should’ve told you not to come.”

“I live three feet away.” 

His phone buzzed before Bradley could argue.

AMELIA

She wants to get dinner

She’d already been there for an hour and a half and they were just now talking dinner? 

JAMES

Do you want to get dinner?

Her response was immediate.

AMELIA

No, but I think I owe it to her. Esp since I’m here

JAMES

Need a rescue call?

Amelia didn’t owe Riley anything and it mystified James that she couldn’t see that. She struggled to say no to Riley more than anyone else he’d ever seen her deal with.

“Hang on, I need to give Amelia a rescue call. Riley’s trying to rope her into dinner.”

“Why is she…”

Bradley stopped and shook his head. “Whatever,” he said. “She needs a rescue?”

“Yeah, I’m just going to call.”

“No, you go talk to the kid if you’re going to stay. I’ve got it.”

He took out his phone and called Amelia. As Bradley waited for the call to go through, James looked down the hall. Cody had one of their many chipped coffee mugs in his hand and was sitting silently beside Madelyn, who was giving him just a little space on the couch.

“Hi,” Bradley said, and he sounded so pissed off that James spun back around. “Where the fuck are you?”

There was a pause and he could hear Amelia. He couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying, but she sounded flustered. “You are on right now,” Bradley continued. “We need you here, there’s so much going on. You’re supposed to be in charge, and I want to go home.”

None of that was true. Amelia was definitely off tonight, James clearly remembered making this schedule. And Bradley was midway through a stretch of overnight shifts. They’d had a whole conversation about it, where James made a point of getting him two days off in a row afterwards as a thank you.

“What are you-” he hissed, but Bradley waved him off with quick, impatient movements.

“Could you leave now?” he asked, his voice dripping with condescension. “Great. Yeah, now would be great. I’d like to go home someday.”

What the hell was he doing? This was the last thing Amelia needed right now, especially because he was wrong. James couldn’t hear Amelia on the other end, but Bradley waited, his face pretty placid for someone who was bitching out their coworker in a far too aggressive way.

“What the fuck are you doing?” James demanded in a whisper, grabbing for Bradley’s phone as Bradley ducked out of his reach. 

“Oh my God, thank you,” Amelia said finally as Bradley put her on speaker.

“Did she buy it?” Bradley asked, his voice completely normal again.

“Yeah, I think she kind of felt bad? But I’m in my car now.”

James’s heart rate had mostly returned to its normal speed. “Did you guys have that planned?” he demanded.

“Kind of,” Amelia said. “He used that one day when a client was being creepy and I couldn’t get away. But he forgot to text me first, so I was terrified. Now I’ll never believe him if he’s serious when he calls.”

“For real, we do have a bit of a situation here,” Bradley said. “We’ve got it covered though.”

“I can come back,” Amelia said.

“No, it’s fine. I’m throwing McManus out shortly anyway. Go home. Do not answer her fucking texts. I know this is a new concept for you, but try thinking with your brain instead of your-”

“There’s a kid here,” James interrupted, nodding toward the living room. 

Bradley scowled at him. “Whatever,” he said. “It’ll be your problem tomorrow anyway. Go home. Don’t call her.”

He hung up before Amelia said anything else. James went into the living room, where Cody was watching him cautiously. “Hi,” James said.

“Hey.”

“Are you alright?”

The kid shrugged. “Fine,” he said, almost too quietly to hear.

“Do you want to tell us what happened?”

“He was in my room.”

“Who?”

“The ghost. I thought he was gone.”

“He was gone,” Bradley said quietly behind James. “What the fuck happened?”

“I don’t know,” Cody said, still holding his tea mug. “I was in my room on my phone. And I saw movement, like, out of the corner of my eye? So I looked up and he was standing by the closet.”

“You’re sure it was him?” James asked.

“I think so. It felt the same, the, um, the kind of buzzing in the air at school. And I kind of saw him there too, but just his shadow.”

“Was there more than a shadow tonight?”

Cody nodded, his hands suddenly shaking. He dropped the tea mug, which fell and splashed out over the rug. Fang leapt up from her perch and bolted out of the room.

“I’m sorry!” he yelled so suddenly that James jerked back.

“It’s okay,” he said as Bradley slipped into the kitchen. “Hey, bud, it’s okay. It was an accident. I didn’t think you spiked that thing to the ground on purpose.”

The kid still looked scared, but smiled slightly as Bradley came in with a towel. “Move,” he said, then set the towel on the spill.

“I saw his face,” Cody said as he watched the towel sop up the spilled tea.

The room smelled like apple and ginger now. “What did it look like?” James asked.

“Like…” Cody took a sharp breath. “He was smiling at me. But it was wrong. Like he was really mad, but thought it was really funny.”

James resisted the urge to shudder. “Okay,” he said. “And what did your parents say?”

“They weren’t home.”

“Did you call them?”

Cody shrugged. “They won’t care.”

“I have to call them, bud.”

“They won’t care.”

“I know, but it keeps my butt out of jail.”

James picked up the landline and watched Cody expectantly. He finally gave James a number. It rang, but no one picked up. Nor did the number that he gave for his mother. After trying both numbers several times, James gave up.

“Stay here for a sec, bud, okay? We just need to talk. It’s okay.” 

He motioned for Bradley and Madelyn to come down the hall with him. “First off, I’m going to call Celia and see if Cody can go stay with her for the night,” he said. “I doubt we’re going to be able to get into the house to investigate, but I also don’t see why the kid would lie. It seems like attention is the last thing he wants.”

“The kids could’ve planned something,” Bradley suggested, his voice low.

“Maybe, but I don’t buy it,” James said. “I’m not ruling it out, but I don’t think so.”

“We’ll have to go back to the school,” Madelyn said. “But if you guys did a full cleansing, then what brought it back?”

Bradley groaned. Then he started back toward the living room, James moving quickly to follow.

“What did you take from the scene?” Bradley demanded as Cody shrank back in his seat.

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“Bullshit.”

James was about to pull Bradley out of the room when Cody’s shoulders fell. “A hat.”

“A hat?” James asked. “Where is it now?”

“I threw it at the school before I came here.”

So at least James didn’t have to break into a twelve-year-old boy’s bedroom in order to solve this case. His chances of being arrested and put on a list had, again, just shrunk considerably from where he thought they were only seconds ago. 

“So you, what, just took a hat from the school because you were inspired to?” Bradley demanded.

“We found them in the back of the prop closet and that was what inspired us to do the summoning,” Cody said, his eyes shining with tears. “I know it was stupid, okay? I brought the hat home and I saw the ghost wearing it, even though it was on my desk! So I left and I rode my bike over to the school and got rid of it. Then I came here because I didn’t know where else to go! Penny gave me the address.”

So Penny got her phone back, apparently. “Where are your parents in all of this?” Madelyn asked.

“They don’t care!” Cody snapped. “They don’t give a…they don’t give a fuck about me!”

He wiped his eyes angrily, moving like he didn’t want any of them to notice. “They don’t care anyway,” he said. “And now they really don’t want anything to do with me.”

“Why?” Bradley asked.

Cody looked around the room. “Because I’m queer. I told them and they brushed it off, but I think they just don’t like me even more now.”

He looked at Bradley like he expected Bradley to yell at him again. Bradley sighed and sat down next to him. “Me too,” he said. “I get it.”

The kid’s relieved smile broke James’s heart. “I need to make a quick call,” he said.

“They won’t pick up.”

“I’ve figured that out, bud,” James said. “I’ll be right back.”

He slipped into his office and called Celia, hoping she wasn’t working tonight.

The phone rang a couple times. “Hey, what’s up?” Celia greeted him.

“Hey, sorry to call so late,” James said.

“No, it’s fine, what’s going on?”

“I need a big favor. Cody showed up at our headquarters and said both that the ghost appeared at his house and that his parents don’t care. And I called both of them four times each and they clearly don’t.”

“Bring him here,” Celia said before he had to ask.