Chapter 13

Stephen finished inspecting the narrow staircase for the third time, entering the attic with a bewildered, “I cannot believe this has been here the whole time.”

“My guess is the others used the ladder. Like any normal person would.” Georgia filmed the wall with much steadier hands than Lucky used the night before. “Brian said he planned to lock himself in the suite on night three. Hennessee must have lured him up here somehow because by morning, he didn’t want anything to do with us. Not even a final interview.”

Stephen said, “We’ll need to compare handwriting samples before jumping to conclusions.”

“I didn’t jump.” Georgia whirled around. “You heard what she said. The goal was clearly to get her up here by any means necessary, which included giving her access to a secret passageway because it knew she’d willingly go for it.”

No objections to that. Hennessee had Lucky’s number and they all knew it.

“Whatever happened after that must’ve been what scared Brian off for good.” Georgia turned her laser-focused gaze on Lucky. “Why didn’t you write your name?”

“It seemed optional,” she lied. Frankly, she deserved an award for winning against her impulsiveness, especially while paired with Hennessee’s influence. The second she picked up the pen, the compulsion to write her name slammed into her like a sledgehammer. Resisting the orchard had primed her for that moment—she’d forcefully said no and walked back downstairs. “Nothing happened after I decided not to. I went back to my room and slept.”

“What are you thinking, Mav?” Stephen asked.

Maverick opened his mouth to speak but ended up pressing his lips together and shaking his head. He’d fallen into contemplative near silence from the moment she’d shown him the hidden staircase. Everything had been normal up to that point and then he changed, visibly shaken up. He even refused to let Rebel join them in the attic, banishing her to the backyard with Chase.

Lucky’s focus had split clean down the middle. She wanted to give every ounce of brainpower to Hennessee House’s list of ex-caretakers, and yet, her gaze kept sliding to him. Why couldn’t he see how fantastic this find was? That list provided direct evidence of Hennessee exerting its will. It had led them all there on purpose—a conscious pattern of behavior.

“We should head down. Rebel hasn’t eaten yet.” Without waiting, Maverick descended the stairs ahead of them.

“Is he okay?” Worry infiltrated Lucky’s tone, mortifying her to the bone, but she had to ask.

“He’ll be fine.” Stephen gave her a weak smile. “Let’s go.”

Maverick volunteered to cook again—another round of Rebel’s favorite pancakes. They settled around the dining room table like a big, happy production family with the shadow of Lucky’s discovery looming over them.

“I wanted to avoid looping Xander in.” Stephen sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t think I have a choice now.”

“Xander, Xander, Xander,” Lucky sang. “He’s quite popular.”

“He built this team. Handpicked everyone here except me,” Chase said.

“Why not you? The man clearly has taste.” She gestured around the table. “There’s no way he’d overlook you without regretting it.”

Chase’s face reddened. “Because technically my wife did. Therese has edited BARD since the beginning and asked Mav to personally request me for this shoot so I can get more title credits under my belt. All he did was agree.”

Xander must’ve been deeply invested in this project, then. Lucky asked, “Did he use to live here?”

“Sort of.” Stephen winced, clearly uncomfortable. “It’s complicated.”

“If you’d listened to me, he’d already be here,” Georgia said.

Half in the conversation, half out, Lucky stared at Maverick, waiting for him to notice. He sat directly across from her focusing on his plate with a distracted expression. Every few seconds, he pushed the food around as if he remembered he was supposed to be eating but couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Most people could sense when they were being watched—a fairly common sensory phenomenon. It’d been one of her first investigations. One by one, she’d asked “innocent” and “random” questions to members of her nanny support clique to secretly compare the reports of their experiences. A chill. A pressure cloud. A prickling on the back of their heads. An undefinable awareness explained away by “I just know.”

For Lucky, it was always a deep itch under her skin. If she was being stared at by someone she hadn’t read yet, the itching intensified. She hadn’t discovered exactly how those two things were related but she had a long-standing note to figure it out someday.

Maverick either felt nothing or was deliberately avoiding acknowledging her. Granted, trying to catch someone’s eye while wearing sunglasses wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. So, she “accidentally” dropped her napkin. She retrieved it quickly, peeking under the table as she did. Once upright, she tapped his foot with hers to get his attention. She had it instantly.

No looking around. No checking under the table. He knew it’d been her. Or maybe hoped it was.

She mouthed, Are you okay?

He nodded with a fake smile that didn’t have a hope in hell of reaching his eyes.

She lowered her glasses long enough to glare at him. Don’t bullshit me.

That worked—he tried to hide his sudden smile behind his hand, quietly clearing his throat.

Pleased with herself, she mimed a phone to her ear and subtly pointed from herself to him. Can we talk?

He understood perfectly and nodded. Later.

Lucky’s attention suddenly snapped back to the conversation. “Did you just say illusions?”

“Yeah,” Stephen confirmed, frowning at her.

“Illusions? Not hallucinations?”

“My apologies,” Stephen began. “We have our own terminology here.”

“Illusions are changes the house makes to itself,” Georgia said. “Like if it wanted to right now, it could create a face in the wall.” She pointed to a section behind her. “It would warp the wood, change the grain pattern, and move the flowers in the wallpaper. Some of us would see it like a magic eye illusion. The rest wouldn’t see it at all because those don’t work for everyone.”

Chase spoke next. “There’s also scents, which you’ve experienced. Those are tailor-made specifically for each person. No one else will smell your…smell.” He laughed.

“So, the cinnamon and the peppermint for me?” Lucky asked. “Anything else?”

“Much more than that,” Stephen said. “Being in this house will always produce unique experiences.”

“What about the flowers Hennessee gives me? What are those? Maverick has seen them, I took pictures, and my collection is growing. The jar is almost half-full.”

An uncomfortable silence floated around the table until Maverick answered, “No one else reported receiving flowers.”

“I have a question.” Rebel cutely raised her hand—the one holding her fork speared with pancake.

“Yes?” Stephen asked.

“If I have a bad memory and my dad was there so he saw it too, and the house showed it to me, would he see it because he was there?”

Maverick attempted to clarify. “So, you were with me when something bad happened. If the house chose to show you that specific memory, you want to know if I could see it too?”

She nodded. “That’s what I said.”

“I know. It’s a very good question.” Maverick gave her such a dad smile, doting and amused. It made Lucky ache in a way she hadn’t felt in years…She crushed that feeling down, back to the dark corner of her mind from where it had risen.

“I suppose that’s possible,” Stephen said. “It’s not something we’ve tried before, but Xander might know for sure.”

“Bad memories? What does that mean?” Lucky asked, mind already shifting and spinning with new ideas.

“It means exactly what she said.” Stephen sighed, finally beaten. “We call that type of occurrence specters.”

“Ghosts? That means ghosts.”

“Specter also means something unpleasant that can haunt you. That’s the form of the word we use.”

“Interesting.” Lucky took a sip of her orange juice. “This is really good. Is it from the orange trees outside?”

“It’s store-bought.” Maverick stared at her, unspoken questions in his eyes.

“Hmm,” she said. “Still good.”

The day continued much like the one before it. Lucky agreed to let Rebel tag along with her, filming their day. Maverick hovered around them, brooding and distractingly handsome. The other three waited in the wings for any supernatural signs.

Unfortunately, much to Lucky’s dismay, Hennessee House had gone quiet.

Night four, she dared to spend time in the orchard accompanied by Maverick on the phone. He still hadn’t told her why he’d been so upset but gave her a reason: he wasn’t ready to talk about it. Outside, she finally found a curious Gengar watching her from a tree branch. Smaller than she’d thought, with white paws and large, glowing yellow eyes, he had obvious bald patches and a snaggle-toothed grin, and his left ear had been clipped.

“You can come inside,” she said. “I don’t think Hennessee will mind.”

“Lucky?”

“I’m fine, Maverick. I’ll introduce you tomorrow.”

In the morning, she awoke to find Gengar fast asleep at the foot of her bed. No idea how he’d gotten in, but stranger things had already happened.

Night five, with nowhere else to explore, she stayed in her suite with the doors open. An invitation that went unanswered.

Or so she thought until she came up with an idea.

Night six she set up her camera on the dresser to film her suite through the night. She posited that Hennessee didn’t like round-the-clock monitoring, but intermittent filming appeared permissible. She’d previously noted the increasing length and refreshing quality of her sleep. In less than a week she’d gone from restless to unconscious, sleeping harder than she ever had in her life. It was wholly possible she’d been sleeping through Hennessee’s nighttime activity.

No dice. She’d been right the first time. Nothing was happening at night.

On her final morning with production, after Maverick finished her quick interview, he showed her how to self-tape. NQP issued her a laptop, a camera, several memory cards, and access to their server. She’d be required to upload her raw footage every twelve hours and back it up to an external drive.

“There’s something off about that cat.” Maverick glanced at Gengar, who sat on the windowsill supervising them in the office. He was kneeling beside Lucky’s chair, their heads bowed closer together than necessary, work going completely ignored.

“I know,” she agreed. “He doesn’t have fleas. Super odd for an outside cat.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Did I?” She laughed. “He’s obviously not friendly, but he seems to like us. I don’t think he’d be in here if he didn’t.”

“No, he likes you and is hiding from Rebel. She’s obsessed with him.”

“How could she not be? He’s so handsome.”

Gengar had two default settings, scowl and scowl harder, but seemed to flick the tip of his tail at the compliment.

“I thought about getting Rebel a kitten after she tried to lure a neighborhood raccoon into the house. She wants a pet.”

Lucky met his gaze, grinning as she imagined Rebel doing that. “That sounds rough. I’ll see your bandit cat caper and raise you the time one of my kids—I called her Muffin—decided it was time to learn how to fly and started jumping from the highest places she could find.”

“Damn.” He glanced at Gengar again. “I’m gonna let her adopt one. I’m waiting until she’s a little older. I don’t know if she’s ready for that kind of responsibility yet. I was thinking twelve?”

“Are you asking me?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

“Yeah. What do you think?”

“Well, Rebel seems pretty on the ball, especially if she wants something. It’s less responsibility than a dog but requires more attention than a fish.” She thought about it. “You two could sign up to volunteer at an animal shelter. It’ll give her a good idea of what it’s like to care for cats, cleaning litter boxes, playtime, and all that.”

“That’s a great idea. I think she’d love that. Thanks.”

“Of course. Happy to be of service.”

She was really going to miss this.

No more morning interviews, just the two of them. No more production family breakfast. No more spending her days with Rebel. And if Hennessee House remained dormant, no more Maverick calling her every night and morning. He wouldn’t have a reason to.

He’d filled in his backstory blanks throughout the week—where he went to school, a little about his family, where he hoped to go in life, and everything she could’ve possibly wanted to know about Rebel. He was that dad who had pictures in his wallet, not just on his phone (baby’s first big-girl Halloween trick-or-treating as a bumblebee). Of all the things she liked about Maverick, that was still her favorite. He loved Rebel with his entire being.

The impending loss of them felt like it was eating her alive, creating a hole where they should be in her life. She’d been racking her brain trying to think of a way to keep them all around but had come up empty.

This was why she never let herself get attached to anyone. She always ended up wanting too much, too quickly, and always ended up disappointed. They’d be gone and she’d be alone in the house. Exactly what she’d wanted before she realized she didn’t want that at all.

“Any questions about any of this?” Maverick gestured to the setup he created for her.

“Nope. I got it.” She leaned toward him, elbow on the armrest and chin in her hand.

He mirrored her slouching posture, drawing closer. His position resulted in him looking up at her. “Are you hungry?”

“Only if you’re cooking. I do believe you’ve spoiled me, sir.”

He laughed lightly, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“It’s true. You’re too good.”

“I either had to learn how to cook or feed my kid McDonald’s every night.”

“Even chicken nuggets can lose their ineffable charm if you eat them too many times in a row.”

“Exactly. Fortunately, Rebel is easy in the food department. She’s not picky, no allergies, and she’ll try anything once.” He lightly tapped her arm. “And you’re not so bad yourself. I am not looking forward to trying to replicate your high tea time. Rebel loves it.”

“I’ll send you a copy of my recipes. The trick is pretesting and making the selections seem random when they’re not. All the flavors go well together no matter how they’re combined.”

“Ah, gotcha.” He breathed into the silence between them. “You have beautiful eyes.”

Her eyebrow quirked in response. “Maverick. They’re brown.”

“And I rarely get to see them.”

Lucky never wore her glasses when they were alone for that reason. Even now, they were sitting on the desk. She didn’t know if he realized it, but every time they made eye contact without her glasses between them, he smiled. Every single time.

She sighed, feeling a growing softness inside of her that matched his tone. “Don’t try to feed me lines, okay? That doesn’t work on me.”

“You think I didn’t mean that?”

“I think if you meant it, you could do better,” she challenged. “I’ve already read you. I’ve seen you. I know you. All up here.” She tapped her temple as she recalled the reading. “That was a line—you’re testing the waters to see how shallow they are. You’re cautious, almost to a fault…” And she wasn’t.

His caution mixed with her impulsivity like oil and water. They both inherently knew it, but he wanted to bypass it anyway because of how deeply he believed in people—in them. He would until the very end.

“Oh. Oh no.” She pulled away from him, saying, “It won’t work out between us. I’m sorry.” In a matter of seconds, she was on her feet and nearly out the door.

“Wait, hold on—”

Lucky rounded the corner, following the voices she heard in the sitting room. She needed an out, a way to avoid having that conversation with Maverick because she wasn’t ready. As annoying as they were, she’d rather keep her stupid crush-like feelings forever than deal with the certainty of knowing their relationship would end with him regretting everything and her being alone again. He couldn’t ask her to talk about it in a room full of people.

“Lucky!” Rebel spotted her first. She was sitting on the couch next to someone. An obviously tall, dark-haired, and pale someone.

Xander Hennessee had finally arrived.

And Lucky looked right into his eyes.