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“It’s not your fault, you know.” She started to strangely feel for him again. Afraid she might’ve been too harsh, she felt the need to make him feel better. “It’s the stigma society created that makes it hard for you to talk about.”

Matthias’s continued silence made it clear that he wasn’t ready to talk about it, so Maria gave it up for now. He knew where to find her when he was ready.

“Slow down,” Maria said, looking out the window. She hadn’t been to Blue Park a lot, but she didn’t remember seeing those gates before. “Stop the car.”

“Here?” Matthias looked at her like she was fucking crazy but still pulled over. “Why would you—”

Maria got out of the car, taking a few steps toward the huge, vine-covered gates that had the letter B written on them in iron. You could tell they didn’t used to be that color of rust, but years of dirt had coated the cursive letter.

“I wouldn’t go any farther …,” Matthias warned behind her, taking a seat on the hood of his car.

“Why?” she asked, not turning to look at him, but instead trying to look through the vines. She could see the long drive and the old, overgrown stone fountain that no longer spit water. Far behind that, at the end of the drive, she saw the massive, gloomy house that had been boarded up.

“Because it’s haunted.”

Maria looked at the gray home closer for another second before turning back to go sit beside Matthias on the hood of his car. “And you believe that?”

“I mean, it looks pretty fucking creepy to me,” he told her. “What? Have you never heard the story about Blue Manor?”

Shaking her head, she continued to stare at the home that sat right before the line that separated Blue Park from Kansas City. A couple more seconds in the car, and she would have been in Caruso territory.

“The story goes that the last family who lived there were all brutally murdered one night by a man who went in to steal a trunk of money the house was built on. Some think the murderer was successful and others think he never found it. But the legend is, anyone who goes in to try to find the money never comes out alive, because the ghosts of the murdered family are guarding it.”

Maria curiously stared at the bit of the spooky home she could see. “Do you know anyone who’s gone in it?”

“Hell no.” Matthias continued to look at her, wondering if they were staring at the same place. “No one in Blue Park is dumb enough to try it.”

Maria brought her eyes to Matthias. “So, you’re telling me all of Blue Park are scared of a little ghost story?” Most of Kansas City’s hardest criminals came from here.

“Yes,” he told her blankly. “We’ve been desensitized to many things at birth—guns, murder, drugs—but one thing we don’t fuck with is ghosts. That shit is for the rich and dumb.”

Maria glared at him. “Just because I don’t believe in ghosts doesn’t make me stupid.”

He waved a hand toward the gate. “Then, by all means, be my guest.”

Maria went back to staring through the vined gate, but she didn’t get up.

“So, can we go now?” Matthias got off the hood, going back to the driver’s side door without waiting for an answer. “This place gives me the fucking creeps.”

“Aw … poor baby.” Maria pretended to cry for him as she jumped down from the hood to go to her side. “The only house that gives me the creeps is the one you all live in.” Dominic’s bedroom still didn’t sit right with her.

Matthias threw open his car door. With a serious expression, he reminded her that he was the one who had to live in it. “Tell me about it.”

Thirty-Three

The Indentation She Prayed Would Be There

Maria sat on the couch in the Caruso family penthouse, watching the television quietly play next to a sleeping Leo. She had been there, too afraid to get up, as it might wake him, but she didn’t mind. She liked watching Leo sleep. It was when he was awake that she worried.

Sleep was Leo’s only escape from his reflection.

Hearing a knock on the door, Maria quickly but softly got up, thankfully without waking her brother. Looking through the peephole, she stood on the other side of the door, hoping that he just might go away.

When she saw his fist pull back for another knock about to pound the door, Maria urgently opened it. “Shh … Leo’s sleeping.”

“All right, jeez.” Dominic stared at her like she was a crazed new mother who hadn’t gotten peace in weeks, but he didn’t dare speak above a whisper. “You left without your phone, and I wanted to give it back.”

“I know,” Maria gritted out, watching him pull it out of his pocket. She moved to snatch her device from his hand. “I sent someone to go get i—”