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Setting the vest aside, I look at the wall behind where I’d been sitting. There’s a bookshelf covered in bric-a-brac, including two dolls. I take down the dolls first and turn them over. Nothing.

I tear that damn shelf apart looking for the source of the sound, and I don’t find anything. Then I plunk down on the recliner with more force than necessary and re-situate myself as I had been.

I close my eyes and mentally replay the sound. It came from behind and above, yet I’ve emptied the bookcase and…

I gaze up and find myself looking at a vent.

I stand on the recliner seat, but the vent cover is still a foot from my hands. That means doing some fancy—and risky—footwork, and it’s only once I’m balanced on the recliner arms that I remember I’m in the house with a ghost that likes to shove me.

I steady myself, reach up, and pry out the vent. It comes free with a pop that makes me stagger backward. Something drops out and bonks me on the head. I get down from the recliner and find the offending object on the floor.

It’s a miniature speaker, the sort that I know—from my séance experiences—will have a battery and an MP3 player. When I first found one at a séance, I looked it up online and found a similar model being sold for Halloween costumes and haunted houses. A tiny speaker and player, with a motion-sensor trigger. This one looks more elaborate. Judging by the Bluetooth symbol, it can be activated that way, too.

There are three tiny buttons on the side. I press one, but nothing happens. That’s when I see duct tape over a light, and I take it off to see that the light is red. That was the popping sound I heard—the speaker broke.

I look in the other direction from which I’d heard Anton’s voice. Sure enough, there’s another vent, this one a cold-air return. I removethe cover and find another microspeaker. When I pull the tape off this one, the light is green.

I hit the first button.

“Hey,” Anton’s voice says.

It takes a moment before my trembling fingers can hit the button again.

“Everything’s fine,” Anton says.

I hit it again, and there’s a soft laugh. Anton’s laugh. Another push, and he murmurs, “I love you, Nic.”

I collapse onto the sofa as something inside me shatters.

Something inside me? No, I know what’s shattering.

Hope.

This is what I’d heard. All the times in this house that I thought I heard Anton, this was what I was really hearing. His recorded voice.

But what about that time in here when he startled you, when he apologized? What about when you couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, like last night?

I push that aside. I have the answer here in my palm, and anything else was either more recordings or my imagination adding to the repertoire because I’d been so sure he was here.

Hey.

Everything’s fine.

I love you.

The tears come then, hot tears streaming down my face. I wanted this so bad. Even if I’d doubted, had felt that this wouldn’t be what Anton would say, I’d still hoped.

I push the thought away and angrily swipe at my tears. I play the speaker again. That’s Anton’s voice. I’m sure of it.

Where the hell would Cirillo get recordings of Anton’s voice?

Not Cirillo.

He’d been too excited at hearing these recordings.

Shania? No, she wouldn’t have access to Anton’s voice, and certainly not clips where he whispered that he loved me.

I hit the button again and put the speaker to my ear. When I do, there’s a slight hitch between “everything’s” and “fine,” as if two clips were stitched together. The “hey” is clear. The laugh is clear. So is “I love you, Nic,” but there’s something about the way he’s saying it…