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I shake my head. Apparently, I might be good at ruining Jin and Shania’s haunted-house fun, but it seems my imagination is having a little of that with me.

Jin jiggles the door handle as I walk over. “Now don’t tell me the entire basement is filled with mops and tissue boxes, Nic.”

I frown and walk back to it. I try the knob myself, but it’s clearly locked and there’s a keyhole in that knob.

“That’s where the washer and dryer were,” I say. “Anton and Istuck our heads down there, but since we only stayed for weekends, we didn’t need to wash clothing.”

“So they blocked access to the washer and dryer?” Jin says. “That’s not suspicious at all.”

“They put compact stackables in the bathroom right there.” I point.

“Because they needed to block off the basement to hide the bodies.”

“There are definitely bodies down there,” Shania says. “And secret tunnels.”

I shake my head. “It was your typical damp old basement, with framed-up walls and a concrete floor. I’m not surprised they’ve blocked it off.”

Jin looks at Shania. “She really is bad at this.”

“The worst,” Shania says.

“Fine,” I say. “The basement isn’t very creepy, but that’s just the part we saw. When we went exploring, Anton wanted to show me the furnace, if it was still there—it was a monster of a thing. But the door was locked. Two doors, in fact. Both locked.”

Shania is about to comment when a floorboard creaks, and she goes still. “Did you hear that?”

“Sounds like someone on the front porch,” I say. Then I lift fingers and count down. “Three… two…”

The doorbell dings. They both sigh as I head to answer it.

Dinner has arrived, along with our cook. Mrs. Kilmer is the type of woman I always feel a little sorry for, and then chastise myself for jumping to conclusions based on appearances. She’s slight and faintly stooped, despite being only a decade older than me. Her face already shows stress lines around her mouth and worry lines on her forehead, and there’s a hesitancy about her, as if she always expects she’s doing something wrong and is ready to apologize for it.

“Mrs. Kilmer,” I say, smiling. “It’s good to see you again.” BeforeI can put her on the spot, I say, “I was here last year, and I was hoping you’d still be cooking for the house.”

I don’t say “my husband and I” were here. That’s another thing I feel guilty for, as if I’ve already excised him from my life. But I know that if I say my husband and I stayed here, she might presume he’s with me, and I’ll need to explain, and she’ll feel bad for mentioning it.…

Yep, best to just stick with the singular.I was here.

Mrs. Kilmer does the customary “Oh, yes, of course I remember you,” which probably means she doesn’t, and that’s for the best.

“Would you like me to put this inside?” she says, indicating the rolling cooler she’s brought. “It’s today’s dinner and tomorrow’s lunch, along with some fresh muffins for breakfast.”

“Thank you, and I know this is going to sound incredibly rude, but I’ll need to empty that inside and give it back. This week… Well, it’s not actually a vacation, unfortunately.” I lean against the doorjamb. “I’m here with some other scientists, working, and the person in charge has asked that no one else come into the house.”

Thatdoessound rude, and also weird. But I can’t exactly say that we’re doing a séance and the medium has insisted the house be kept clear of “other auras.”

Technically, it’s not a lie either. Dr. Cirillo is a scientist conducting an experiment. I’m an engineer, Shania is a nurse, and Jin is a radiologist, so we all work in STEM fields, right?

“Oh, isn’t that interesting,” she says, without any hint that she’s insulted. “Certainly. I understand.”

She rolls the cooler to me. I take it inside, unload it as fast as I can, and bring it back out, where she gives me instructions for cooking the meals. I thank her, and she trundles off down the lane, pulling the empty cooler behind her.

We’re enjoying lemon-meringue pie and coffee on the back porch when a voice says, “Hello?”

A man’s head pops past the corner of the deck, and I scramble up, wiping my mouth with my napkin.

“Hello,” I say.

The man is in his early forties, with graying dark hair and a close-trimmed beard. His bright blue eyes crease in a smile. He’s dressed in a golf shirt and chinos, with a jacket over his arm, sunglasses on his head, looking like…