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I think he’ll be in the breakfast nook, which he seems to have commandeered as his office. When I don’t find him there, I check the sitting room. He’s not there or in the living room, which I passed through, along with the dining room.

I’m circling back to the kitchen when I spot him in the back gardens. Taking advantage of the bug diminishment. I should do the same. I’ve been mentally snarling like a caged lion, and now that it’s nearly bug-free and a sunny twenty degrees, I should be outside, basking like a lizard in the sunshine.

I return to the kitchen to grab a couple of apples and a small tray. At the door, I remove my socks.

I slip out the breakfast-nook door into the gardens. I literally get one step outside before a midge smacks into my face. Hey, I did saynearlybug-free. I blow the bug from my face, take another step and—

“—really have something here,” Cirillo is saying.

I perk up, thinking he’s talking to me. Then I see the back of his head and the phone against his ear.

“I’m serious,” he says. “We not only seem to have made contact with her husband, but there’s something else here, too. I can’t describe it.”

My eyes narrow. This is supposed to be a private and confidential séance.

I slip back into the shadows and keep listening.

“No, actually, Icandescribe it,” Cirillo says. “I just don’t like tobecause it makes me sound like a carnival clairvoyant. There’s something dark here, a negative force. Oppressing. A dark force watching and waiting, like a vulture waiting for its prey to die.” He gives a short laugh. “God, did I really just say that?”

He pauses, as if listening.

“Dangerous? No. Spirits are never dangerous. This one reminds me of the Moorehouse case.”

I lift my phone and silently tap in “Moorehouse case ghost” but nothing comes up.

Cirillo continues, “I’ve never forgotten what that boy’s spirit felt like. Malevolent. Accidental shooting, my ass. Someone put that kid down like a rabid dog.”

I add more search terms. Still nothing.

“That’s what I felt here,” Cirillo continues. “A malevolent spirit. But the guy we’re summoning is just a regular joe, volunteered with disadvantaged youth on the weekends, for Christ’s sake.”

Pause.

“Yes, I know that could have been a cover, but my point is thatsomethingis here. The wife and her brother-in-law are having experiences, and both are definitely skeptics. No one’s hearing pipes creak and calling it spectral footsteps.”

He listens for a few minutes. Then he says, “I should go. I think I hear voices. Someone might be coming out.”

He hangs up. I move from the shadows, quietly set down the tray, and wait. Cirillo turns, pocketing his phone. He sees me, standing with my arms crossed, and gives a start.

“Done with your call?” I say.

Guilt creeps into his gaze before he straightens with the air of a man who refuses to feel guilty for such things. I’m still struggling to get a read on Davos Cirillo. He comes off as pleasant, mild-mannered, and passionate about his work. Every now and then, though, there’s steel in Cirillo’s gaze and in his words, and I get the sense that if Imistake him for a mild-mannered professor, I’ve fallen into a trap that is to his benefit.

Maybe he really is pleasant and mostly mild-mannered, but it also serves his purpose, making us snap to attention when his voice and manner firm. It leaves me feeling like we’re his grad students—he’s fine with letting us do our thing until we forget who’s in charge.

“Yes, I was eavesdropping,” I say as I take my coffee and apple from the tray. “I would have walked away, except that the first words I heard were you excitedly telling someone that we’ve made contact, when you assured me this was a private session with all data to be used anonymously.”

I meet his gaze. “When did that change? When you realized my dead husband might actually be here?”

“Ouch.” He tries for a smile. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”

“Oh, I haven’t even started. I have all our correspondence, in writing, with your assurance of anonymity. This is scientific data only. I don’t know whether you’re trying to change that, Davos, but if you do, you’ll see how well I can throw my punches.”

He lifts his hands. “I yield. Nothing has changed. You didn’t hear me use names, right? It’s all still anonymous.”

“So why were you excitedly calling someone about our sessions?”

He makes a face and settles into a patio chair. “Because of the boring side of research. Funding.” He looks up. “Your husband was a mathematician. A university professor? I don’t know much about math, so maybe grants aren’t a thing there.”