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“Dad, they’re not—” It was too difficult to explain what exactly consultants did, and how construction on our shut-down wing wasn’t even in the planning stages yet. All that would come after the Harringtons’ report. “They will be,” I said. Dad would probably ask me the same question next month, anyway.

“Okay. This is critical then. I’m glad I caught you. Tell them… not to go into 114.”

I actually placed my hand on my forehead, incredulity growing like a balloon. “This? This is what you called an urgent meeting for?”

“Dad,” Eli said. He looked at me as if to verify he wasn’t hearing things.

I grimaced.

He looked back at our father. “You’re not serious?”

“Wait, is that the haunted room?” Chelsea asked.

“No,” I said. “There’s no hauntedroom.”

“Of course there is!” Dad said.

On screen, Jude leaned forward on his steepled hands. “Oooh, I haven’t heard this one.”

“Don’t encourage him!” I said, exasperated. “We don’t have time for this, Dad. And we need to develop some code about what’s truly urgent. Falling into a well—that’s urgent.”

“Breaking your hip,” Eli said.

“Knee, even,” snorted Jude.

That surprised me enough that I glanced at him, sharply. But it was too hard to read his expression through the screen. An ACL injury was what had ended Jude’s pro-tennis career a few years ago. He never talked about it.

But Dad was already encouraged. “I told you and Eli on our last call,” he said to me.

I’d called Dad from the office a couple of weeks ago just to check in, and he’d warned us about the same thing—construction on the east wing. I tried to tell him we weren’t even looking at that yet, but when he started going on about ghosts, I’d crossed over to Eli’s office and tossed my phone at him. He could deal with Dad’s nonsense. I was frustrated—every call was something ridiculous instead of the fatherly check-in I so badly wanted. Dad had always been interested in the history of the hotel, but since mom passed, he’d become slightly obsessive. If he cared so much about this place and its ghosts, why wasn’t he here?

But I didn’t say that. It would be insensitive to the way Dad was still grieving. Instead, I said, “Dad, we’re meeting the consultants right now for dinner. I honestly thought something was actually wrong. I’m going to go, so why don’t you stay on the call with Jude and tell him on his own, seeing as he seems so interested?”

“I want to hear too,” Chelsea said.

I raised my eyebrows at her.

“Fine, Jude and Chelsea,” I said, moving to get up.

But it was Eli who spoke. “Her name was Eleanor Cleary.”

I gaped. “Eli, seriously?” Eli was the biggest skeptic of us all.

“Don’t you remember?” His voice had gone somber. “She was a guest at the hotel in the year 1922. She was staying at the hotel with a man she claimed was her husband. But her husband came looking for her the day she was supposed to check out. He found her dead.

“Her lover missing,” Dad added, beaming at Eli.

“Ugh,” Chelsea said. “I don’t like hearing that word come out of Dad’s mouth.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“Wait, so what happened to the lover?” Jude asked.

“Jude’s mouth either,” Chelsea said.

I nodded. “I agree. But apparently he was never found.” Then I realized I’d played right into Dad’s hands.

“And now,” Eli said, holding his hands up, Thriller-style, “Eleanor haunts the east wing, looking for her lover!”