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“What did I just say about that word?” Chelsea said.

“Oooooooh!” Jude made ghost sounds on-screen.

At that, even I had to suppress a laugh. “Okay, that’s enough.” I grew serious again. “Dad, this still doesn’t constitute an urgent call.”

“Wait,” Jude said. He hesitated, and we all waited. “Was room 114 the one that flooded the rest of the rooms?”

“That was 220,” I said. “A totally different nightmare. But not as much of a nightmare as I’ll be if you don’t get dressed in some proper clothes and be in the lobby at five to!” Then to my father, “Dad, write us an email, okay? I’ll share it with the… contractors.”

“I will. I’ll share my research too. But you need to know the most important thing. It’s the whole reason I needed to talk to you. It’s about spending time in that room. Anyone who does, whether they’re sleeping there or whether it’s under construction, working on it. Something always goes terribly wrong. It’s why the previous owners hid it.”

At that, even I felt a chill go over me. “Hid it?”

“Oh yes, it’s been walled over.”

“What?” Eli said. “Does Griffin know about this?”

Griffin, while he didn’t officially work at the hotel, was our go-to for anything like that. He’d hired our facilities manager, Gus, and even though he didn’t report to him, he didn’t do much without his say-so.

“Oh yes,” Dad said. “He knows.”

That surprised me. I’d have to ask Griff about it tonight.

“In any case,” Dad said, seeing he was losing me. “I needed to tell you right away before any workers started meddling in the supernatural. It could sink the whole place.”

“Dad, what have you been reading lately?” Eli said.

“I’m glad you asked,” he said, holding up a stack of books. They all had glossy covers and were filled with tabs where Dad had marked off important pages. He showed usGhosts and their Secrets; Hidden Vermont;andA Biography of Richard Remington.

“That’s the tycoon, right?” Jude said.

“Alright,” I said. This had gone on long enough. “Dad, I’m going to end this call now.”

“I love you,” he said to me—I knew it was to me, because it’s what he said anytime he wound me up and wanted me to get back onside. When he said it, he sounded like the Dad I used to know, the one who helped me with my math homework and psyched me up before my softball games. Who held me when I fought tears every night for half a year in the fifth grade when the kids called meCass-man-drafor how tall I’d grown over the summer.

“I love you too, Dad,” I said, partly annoyed and partly awed at how he could still do that to me. Despite his irritating idiosyncrasies over the past few years, he was still my dad, and I still loved him to death.

Fifteen minutes later, after kicking Eli out to shower, I stood in front of the closet, my mind muddled with everything that had been going on. There was no time to try a bunch of stuff on now. Plus, my heart ached—I was worried about Dad. He was all alone, clinging to stories about ghosts, I think because he wanted to believe somehow that Mom was still here.

I wish you were, Mom.

Every day I wished she was.

I pulled on the first dress I saw—a scoop neck black number that ended at my knees. Ned never wanted me to wear this dress, I remembered. Or maybe it was the heels that went with it. Ned had hated that I wore heels. He didn’t like me being taller than him.

Go to hell, Ned,I thought as I headed for the bathroom.

“Hey,” Chelsea said from the couch, her eyebrows slanted in concern. She was still talking to Dad and Jude. “You okay?”

Had I said that out loud?

“Fine,” I smiled. “I’m good.”

I heard Chelsea speak softly as I crossed the room. She was talking to Dad with a kind of reverence. “It’s all bullshit,” I mouthed, but when she understood what I’d said, she looked so wounded a slice of guilt hit me. Sometimes I forgot that Chelsea had lived with our parents the longest; that she’d had a special relationship with them that wasn’t the same one I’d had. It had just been her at home after Jude left, and there hadn’t been the franticness of all the little kids to help raise.

And now I was too far away from her to apologize.

What was the matter with me? It was like that moment on the island with Blake—before I knew it was him—had thrown my whole life off-kilter. Like the universe was teasing me with something I couldn’t have.