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The Tribal police had sent four people to oversee the exhumation, including the Chief of Tribal Police, who nodded to Henry as we made our way through the snow to where the cemetery staff had a heater ready to place around the gravesite to soften the ground. It wasn’t that much below freezing, but it had been cold enough that they wanted to minimize the heavy equipment and potential damage to other graves.

We’d be out here for several hours before any digging could actually happen, so neither Olsen nor Smith had shown up yet, but Henry and I had a spirit house to move.

I’d explained to Henry that we’d spoken to Gregory and received both his and Elliot’s permission, and Henry had simply nodded. “Justice has always been important to Gregory,” he replied. “He wants the truth found.”

I didn’t comment on the fact that Henry was speaking about Gregory in the present tense. I knew damn well that Gregory Crane was still around—just not on a plane where most of us could reach him. But that didn’t mean he’d stopped existing.

We didn’t talk much as we carefully loosened and then lifted the spirit house, carrying it far enough from the gravesite that the heaters could be put into place.

I was freezing and had lost sensation in my fingers, toes, and nose by the time Smith and Olsen showed up, Smith with a warrant and Olsen with whatever federal paperwork was needed to cross the tribal borders. There was discussing, signing, photographs taken of papers, and hand-shaking, and then things started happening.

Equipment was moved into place, orders were called out, and everyone became very serious.

A chill rippled down my spine, starting at the small of my back, a place that was thoroughly protected from the cold by my t-shirt, button-down, sweater, and parka.

“Hi, Pop.” I spoke out loud, although softly, because I don’t have the ability to talk to ghosts in my head.

The cold intensified for a moment, then eased.

“You sure you want to be here?” I asked him, trying not to move my lips too much. I was hoping nobody else would notice, because being the lone Nid out here was conspicuous enough without adding talking to myself to the list.

Another moment of cold.

Henry was chanting, smoke rising from a small fire he’d built some distance from the gravesite and the collected officers of the law surrounding it. Two of the Tribal police were standing with Henry, their lips moving along with his, while the Chief and another officer were with the feds and Smith.

I was alone—well, no. I was standing by myself with a dead man, feeling oddly comforted by the fact that even if I didn’t have either Taavi or Elliot here, I did have Gregory.

“Taavi went over to your house this morning,” I told him. I’d been about to ask if Taavi would go sit with Elliot, but he’d offered himself when I got up. So at least Elliot wasn’t alone, either. “To keep Elliot company.”

Another pulse of cold.

It was weird, having a ghost as your emotional support. Well, okay. Weird for me. I know Ward did it all the time, but he could actually see and exchange conversation with the dead. I just had the equivalent of talking to myself and cold-spot morse code.

Let me tell you, it’s a shit-ton better than nothing.

Especially when everybody gets really quiet, and all you can hear is the very particular creaking-shifting-groaning sound of roots and dirt and coffin-wood as they lift a coffin out of the ground.

And then everybody turned to look at me.

Smith’s expression was apologetic. “Hart, we’re going to need an ID.”

Fuck me.

The cold spot came back, intensified.

“Thanks, Pop,” I murmured, then forced my feet to walk across the snowy ground, into the mud and slush surrounding the hole and the stained wooden box, to stand there as the Tribal police crow-barred it open, the only sound the protesting of the wood and the soft shushing of boots in snow and mud and sucked-in breaths.

Gregory Crane hadn’t been embalmed, by choice. A choice I deeply respected and really, really wished wasn’t true in that precise moment.

Yes, it had been cold since his funeral, and that was probably the only reason Icouldstill ID him. But he’d been buried for twenty-three days, and not all of them had been completely below freezing. It meant his skin was sagging and grey, and I knew that if I touched it, it would slough off under pressure from my fingers. I wasn’t going to, but I knew it would.

It was cold enough now—about twenty or so—that there was no noticeable smell, although almost everyone at the site was wearing a mask or had a scarf pulled around their faces. I should have, but I’m not always the smartest when I’m emotional. I know this. I usually solve the problem by not having feelings, but this trip was just an unending stream of intense emotions.

“Yes, that’s Gregory Crane,” I said out loud, even though part of my mind was screaming that this sagging meat wasnotGregory. It couldn’t be. And another part—and the cold spot on my back—agreed, saying that the body wasn’t him, but he was here.

“Thank you, Hart,” Smith said, clearly trying to make his rough voice gentle.

I nodded in acknowledgement, not really trusting myself to speak much more.