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Josie nodded in answer to Alec’s question because she couldn’t speak just then.

He bounced the charm in his hand, and she got a better look at it. Her scar tingled. A jolt of realization cut through the emotion of the moment, making her heart pound.

“Erica still loves her mother,” Alec said. “Even after all the bad stuff she did, Erica’s still trying to gain her approval. Trying to get acceptance from a ghost.”

Josie considered explaining how the whole toxic mother thing worked. Every little girl yearned for her mother’s love. When that mother was too toxic or evil to give it, a void formed in the little girl’s soul, leaving her incomplete and desperate to fill it because if she didn’t—if she couldn’t—that meant she was irreparably broken. Damaged. Worthless. Even when the little girl grew up and understood that the failing was with her mother and not her, the longing for something that never existed in the first place never went away. Neither did the void, and from time to time—against all logic—attempts to fill it had to be made.

Except Josie couldn’t tear her attention away from the necklace. “That’s Erica’s.”

“Yeah. She rarely takes it off, but she got into the shower as soon as we settled in the room. Left it on the bathroom counter.” He pinched the charm between his thumb and forefinger. “This was the only thing she had from her mother when she came to us. Not the chain or even the setting, just this weird-ass thing. Her mom gave it to her before she left. Erica doesn’t even know what the hell it is or what it means but she’s always been obsessed with it. I don’t know what it is either, except weird. When she was about fourteen, she got this idea to make it into a necklace. Got all this fancy wire and tiny beads from the craft store and she made it into this.”

It was almost as if the object generated its own energy, drawing Josie toward it, urging her to touch it. “May I?”

Alec shrugged and dumped the necklace into Josie’s open palm. Then he fished his lighter and another cigarette from a back pocket. He lit up, mumbled something, but Josie wasn’t listening anymore. She used the flashlight app on her phone to get a closer look at the small, black, cylindrical object. A half-dozen tiny red beads sparkled from the ornately patterned copper wire that hugged its smooth surface. It was metal, about an inch long, and surprisingly heavy. Solid. Its circumference was no bigger than that of a pencil. One end was flat. The other flared out slightly, a bit thicker than the rest of the shaft. Its surface was concave enough that she could fit the tip of her pinky finger into it.

It wasn’t a spanner bit. Not a tool or part of a tool, either. Deep in the recesses of Josie’s brain, something fought to break free from the shadows but failed. She didn’t know what the object was but she knew there were five others exactly like it in Lila’s twisted trophy box.