Page 109 of Chasing Your Ghost

She nodded, knowing that if she spoke, her voice would betray just how badly that revelation had affected her. The basement they were standing in was filled with all manner of things, from empty boxes to an old PlayStation, from a washing machine to cans of paint. But the one thing they’d been looking for couldn’t be found among the clutter.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It was a long shot.”

Riley wasn’t sure why he was comforting her. He was the one she’d let down. He was the one who should’ve been too upset to talk. “I’m sorry,” she managed to choke out.

It was the last room they’d needed to check, and though basements gave Riley a terrible case of the heebie-jeebies, she’d volunteered to go down there with Asher while Noah and Chris kept lookout upstairs. She’d needed to see it for herself, but now that she had, all she wanted to do was go back to the pool house—a place that she’d nearly slipped up and called home while they were driving to Gabe’s house—and curl up in defeat in bed.

But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Riley wouldn’t stop until they’d found Asher, and if that meant searching a hundred more basements, each one only leading to disappointment, then so be it.

She pushed her shoulders back and turned to Asher. Lit by only the overhead bulb that was swaying ever so slightly, he’d never looked more ghostly. She hated it. “We’ll keep looking,” she promised him. “I’m not giving up.”

“I know.”

“I won’t stop until I find you.”

He looked sad as he stepped closer and placed his hands on her cheeks. “I know.” He swiped at the stray tear that she hadn’t been able to keep in. “Let’s go upstairs. Chris and Noah are probably freaking out.”

Riley forced out a laugh. “Babies.”

“Right? It’s like they’ve never broken into a house before.”

“Absolute amateurs,” Riley agreed with a grin that was only partly false.

“Exactly, so we’d better make sure they haven’t brought the cops down on us in the last five minutes they’ve been left to their own devices.”

“Okay,” she agreed. She thought of the pool house they’d spent countless hours and days in together. She thought of the room that Asher had appeared in when they were nothing more than strangers, and she’d been wearing nothing but a towel. She thought of the bed that had played such an innocent role in their story until recently. “Let’s go home.”

Asher’s eyes flared at the words, the good kind of shock making his lips part. He nodded, and a smile broke across his face, reaching all the way into his green eyes. “Let’s go home.”

It was when they were all back in Noah’s Jeep, Gabe’s small and slightly dilapidated house disappearing in the rear-view mirror, that Riley got the call that would change everything.

“Have you got to Gabe’s house yet?” Ella asked her. Something in her voice sounded off, like she was disconnected. Like she didn’t care what the answer was.

“We just left,” Riley replied tiredly, not wanting to rehash the details of their unsuccessful trip. “We didn’t find anything.”

“I know,” Ella said. “You were at the wrong place. I know where Asher is.”

Riley shot up in her seat, her lethargy disappearing impossibly quickly. “What?”

“I’m sending you the address now. I’ll meet you there.”

Riley grabbed Asher’s hand, her grip as tight as the muscles in her back and shoulders. “Hold on.” She pulled the phone away from her ear and put Ella on speaker. “Everyone can hear you now.”

“What’s going on?” Noah asked, glancing back at Riley from the driver’s seat.

Riley squeezed Asher’s hand tighter and sent him a wavering smile. “Ella says she knows where Asher is.”

Noah slammed on breaks, pulling over in a move reckless enough to earn him a ticket if a cop had been around to see it.

“Well? Where is he?” Chris demanded to know.

“He’s at a house only a few blocks down from Riley’s,” Ella explained in that same dead voice. “I just sent a pin.”

Riley opened the message from her, and sure enough, there it was, only a few blocks away from the Warner house. “Oh my god.”

Asher’s grip tightened almost painfully, and she knew they were thinking the same thing: he’d been there this whole time, only a few houses away. He’d been within walking distance. It felt too cruel to be true.

“Whose house is it?” Chris asked, leaning between the front seats to get a better look.

---