Page 71 of The Shape of Night

“Does he believe in this ghost, too?”

“No. But I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve seen him, Ben. I’ve seen Jeremiah Brodie.”

His expression is still unreadable. Is this something they teach you in medical school, how to maintain a poker player’s face so that patients can’t read what you really think of them?

“My father saw him, too,” Ben says quietly.

I stare at him. “When?”

“It was the day they found her. My father was called to the house to examine her body. It’s the reason I remember her name. Because I heard him talk about it to my mother.”

I glance up at the photo of Ben’s father on the wall, so distinguished in his white coat. Not a man who looks prone to fantasies. “What did he say?”

“He said the woman was lying on the floor in the turret, dressed in her nightgown. He knew she’d been dead for some time because of the smell and the…flies.” He pauses, realizing that some details are better left unsaid. “Her nephew and the police officers had gone downstairs, so my father was alone up there, examining the body. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. On the widow’s walk.”

“That’s where I first saw him,” I murmur.

“My father turned and there he was. A tall man with dark hair and a black seaman’s coat. An instant later, the man was gone. My father was certain of what he’d seen, but he never revealed it to anyone except my mother and me. He didn’t want people to think their local doctor had gone insane. And to be honest, I never really believed it. I thought it was a trick of the light or a reflection in the window. Or maybe he was just bone-tired from too many late-night calls. I’d almost forgotten that story.” Ben looks straight at me. “But now I find out you’ve seen him, too.”

“It’s not a trick of the light, Ben. I’ve seen the ghost more than once. I’vespokento him.” At his startled look, I’m sorry I shared that detail. Certainly I’m not going to tell him everything else that has happened between Brodie and me. “I know it’s hard for you to believe. It’s hard formeto believe.”

“But I want to, Ava. Who wouldn’t want to believe there’s an afterlife, that there’s something beyond death? But where’s the evidence? No one can prove there’s a ghost in that house.”

I pull out my cellphone. “Maybe there’s someone who can.”

Twenty-Five

Ben may be a skeptic, but he’s curious enough to be at my house Saturday afternoon when Maeve arrives along with her ghost-hunting team.

“This is Todd and Evan, who’ll handle the technical aspects tonight,” she says, introducing the two burly young men who are unloading camera gear from a white van. They are brothers with identical red beards and they look so much alike that I can only tell them apart by their different T-shirts. Evan’s isStar Wars,Todd’s isAlien. I’m surprised that neither is wearingGhostbusters.

A VW comes up the driveway and parks behind the white van. “And that’ll be Kim, our team sensitive,” says Maeve. Out of the VW emerges a stick-thin blonde with cheeks so hollow that I wonder if she has recently suffered an illness. She takes a few steps toward us and suddenly stops, staring up at the house. She stands motionless for so long that Ben finally asks, “What’s going on with her?”

“She’s fine,” says Maeve. “She’s probably just trying to get a feeling for the place and detect any vibrations.”

“Before we unload everything, we’re going to take a look around the house, film some baseline footage,” says Todd. He’s already filming and he slowly pans his camera across the porch, then steps into the foyer. Glancing up at the crown molding, he says, “This house looks pretty old. There’s a good chance you’ve gotsomethingstill lingering in here.”

“Is it okay if I just wander around?” says Kim.

“Of course,” I tell her. “The house is yours.”

Kim heads down the hallway, followed by the two brothers who continue to film. When they’re out of earshot, Maeve turns to Ben and me and confides: “I haven’t told Kim any details about your house. She’s coming in to this assignment blind, because I don’t want to influence her reactions in any way.”

“You called her your teamsensitive,” says Ben. “What does that mean, exactly? Is that like a psychic?”

“Kim has the ability to sense energies that still linger in a room, and she’ll tell us which areas need special monitoring. She’s been amazingly accurate.”

“And how exactly does one judge accuracy?” This time, Ben can’t keep the doubt out of his voice, but Maeve smiles, unruffled.

“Ava tells me you’re a medical doctor, so I’m sure this sounds like a foreign language to you. But yes, we’re able to confirm a great deal of what Kim tells us. Last month, she described a deceased child in very specific detail. Only later did we show her the child’s photo, and we were blown away by how every detail matched what she’d described to us. Everything, right down to the lace collar on the little boy’s shirt.” She pauses, reading Ben’s face. “You’re doubtful.”

“I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

“What would it take to convince you, Dr. Gordon?”

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