Page 17 of Into the Dark

As if on cue, Dr. Lawson entered the tent, grabbed a chair, and dragged it over to sit by Tina. “I’m too old to run around a pile like that,” she announced, gesturing vaguely at the hulking asylum. “I’ll stay here and monitor the situation with Cabeza.”

Montague rose to her feet. “On that note, I am retiring for the night. Good hunting.”

“Night!” Zeek called as she swept out of the tent.

“If you require anything, I’ll be your point of contact,” Ethan said, folding himself into the chair Montague had vacated. Had he slept at all today? He looked fresh as a daisy, so he must have at some point.

“All right, then,” Oscar said. “Are we ready? Nigel?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Nigel hurried to strap on his head cam, before clipping a heavy-duty flashlight, EMF reader, and audio recorder to his belt.

Tina unzipped her backpack. “Don’t forget the pins for the camera,” she said, shaking a plastic bag at them.

Nigel clipped a trans pride button to his jacket. Oscar had gay pride, and Chris nonbinary.

Zeek noticed. “Great idea! Rep matters, right?”

“Representationmatters,” Nigel said, pained. Beside him, Oscar tried to suppress a chuckle.

“We should do that too,” Zeek said over his shoulder to Adrienne, before turning back to Tina. “Do you have a bi pride one?”

“Sorry, we only brought enough for everyone who might be on camera,” she said.

“No problem! Next time.” He shot finger-guns at her.

Oscar glanced at his watch. “We need to get moving.”

Nigel checked the time as well. Damn it. They’d hoped to be inside an hour ago. If Dr. Lawson hadn’t taken it upon herself to drive out here…

He shouldn’t have called her. He knew how deep her animosity toward Montague ran.

On the other hand, she’d been honest with them about the original team, which Montague hadn’t. The fact someone had died, that there was a survivor nearby…

It might have been an accident as he’d suggested. A group of wanna-be ghost hunters jumping at every shadow, imagining a hostile spirit chasing them until disaster struck.

There was no way to know. At least, not until either they orZeeking the Unknownencountered the same spirit.

Oscar led the way out of the tent, and the rest of them trailed after. Nigel found himself walking beside Adrienne, the old drive crunching under their boots.

“So is the old lady crazy?” she asked unexpectedly.

“Dr. Lawson?”

“Yes.”

“Not at all. She led the field in survival research before she retired.” Not that there was much of a field these days. It was a lot harder to get grants to study the survival of personality after death than it was to study ESP. ESP was practical, especially to the government. Weaponizing a poltergeist would be a lot harder.

Adrienne nodded. “And you studied with her?”

“She was my PhD advisor. I essentially inherited her job when she retired.”

“Which is…?”

“Lecturing, mostly.” A bout of sneezing interrupted him—the pollen here was terrible. “Sorry,” he said, sniffling. “I teach a course on the history of psychical research. I didn’t have any field experience until last October, when I met Oscar and the others.”

Her gaze went to Chris, who walked alongside Oscar, discussing some detail about the upcoming shoot. “I see. And Chris? Are they…happy?”

The last thing he wanted to do was get caught between exes. “As far as I know. Oh, look, we’re here.”

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