Page 5 of Into the Dark

They winced. “…A little.”

“Chris,” Oscar began, but Chris held up their hand.

“Our past aside, this isn’t good for us. And by us, I mean OtP. We take this stuff seriously—itisserious. They rely on cheap scares and jump cuts. And on Zeek acting like a dumb ass for the camera.” Chris smirked. “Though maybe it isn’t an act.”

Oscar pressed his lips together in disapproval. “He’s been nothing but nice so far.”

“Yeah, okay, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. My point stands. Just being on site with them at the same time will hurt our credibility if anyone finds out.”

Oscar’s heart sank. Why had Montague put them in this position with no warning? Had she worried one team or the other would pull out if they knew?

He looked toward the brooding hulk of the asylum. His grandmother had suffered in there, but at least death had freed her from its walls. How many other former patients were still trapped inside, so caught in their own pain they couldn’t figure out how to move on? He couldn’t just walk away from that, not if he wanted to live up to Mamaw’s legacy.

“This is my only chance to try and free any ghosts inside,” he said at last. “Ms. Montague might be able to convince the owner to let us inside in exchange for a fee, but I doubt I’ll be able to meet the same price later on. I have to do this.”

“Not to mention Montague holds the purse strings,” Nigel added. “If we leave, I have a feeling they’ll be tied up tight from now on.”

“A good point.” Oscar dropped a kiss on Nigel’s hair. “Chris, if you want to leave, I’ll drive you back to the interstate and finda hotel for you to stay at until we’re done. Tina can do the camera work.”

Both Tina and Chris looked horrified at the prospect. “No offense, but also, no way,” Chris said. “Sorry, Tina.”

“No, I agree,” she said hastily. “I have zero interest in setting foot in a place that looks like the setting for a big-budget horror movie.”

“I’ll stay.” Chris glanced at the asylum. “Like Montague said, it’s a huge building. We’ll be far enough apart not to interfere with each other’s investigations. And when we can’t avoid each other, I’ll be civil. I’m sorry I overreacted earlier.”

Tina put a hand to their arm. “You were caught by surprise.”

Relief went through Oscar—he really hadn’t wanted Tina on the camera. It wasn’t that she couldn’t operate it, but she didn’t have Chris’s flair. “Okay, then. Let’s get started.”

They set up Tina’s workspace in the tent Montague referred to as the command center, on the opposite side from the folding table Adrienne and Zeek had claimed for their own. The other team had far less equipment—did they wait until after an investigation to look through the footage?

Once Tina was ensconced in front of the monitors and making sure everything was hooked into the wifi, Oscar and Chris went to film the intro to the episode. Once no one else was paying attention to him, Nigel took the opportunity to wander back down the driveway while checking his phone for a signal. It took a bit of searching, but eventually he managed to get one bar. With a guilty look back over his shoulder, he placed a call.

“Taylor?” asked Dr. Lawson. “What’s going on?”

“You always assume something is going on.”

“Because lately it has been. Out with it.”

He paused for a moment, choosing his words. Dr. Lawson had history with Ms. Montague, though he was still unsure of the details. Back in the late 1980s, the two women had worked together alongside a medium by the name of Robin.

But something had gone wrong when they were investigating poltergeist activity. Robin died, Montague withdrew her monetary support for the Institute of Parapsychology, and Dr. Lawson…

From the first, she’d warned him against Montague. Which made this doubly hard to tell her now.

When he finished explaining the circumstances, including the surprise competition between the two teams, Lawson let out a stream of expletives he’d never heard from her before, then ended with, “I can’t believe this! No, wait—I believe this isexactlywhat Patricia would do.”

“I know you’ve never wanted us to work with her?—”

“Because she’s dangerous!” Lawson’s voice went icy with fury. “She always pushes too far. I’d hoped she learned her lesson, but then she’d have to be capable of learning from her mistakes. Which she can’t, because she’ll never admit when she’s made one!”

Nigel ran his hand through his hair. Maybe this call had been his mistake. “I could use some advice. This place is huge, and honestly?—”

“Leave,” she cut him off. “Right now.”

“It’s not that simple?—”

“Like hell it isn’t. Listen to me, Taylor, and listen close. You aren’t the first team to investigate here. They?—”

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