Page 28 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
“That’s giving the house a lot of credit. Premeditation implies thought.”
“Exactly. Come on.”
Lucky led him into the room, demonstrating how to access the crawl space. She set the slats down next to her as Maverick panned the camera inside the hole, and then positioned the tripod to get them both into frame.
“Did you know this was here?” she asked.
“I didn’t.”
Lucky mentally prepared herself to launch the next part of her plan. She fidgeted in place—the newness of it making her slightly nervous. He said he wanted to be her second. He said he wanted to be partners. He’d kept his word last night. After agonizing over it, she decided to try and meet him halfway. “I’m gonna pitch something. Hear me out?”
“Okay.” He focused on her, expression open and waiting.
She took a deep breath. “What if I went in?”
He looked around the room, confused. “In where?”
“The crawl space.” She gestured to it for good measure. “I’m pretty sure I can fit and—”
“No.”
“What do you meanno? Don’t cut me off.” She frowned at him. “As I was saying, I measured it and ran the numbers. If I’m careful, I can slide in at an angle and shimmy down, flip over, and army crawl to see where it goes. I was going to do it last night, but then I thought better of it, which is rare for me, if I’m being honest. Now that you’re here, it should be perfectly safe.”
Maverick stared at her for five full seconds before asking, “May I speak now? Just want to make sure I don’t interrupt you again.”
“Yes,” she said, but then decided to add a summary. “I firmly believe I can fit. It’s daylight. There are other people in the house. I should be safe.”
“Got it. I understand.” He nodded. “No.”
Lucky instantly deflated—of course, this happened to her. The one time she went out on a limb to work with someone else, they suddenly thought they could tell her what to do the moment things got dicey. Typical.
Except Maverick was supposed to get it. He was supposed to understand and be on her side, not stand in her way. She watched him reach into the opening, pressing down on the bottom and the sides.
Preoccupied by her feelings, Lucky almost didn’t see the window silently crack open beside them. Her gaze slid to it then back to Maverick as an idea for an experiment formed.
“I already did that,” she snapped, resolving to ignore the window for the time being.
“Second opinions don’t hurt anything.” His voice echoed down the shaft. “I can’t tell if it’s load-bearing. You might fallthrough, not to mention there’s no way to tell if there’s a secondary exit or if it remains a consistent size.”
She’d already thought of that too and deemed those risks to be within acceptable limits. “I’m willing to take my chances.”
He sat back up with dust now sprinkled across his forehead and the tip of his nose. Her hands twitched on instinct. “Duly noted,” he said. “However, insurance has denied your request.”
“Hennessee ledmehere,” she insisted, unwilling to back down. “Ihaveto do this.”
Maverick’s gaze sharpened, glinting and protective. “Youare not going in there.” His tone, however, remained as understanding as ever.
“You can’t stop me from exploring the house.”
The window inched upward again.
“You can do whatever you want as long as you do it safely. I meant whatIsaid.” He mouthed the wordsecond.
Second. Her second. He was asking her to trust him again. No one else on the team knew about the promise he made to her and the vow he made with himself. This was their secret. He wanted it to stay that way.
He continued, “I’ll get you a remote camera. Probably a drone.”
All at once, her internal warring ended. Using a drone hadn’t even occurred to her because she couldn’t afford it. So far, she’d managed to fund her supernatural research entirely with her nanny paychecks. After bills, every single extra dollar she had was split evenly between her emergency savings and future investigation expenses. A drone would’ve taken months of saving, whereas strapping a camera to her forehead was well within budget.
