Page 25 of Looking for Love in All the Haunted Places
“I didn’t lie during my interview. This really is the job I want.” Public perception madeparanormal investigatorsynonymous with comedians hunting for ghosts and cryptids. She dubbed herself anacademic supernatural researcher. A mouthful for sure, but far more accurate. “Our brains are incredible and there’s more to the world than what we can see. I want to find it—any of it. I want to prove it’s real.”
“There aren’t any ghosts in the house.”
“I’m not looking for ghosts.” From where she stood at the window, she swung her light in a wide arc. Why would it lead her here? “All signs point to Hennessee being sentient, not haunted. Someone must’ve led it to enlightenment. It also wants…something.”
“It wants to scare people away.”
“No. That’s not it. That’s too simple.” She frowned at the room. What was she supposed to find? Do next? “Your turn. Why did you call me?”
“I told you I was worried.”
“Why are you worried about me? There are three caretakers’ worth of history here. What changed your mind?”
“Eunice. I hate the way she left. When they told me they had cast someone new and I saw your picture, I knew I had to do something.”
She checked the closet—empty and unremarkable.
Under the bed—clean, not a single dust bunny to be found.
The chest—also empty.
The nightstands—Kleenex, a pen, and a notepad. Amazing. Incredible. Life-changing.
Lucky sighed. “And?”
“And”—he paused—“I swore to myself I wasn’t going to let anything happen to you on my watch.”
She was about to give up when she passed in front of the window again and heard a solidclickunder her left foot. Her thoughts immediately went tobooby trap, preparing for the worst. She froze in place, heart pounding as she slowly looked down.
A square of flooring had sunk about an inch below the other slats. She kneeled quickly, investigating with hesitant touches to figure out if she’d accidentally damaged the floor or—was it ahandle? The entire slat came free with a hard upward yank. And then she did it again.
Lucky sat on the ground, holding all four displaced slats on her lap. The resulting rectangle was two by two feet wide, three feet deep, and extended into a passageway leading clear under the floorboards toward the door. She breathed in—peppermint once again indicating the way.
Her brain screamedcrawl space!!!, urging her to go inside.
I can’t fit in there.
Yes, you can!! You won’t know until you try!!
…shut up.
She could fit. Shecouldfit.
But this was one of those times where common sense needed to have its day. Even with Maverick on the phone, it’d be immensely stupid to wriggle in there and army-crawl her way around the house, with no one around to cut her out if she got stuck.
She’d wait. She had to wait.
…right?
She’d been wrong before—she absolutely needed a distraction to keep her out of that crawl space. “Why do you do it?” she asked Maverick, common sense barely hanging on. “Why are you interested in the supernatural?”
“Originally? Money.”
Shock snapped her out of her indecision. “Money?”
“Yep.” He laughed. “I usually don’t tell people that, but I asked you to be honest. It’s only fair I do the same. I started my podcast on a shoestring budget of zero dollars, a hope, a prayer, and the strange stories I pulled out of my dreams.”
“Ilovedit. I listened to it all the time.”
