“Has he heard from our parents?” Clare asked softly.

“No.”

Dora looked at Clare with owlish eyes. “Jal and Viva are in the wind again. They sent me a present for my birthday, though.”

She saw the lie of that in Tucker’s eyes. He covered for the parents when Clare wouldn’t.

“Tucker, if you want the house, it’s yours,” Clare said.

“I like the house,” Dora said. “But I like our home in Williamsburg better!”

Tucker eased. “That’s good, baby.”

Clare said, “We sold it to a nice family, Tuck.”

His smile curved. “Kids?”

“Four.”

“They’ll love this place,” Dora enthused.

Enzo barked. Yes, they will! Children always loved Sandra’s and my home!

Clare turned her head sharply to look at the ghost dog.

“Clare?” asked Tucker.

She blinked and rubbed her right ear. “I’m here.”

His eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

“Maybe overdoing it a little working on the estate,” she mumbled.

“Well, that’s mostly done, and I’ll handle the work here.” He squeezed his daughter. “I feel better knowing there’s a family moving in, don’t you, kiddo?”

Dora nodded. “For sure.”

Everything’s good! Sandra would like them.

Clare hadn’t thought that Enzo had even met them, and didn’t want to ask.

“I love you, Auntie Clare.” Dora puckered and made a loud smooching sound. At least it wasn’t “weird Aunt Clare” . . . yet.

“I love you, too, Dora, and Tuck.”

“Love ya, sis.” Tucker winked. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

BYE! Enzo shouted. Dora frowned a little before Tuck closed the program.

Clare sagged in her seat.

 • • •

Enzo barked in the middle of the night; a wave of chill air yanked Clare from sleep. She blinked, and her hand went out toward the dog, fingers turned frigid.

You must help me!

The apparition was back.

FOUR

ONCE AGAIN THE gray and black and white and transparent man stood at the end of her bed. You’ve got to get it. YOU’VE GOT TO GET IT!

Panting with cold and fear, Clare huddled against the headboard and drew up the comforter. She should add a blanket . . . in the hottest August on record. Yes, something was wrong. She should be grateful that this illusion didn’t move close to her and try to interact with her the way the dog did.

He looked a little different, a little rougher. Was he fraying around the edges? What did that mean?

You must get it. The one I put in a box. Get it first. His lips twisted as he looked down at himself. Then we will work to find the one I misplaced.

Again his stubborn chin lifted and she felt the cold pressure of an intense gaze—or thought she did.

This is the right time. You are the right person. Things are falling into place. It’s HERE, and finally the time is right and I may be able to go on, if you help me. She didn’t like the desperate plea in the glittering rounds that might be eyes. Maybe this was a dream.

She stared hard, trying to catalog every detail of this vision, and she found darker spots in him. Without thought, she said, “What are those?”

He glanced down again. Buckshot, a couple of bullets.

“You died of gunshot wounds?”

His lips compressed into a line. No. They were just still in me. The words continued to come to her mind and she shuddered. Please. He stretched out a pale hand. I did wrong, I admit it. I was a bad and mean drunk, I admit that, too. But I’ve been here more than a century and a half and don’t deserve to stay so long! His expression changed to despairing. Away from my beautiful wife. She isn’t with me. I can’t find her. Help me, please.

Enzo yipped and whined, turning large, pleading eyes on Clare.

She cracked . . . mind, heart, something. Sloughed off a piece of her that might deal with this insanity . . . just for now. The psychologist could help her put herself together, eventually, when she trusted him more . . . but for now . . . Wetting dry and cold lips, she whispered, “What do you need?”

I have found the box, a box my wife had that I used. Get it for me, please, I beg of you. That is the first step in freeing my tormented soul.

He should have sounded melodramatic, but the emotions she thought she felt rushing from him were so sad, too sad. She swallowed.

We can go now, the manlike vision . . . illusion . . . ghost? . . . said.

“Now? Right now?” Clare glanced frantically around the bedroom. It was tiny, hardly enough room for the bed, the transparent dog-thing, and the man-shadow. And if the city during the day spun out pale visions, what would night bring? “I don’t think so.”

The man-shape floated to the footboard of her bed and hitched a hip on it, balancing somehow, though she could see the curved wood through him. He crossed his arms.

“You’re going to stay?” she asked, appalled.

He nodded, not speaking. Was that better or worse?

Maybe if she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, he would go away. Enzo hadn’t. It looked like she had another imaginary friend she didn’t want.

She sniffed in disdain and slid back into bed. She hadn’t turned on the fans tonight. Though the heat wouldn’t fall to the midsixties until four A.M., she was barely warm.

Three times that hour, she awoke, opened her eyes, and saw the ghost man staring at her.

Finally she sat up. “Where is this box?”

I can show it to you. Come.

Driving at night, when, if you were someone who believed in ghosts, undead spirits gathered. “No.”

He sat on the far corner of the bed, staring at her with a black gaze that yet seemed to burn with determined fire. Enzo crept closer to her and thumped his cold tail on her thigh.

“Oh, all right. Let’s get this over with.”

She’d been right about the night. She drove slowly, creeping, really, through a fog of phantoms, ignoring shapes and wide mouths and pleading hands, shivering all the way. She turned on the heater.

Finally the specter who’d been leading her stopped, miles from her home. Mercifully there were fewer people here, probably because it had been outside city limits during the era that she was sensitive to.

The human mind can only comprehend ghosts from one slice of history, said the man, uncannily reading her thoughts.

Enzo barked. Right, right, right! He bolted through the car door and in front of a building.

Reluctantly, Clare got out of the car. The thunk of the door closing was muffled.

I am very lucky you are here to help me, the vision continued. He waved a hand that showed calluses in places that didn’t look normal and modern to Clare. The box is in there; you must get it.

“Oh, no, I won’t.” But now she was close, she saw it was an auction house. She scanned the hours posted on the window and the flyer for the next auction.

It is in THERE!

Clare headed back to the car. “The next sale is tomorrow night. The place lists a website. We can look for your box there.”

The ghost appeared confused.

“I’m heading back home. You can stay or go.”

He walked into the building—as did Enzo—and Clare sighed with relief. She didn’t admit that she missed the dog on the way back through weird white-shadowed Denver.

But both dog and man awaited her in her living room. Her shoulders slumped.

I saw the box! Enzo panted, drool as usual falling and not hitting her shabby rug.

I will see you tomorrow night. Lines grooved in the apparition’s forehead. This costs me much energy, but to be free, I will do anything. Promise me you will get the box!