Enzo barked, You need to do this Clare. For yourself and for him. HE is your first project! PROMISE HIM! For the first time, that Other spirit she sensed also inhabited Enzo’s body came to the fore, looked at her with dark, dark fog moving in the eye sockets, thundered in her mind.

Clare reeled back at the blast of cold, and hit the closed door.

PROMISE, they shouted together—or her own mind insisted.

“I promise,” she said weakly, shivering.

The man vanished.

She went into the tiny second bedroom that held her ruthlessly organized home office, complete with a new computer. Enzo followed, circled and circled again, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were all innocent dog. Then he stared at the notebook.

I know that toy! It shows pictures and places. Let’s look now!

Dragging up a chair, they found the auction house’s website. There was a lot of antique furniture, some in excellent shape that made Clare’s mouth water—but Aunt Sandra’s house had just sold. Clare’s brother was supervising closing it up and dividing the furniture. Clare could expect a truck with her share within the week. Other trucks would go to her brother in Williamsburg, Virginia, and a storage unit in New York.

Rubbing her eyes, which seemed to do nothing but move around grit, Clare zipped through the photos until Enzo barked. I see it!

Clare stared at it dubiously: a puzzle box made of plum wood of unknown origin and date. It didn’t look like much. Pretty battered. At least she might be able to get it cheap. She wrote down all the information, turned off the computer, and trudged to bed, accompanied by the imaginary dog. She should get a real one.

Maybe. When she was sane again.

Enzo looked up at her sorrowfully. You still don’t believe in me.

Clare opened her mouth and shut it, then said, “Not really.”

He shook his head and for an instant he didn’t look like the image of a dog, but a skeleton dog. . . . She wrapped her arms around herself.

Only a little bit of you believes in me. That is not enough, Clare.

The echo behind his voice scared her, as if he were once again more . . . or less . . . than a dog . . . spirit.

She got back into her nightgown, folded her comforter—doubling, then quartering the queen-sized cloth—turned off the lights and curled under the cover.

Enzo blinked down at her, head through the comforter and sheet. You aren’t doing good.

What do you mean? Clare thought back at him, feeling drained of energy herself.

Enzo cocked his head as if listening, then drooped a little and said, If you don’t accept your gift that you can see ghosts, then you will die. And if you accept that you see them but don’t help them, you can go crazy.

Clare sobbed. Exactly what she’d always feared—madness.

 • • •

The next morning, Clare couldn’t throw off the night fears, or the fact that she’d made a really odd promise to something that might be an aspect of herself.

Her great-aunt’s death had shaken her, for sure.

But a promise was a promise. Since her parents had casually made and broken so many, she made a habit of keeping all of hers. Even promises to herself—a hot fudge sundae if she said no to overwork, for instance.

Now she had no work, but destiny had rung in her mind and reverberated throughout her body.

And to remind herself of her promise, she took Aunt Sandra’s perfume spritzer and sprayed scent on her neck and wrists . . . and sniffed. It wasn’t too heavy. Tears welled in Clare’s eyes at the fragrance of sandalwood, tuberose, wild berries . . . she’d looked up the mixture once. That dark and mysterious fragrance that meant “Aunt Sandra” to Clare, in all her weird kindness. The perfume that meant Gypsy to Aunt Sandra.

Clare gulped, shook the thought away, and moved on. She decided to buy a larger house, move to one of the more charming areas of Denver. She’d always liked the ambiance of Cheesman Park, but nothing would get her there now. She completely dismissed that idea. Everyone knew Cheesman Park had been a graveyard, and when they’d added the parking garage to the Botanic Gardens they’d found more graves.

Even if she didn’t believe in ghosts, she didn’t want to be in an area with a lot of dead people that was right in the time period now haunting her. . . . She did a quick check on her tablet computer. Yes, burials at Cheesman began in 1858. No way, nohow was she moving there.

Much of the Capitol area and LoDo had been built in that time period. Then there was the area around the Molly Brown house, but most residential homes around it had been demolished.

Looked like she’d be going to the Western floor of the Denver Public Library after all, just to find out what area might be . . . safe. And—she nerved herself at the thought—she might have to put in some hours driving around the city to find out where she could live. Even the suburbs and the plains might be touchy—Indians roved and camped on the plains.

Yes, she’d be doing some research.

With a huff of breath, she admitted she might as well research the vision of the man.

She needed to move fast since even at a high-end price, Sandra’s house had been snapped up. Clare could put the items she wanted in her new house, instead of the storage area she’d planned. Finding a home would be a project to take her mind off her poor mental health.

She felt better after the decision. She’d always prided herself on her quick decision making—unlike the rambling conversations of her parents discussing all their options that had driven her crazy in her childhood.

Just one of those personality traits she didn’t share.

She figured out exactly how much she wanted to spend on a house and had made a list of three columns: one of things she MUST have, like a landscaped yard; one with the features she’d prefer; and the last, “extras.”

Before heading off to the library, she organized her briefcase with pen and paper, tablet computer, and her new top-of-the-line smart phone. This time she called a cab to drive her downtown. She wouldn’t have to deal with traffic, parking, or apparitions who got in her way.

Or handle any imaginary figment other than Enzo, who ran through the house and the door of the cab, barking all the way.

Clare gritted her teeth. She would not talk to him, no matter what outrageous thing he said.

So, where are we going? Are we going to find the ghost man? We are going back into the city? I LIKED the city. Will the ghost man be there? Those remnants of ghost squirrel energy are YUMMY! Will you take me to the park again, huh, huh?

I AM GOING TO THE LIBRARY FOR THE REST OF THE MORNING. YOU CAN PLAY IN THE PARK! she “shouted” mentally.

Hurt doggie eyes. He turned and seemed to look out the window. She wouldn’t feel guilty.

Once inside the clean and organized library with exceedingly helpful librarians, Clare felt more in control. Since the fifth floor housed the genealogical section as well as the Western collection, there were more people there on a weekday morning than she’d anticipated.

From the quiet conversations around her, she learned there were people researching their family trees, students, a writer or two, and a couple of research assistants of local professors.

She approved, smiling at the lovely environment. Imaginary Enzo had remained in the park.

She set up her tablet computer with Wi-Fi keyboard and accepted from the librarians the basic biographies on men who’d been in Colorado more than 150 years ago.

Instead of just flipping through the works for old photographs—or the drawing she half recalled—she sank into the stories.

And found Jules Beni, the founder of Julesburg, Colorado, who was not her guy.