Michael looked at the house. "And the investigation is here?"

"It starts here." Valenti pulled at the Master lock on the garage door, then retreated to his truck and came back with a crowbar.

"Why here?" Michael asked.

Valenti set himself with the crowbar. "Because Leroy Wilkins hardly ever leaves his house. He has his food delivered. He has his booze delivered. I'm curious about what drove him out of his house and into the Crashdown." He swung the crowbar, connecting with the Master lock and tearing the mechanism from the garage door and frame.

"I think that's called forcible entry," Michael said. "Not exactly the letter of the law."

"I'm not exactly the law these days," Valenti said.

Michael couldn't miss the trace of bitterness in the man's voice.

"Give me a hand," Valenti said, squatting to shove the end of the crowbar under the garage door. He got into position and heaved up. The heavy wooden door rose a little with a prolonged creak.

Michael knelt down and slid his fingers under the garage door. For just a moment the image of something strange and horrifying waiting in the darkness on the other side of the door flooded his mind. Then he leaned his shoulder into the garage door and lifted.

The garage door rose, creaking and shrieking along the rusty tracks. An explosion of musty air twisted around Michael, clogging his nostrils with the stink and freezing his breath in his lungs for a moment. It was hard not to think of raising the garage door as opening a crypt.

The garage housed an ancient Willis jeep that had originally started out olive-drab green but had been painted orange at some point. The change in color hadn't taken well, because huge patches of green showed where the orange paint had peeled away. Shelves lined the wall opposite the basement door and at the back of the garage, filled with prospecting equipment and ore samples.

Valenti started to step into the garage, but the harsh blatting noise of a two-cycle motorcycle engine blared to life, approaching quickly.

Certain that the garage door was firmly lodged into place, Michael turned loose the hold he had and looked back out into the yard.

A dust-spattered yellow dirt bike roared into the yard and halted thirty feet away. The rider was thin and looked too small to handle the motorcycle. The helmet masked the features, gloves covered the hands, and a black riding suit clothed the rider.

"You see it too?" Valenti asked.

"Yeah," Michael said. "It's not a ghost."

"How sure are you?"

"Really sure," Michael replied. "When one of the ghosts arrives, there's the static electricity buildup I told you about."

"Not a ghost," Valenti repeated. "That's good." "It also means," Michael said, "that we've been caught trespassing." He glanced at the raised garage door and the crowbar in Valenti's hands. "And breaking and entering."

Max stopped at the doorway to the hospital emergency room waiting area and stared at Liz. She was so near physically, but as he watched her looking out the window, he realized that she seemed almost a million miles away.

Then, as if sensing him there, Liz turned and looked at him.

Max met her gaze and felt the same electricity that he'd always felt when she looked at him. Tess had never taken those feelings away; only muted them and confused him for a time, blinding him through his weakness of needing to know more about his true home. Max crossed to Liz, barely cognizant of the other people in the room.

Stopping in front of Liz, Max said, "I came as soon as I heard. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she answered.

Max nodded, searching desperately for something else to say. "Is your dad okay? I heard he was here too."

Liz nodded toward the other end of the room. Mr. Parker stood with a cell phone clutched to his ear.

"Nothing happened to anybody at the cafe," Liz said. Then she explained about Wilkins and the ghost that Michael had seen.

"I heard Michael was with Valenti," Michael said, trying to head off the uncomfortable silence he was certain was going to occur. "Do you know why?"

Liz shook her head. "I think he wanted to check on the ghost Michael and Wilkins saw. His name was Terrell Swanson, and he disappeared thirty years ago. Valenti's dad was trying to find him because he believed Wilkins killed him."

"So the ghost is real?" Max thought back to the phantom warrior he had seen with River Dog. River Dog had never met his ancestor, but Henry Callingcrow had been known to several of the Mesaliko tribe.

"Max," Liz said softly, "ghosts aren't real. They can't be real."

"I know," Max said, but he remembered the ghost he'd seen two Christmases ago. He'd let the man die after giving his life to save his daughter. For days afterward, the man had haunted Max, until Max and Michael had broken into the hospital so Max could heal all the children there.

"That was different," Liz said softly. She touched his cheek with her hand.

Max looked at her, amazed at how well she could sometimes just know what he was thinking. If they could communicate on things so disjointed as this, why couldn't she know how much he loved her?

She does know how much I low her, Max realized. She just can't trust that love. Not after Tess.

"You don't even know if he was a ghost," Liz said.

Max knew that was true. He'd never truly discovered if the ghost then was supernatural or inspired by his own feelings of guilt at watching the man die. "These things are real," Max stated.

Liz's eyes widened. "You've seen one too."

Max told her about the ghosts on the Mesaliko reservation.

"What were you doing out there?" Liz asked.

Max knew that she already guessed. She drew back from him, taking her hand away from the side of his face and moving back in her chair. Although they were only a few inches farther apart, the distance felt like a huge gulf.

"Looking for a way to find my son," Max answered. She knew, and she'd know if he tried to lie about it. Even though he was only trying to spare her feelings, she'd know that, too, and she wouldn't like it.

Pain flared through Liz's eyes. "Did you?"

"No."

"I'm sorry."

Max nodded. "That doesn't mean I'm going to give up trying."

Liz remained silent.

"I just wanted you to know that," Max said. Just so we can keep being honest.

Her voice was softer when she spoke. "I already knew that, Max. I wouldn't expect any less of you. But that doesn't make things any easier between us."

"I know," Max whispered, and that knowledge felt like it was going to kill him.

Isabel stood at the front of the hospital and watched Jesse drive away. He waved, and as he pulled out onto the street, it felt like a piece of her was leaving too. She'd had that feeling every time she'd had to step away from him, and the desolation of being left alone got harder and harder to face. She was afraid that facing the emptiness after Jesse left would one day be too much for her and she wouldn't be able to let go.

And what would she do then?

Isabel had no idea, and that both frustrated and scared her. She had always kept her life and her relationships neatly organized. School and home lives had been kept in neat little packages. She even had a special box for Christmas that only came out during those holidays. The secret to her life had been in keeping those boxes separate within herself. That way there had been no internal conflicts.

On most days Max seemed like he'd been born with internal conflicts. Getting involved with Liz Parker had only put an edge on those conflicts, and given them a central point to revolve around. Love was hard on him.

On the other hand, Michael had a nature destined for hardship and confrontation. Looking at him, Isabel thought, most people would think love wouldn't be a problem for Michael because he'd beat that emotion into whatever shape he wanted. Only his relationship with Maria wasn't working out that way either.