“I

just don’t know how many ways I can say no to this.” Jinx took an angry bite from her Twizzler and chewed hard. Jackson had been poking at her for over an hour, ever since they’d left school for the day.

Jackson sighed. They sat in Jinx’s basement looking over Jinx’s equipment for the millionth time. Jinx never got tired of it.

Jackson pointed to one of the devices. “Think about this—when else would you get a chance to use this for something real? For an actual case that we didn’t overhear or read about in the paper. This is a person asking for help, Jinx!”

Jinx finally put the device down and sat forward, using the Twizzler to point at Jackson to punctuate her words.

“OK, let’s go over this again. One: Emily is a shallow buttwad. She always has been. She’s probably jerking me around because that’s what her kind does. I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her, and you know how far that is.” She flexed a tiny bicep. “And two: Why would I help someone who thought my name was Roberta? Who is named Roberta? Ever?” She sat back and finished her Twizzler with a snap, taking another one out of the package.

“Those are bad for you, you know. All that sugar.”

Jinx snorted. “Let me guess what you had for lunch—burger and fries?”

“And an apple,” Jackson said defensively.

“Whatever. The answer is still no.”

Jackson sat back hard against the couch. He picked up the EVP device and fiddled with it. It took all Jinx’s willpower to not tell him to set it down. After a minute, she gently took it away from him and put it on her lap. Where it belonged. She began to sense Jackson brooding next to her.

“Why do you want to help her so bad anyway?”

Jackson shrugged, but Jinx knew the answer. He was a nice guy. He knew what it felt like to have an insurmountable problem. She remembered the year his dad died. She was devastated—he was like a second father to her—but Jackson was inconsolable. For two months, Jinx would go over and just sit with him, neither of them saying a word. In fact, he didn’t say a word to anyone during that time. She wasn’t sure he’d get through it. Little by little, he started talking more often. She could almost feel the weight on him lessening slowly. It was still there, though, and she knew it came back with every hard case and sob story that came across his lap.

She twisted her lip and started pacing. It would be nice to investigate an actual case. Even if she hated people, she loved the idea of meeting a ghost.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jackson sit up a little straighter, a small smile playing on his lips. He knew her too well.

“Wipe that grin off your face. I haven’t said yes yet.”

Jackson nodded—a knowing nod—and didn’t say a thing.

“OK, so this Emily said she was being haunted?” Jinx asked. Jackson nodded again. “Did she say where?”

“She didn’t say a whole bunch about it. Just that she and her dad moved into a new apartment and it’s haunted.”

Jinx scoffed. “That’s all you got from her?”

Jackson said, calmly, “I wanted to talk to you first.”

Jinx clamped her mouth shut, pacing some more. On one of her trips around the room, she grabbed a Twizzler, the last one of the package. She left the empty cellophane there, and Jackson picked it up and threw the thing away.

“If we help her...and I mean a big if...we’re charging her a fee.”

Jackson sighed. “Jinx, do we really have to?”

Jinx stopped and glared at him. “It’s a good model when you’re forced to help people you hate.”

Jackson sighed again and picked the EVP device back up. Jinx couldn’t help it. “Put that down,” she snapped.

Jackson let it go and put his hands up in surrender, a have-a-conniption-why-don’t-you look on his face.

“We charge a $400 flat fee, $200 each,” Jinx said. “And we both do an overnight—I’ll figure out a way to get out of the house.”

Jackson smiled a broad smile. “I knew you’d do it!”

Jinx shook her head. “You’re not as smart as you think you are, you know.” But she had to admit, he sort of was. Her heart raced as she thought about an actual case. Maybe, finally, she’d see a real haunting.