Grace closed the file on her computer with a sigh. She stared at the background image on the screen without really seeing it, wondering what she should do. The military jargon was dense, but not unclear, and the detailed incident report was thorough. Plus, there were the award recommendation forms. Not just Noah’s, but those of other members of his unit.
Of course, maybe they were wrong.
Or a pack of lies.
She needed to talk to him.
She’d felt like she needed to talk to him for weeks now, but it wasn’t the kind of conversation that lent itself to casual moments. It was tough to follow up, “Enjoying the weather?” with “By the way, I’ve been doing some research and I think you’re all wrong about your life.”
Plus, they were never alone. She didn’t mind the small town element of never being alone. As far as she was concerned, people gossiping about her was an inevitable byproduct of running the town’s largest employer. And she was in the privileged position of not needing to care. Nothing people said could affect her career or family, and she wasn’t one to read more into an insult than envy or jealousy.
But the ghosts were another story. She didn’t know them. She didn’t know how they’d react and she didn’t know what they could do. Maybe they couldn’t hurt her, but Akira had plenty of reasons to fear angry ghosts. Maybe Noah would, too.
She glanced at the time. Almost 11:30. It was a Saturday but Noah and Akira were in one of the downstairs labs, trying out the latest equipment Akira had ordered, a realtime hybrid superheterodyne-FFT spectrum analyzer that she hoped would recognize and record ghostly energy.
Grace could go visit them, but ostensibly she was in the office to catch up on some of her own work. She had a backlog of over two hundred emails. She had budget reports, project updates, and acquisition assessments piling up faster than she could read them, not to mention a dozen meetings to schedule. She should be on the road right now, preparing to attend a board meeting of one of their subsidiaries in Arizona, before flying to New York City to meet with their lawyers and a representative from the SEC, and then traveling to South Carolina to evaluate a real estate deal her father had recommended.
At the very least, she should take care of the paperwork in her inbox.
She picked up the top sheet. A purchase order for goldfish? She chuckled. The quantum teleportation team had taken her suggestion. Grabbing a pen, she signed the order, then paused before dropping it into her outbox.
Maybe she should run down to their lab and find out what they planned to do with the goldfish first. It might just be a goldfish, but she didn’t want them torturing the poor thing.
And if that meant she wandered right by the lab where Noah and Akira were working, well, so be it.
She took the elevator to the lower level, her heels clicking along the echoing floors as she strode through the deserted hallways. The quantum teleportation guys were unlikely to be in, so her excuse was transparent. But it was her company. She could go where she wanted, do what she wanted. Interrupting Akira and Noah was perfectly reasonable if she was passing by anyway.
Perfectly reasonable if you were obsessed, she admitted to herself with another inward sigh.
For the past few weeks, Noah and Akira had been working together. Noah had learned everything Akira had to teach him about the difficulties of talking to the living about their deceased relatives. He was as prepared to meet Sophia’s family as he was ever going to get. Meanwhile he and Akira were running all the experiments that Akira could invent.
But any day now, he was going to give up. He’d hop in his truck and drive north, taking his ghosts with him.
Before he did, she had to talk to him. She had to tell him… what, exactly?
She’d had a picture in her head of the guy she’d find someday. Maybe it had been a little vague, amorphous, but she’d known she’d never go for one of the smooth-talking business-types she so often met. And the law enforcement guys were all too controlling.
She’d thought — when she’d had time to spare a thought for her romantic future at all — that someday she’d stumble across an academic. Not in the offices of General Directions, of course: she couldn’t date an employee. But somewhere, somehow…
Instead, there was Noah.
When he looked at her, it felt like he saw her. Which was silly, of course. Didn’t everyone looking at her see her? But no. People looked at her and saw brisk competence. Problems solved. Dollar signs, sometimes. Polish and poise, she hoped, at least most of the time.
She didn’t know exactly what Noah saw. But she knew what she saw in him. It wasn’t just that he was attractive, although he was. It wasn’t the darkness that shadowed his eyes sometimes — despite Mrs. Swanson’s fear, Grace knew better than to fall for a troubled guy believing she could fix him. But when she was with him, she felt… connected. Like he was the best friend she hadn’t known she was missing.
Her footsteps slowed as she reached the open door to the lab where Akira and Noah were talking.
“Like a Faraday cage,” Akira was saying. She looked off into space for a moment before shrugging. “It’s just a name. And an idea. Not like I’m looking for a ghost prison, Dillon.”
“Hey.” Grace paused in the doorway. “How go the experiments?”
Noah was leaning against a lab table, but he straightened at Grace’s approach.
From a chair across the room, Akira tilted her hand in a so-so gesture. “We’ve collected plenty of data. The spectrum analyzer is giving us some interesting results. But I’m not at all sure I know what to do with them.”
“Short version,” Noah said. “Joe, Misam, and Nadira are still trapped.”
“And the possibility exists that Noah’s previous problem of attracting every passing spirit could recur,” Akira added.
Grace opened her mouth. She should tell Noah what she’d learned.
Akira had always been adamant that ghosts existed not because of anything done or undone in their lives, but because of the tragic, untimely nature of their deaths. She didn’t believe people or places were haunted for any reasons more profound than an accident of nature, a freak occurrence like a rogue wave.
Grace wasn’t so sure. She knew that Akira had never had any luck trying to resolve ghostly unfinished business, but what if…
Before she could find the words she needed, Akira glanced to the side and said, voice dry, “I don’t think a long-term plan that relies on none of you ever getting angry or upset again is a real solution.”
Grace closed her mouth again. On the other hand, how would the ghosts react? She looked at Noah. He was looking back at her. Their eyes met, tangled, for a long second. Grace didn’t want to look away. She could feel heat rising in her cheeks, a tingle of warmth beginning to flow.
Akira cleared her throat.
Grace pulled her gaze away from Noah.
Akira was watching her, a faint, amused smile curving her lips, but then she grimaced, wrapping her lower arm around her belly and letting her chin drop to her chest. “Ow…”
“Are you okay?” Grace stepped into the room.
Akira waved her free hand in the air, before lifting her head and exhaling. “Braxton-Hicks.”
Was that supposed to mean something?
“It’s nothing,” Akira said. “Just contractions.”
“Contractions?” Grace blinked, counting dates in her head. “That’s… no. You’ve got two months to go. We haven’t had your shower. You can’t have the baby yet.”
Akira laughed. “No, no,” she said. She shoved her chair back, rolling along the floor toward her desk. “Braxton-Hicks are just early contractions. My body getting ready, I guess. They can start any time in the third trimester. They don’t mean Henry’s on his way.” She wrinkled her nose. “Although I’m totally rethinking the natural childbirth thing. If these are little contractions, the real thing must be serious hell.”
She glanced toward a filing cabinet in the back of the room. “Dates? The fruit, you mean?” She paused, listening, her expression dubious. “I’m not a fan. Especially since moving to Florida. They look too much like the gigantic roaches they have here.”
A puff of laughter escaped Grace. “We call those palmetto bugs.”
Akira shuddered. “Yeah, that’s to make yourself feel better when you turn the light on in the bathroom and one scampers across the floor. They’re gigantic roaches.” Talking to the file cabinet again, she said, “Is there any scientific evidence for that?”
“For what?” Grace asked.
“Nadira’s telling her that eating dates will make her labor easier,” Noah answered as Akira reached for her keyboard and started typing.
“I think that’s what they have epidurals for,” Grace replied.
“Nadira disapproves,” Noah said.
“Disapproves? Of pain relief?” Grace hoped Akira didn’t plan on taking medical advice from a ghost.
Noah raised a hand in a stop signal. Speaking to the same file cabinet as Akira, he ordered, “No more details. I do not need to know this.”
“Well, look at that,” Akira said, sounding pleased. “Dates. The research backs you up, Nadira.”
“Dates?” Grace crossed the room to look over Akira’s shoulder. She was browsing some sort of scientific database.
Grace leaned closer and read “US National Library of Medicine” as Akira said, “510 minutes versus 906 minutes — that’s over six hours less time in labor. I’d probably be willing to eat real roaches for that.”
“Ew.” Grace straightened without reading the rest of the article.
“Well, dead ones. They’re just protein.”
“Double ew. Dead or alive.” Grace made a face.
“Yeah, you’ve never felt a contraction,” Akira said darkly, resting a hand on her belly. She cocked her head, listening. “You’ll have to tell me all about it.”
Grace heard Noah give a pained, but barely audible, grunt of objection, but some of the other ghosts must have protested as well, because Akira responded with a laugh and a wave of her hand as if erasing the suggestion. “All right, all right. No labor and delivery stories with impressionable young ears in the room. Later.” She turned back to Grace. “What were you about to say when I interrupted you?”
“Oh, ah…” Grace hesitated. She’d like to talk to Akira about what she’d been thinking, but maybe not in front of the ghosts, not yet. “What were you saying about a Faraday cage?”
“Right, a Faraday cage.” Akira shrugged. “It’s an enclosure designed to block electromagnetic fields. An elevator can work like a Faraday cage — the metal interferes with electromagnetic signals, which is why cell phones sometimes lose connection when you’re between floors.”
“There’s not much signal down here, anyway.” Grace patted her pocket automatically, but she’d left her cell phone upstairs. All the offices had landlines for just that reason.
“Yep, being underground can block cell signals, too. But apparently not ghosts. We tried using the elevators, but the effect wasn’t strong enough to disrupt the bond between the ghosts and Noah. A Faraday cage might do it. With the ghosts on one side, Noah on the other, increasing the distance between them might snap the bond, the way Dillon’s bond to his car was snapped when he got caught in the first vortex. It’s just an idea.”
Grace didn’t hesitate. Maybe it was a dumb question, but the only way to find out was to ask. “Did you try Nat’s scanner room?”
“Nat’s scanner room?” Akira batted her forehead with the heel of her hand, grimacing. “Duh. Pregnancy brain, I swear.”
“What about it?” Noah asked.
“We had to make a special room for it,” Grace explained. “Total pain. It was after…” She paused, wondering how to explain.
After Dillon and her mom had died, Grace had come home to step into her mother’s impossibly big shoes. Her dad had tried to maintain a facade of normal in public, but in private, he went silent and gray, like a ghost himself. Lucas had become stone-cold and obsessive, determined to save the world. Even Zane, the most easy-going of them all, stopped laughing.
When he hadn’t bothered to pre-order the latest video game console, Grace had known she had to do something. Spending several million dollars on a high-end scanning system so Natalya would come home and work in Tassamara had felt like a bargain. Remodeling the building had been a drop in the bucket after that.
“The room is shielded, right?” Akira said. “To protect the scanner from any electromagnetic interference.”
“Yep,” Grace said, realizing she didn’t need to explain, not really. “I don’t remember the exact specs,” she added apologetically. “Although I’m sure I could track them down if you need to know.”
The corner of Akira’s mouth lifted. “A good scientist establishes all the variables in her experiments. Accurate data is important. But I’m probably not going to be writing a research paper on this, and it certainly wouldn’t get published if I did, so let’s not worry about it for now.”
She pushed herself up out of the chair. “Let’s control the experiment. One ghost in the scanner room, the others can walk away with Noah. Nadira, why don’t you come to the scanner room with Grace and me? We’ll talk girl stuff. Noah, you can take Dillon, Joe, and Misam, and head down the hall.”
Grace would rather go with Noah. She didn’t need to hear one-sided pregnancy stories. But Akira wouldn’t be able to get into Nat’s lab without a passcode, so Grace obligingly followed her down the hall.
She opened the door and waved Akira inside, leaving a pause for Nadira to follow her, before saying, “You don’t really need me for this. I’ll just—” She waved the goldfish purchase order to indicate that she should continue running her errand. Maybe she could catch up to Noah.
“Yes, I do.” Akira grabbed her arm and tugged her through the door. The room was almost empty, dominated by the giant piece of machinery in the middle, with no chairs or furniture beyond the table that slid into the scanner.
“You do?”
“Girl talk.” Akira closed the door and leaned against it, blocking Grace’s exit.
“I don’t know anything about pregnancy. Or babies.”
“Yeah, that’s not what I’m interested in.” Akira was smiling. “Are you sleeping with him?”
Grace felt her cheeks heating. “Of course not.”
“Why not? He’s hot as hell and the chemistry is obvious.”
“I thought you wanted to talk about babies.”
“I’ll get to that, but come on, sex is far more interesting.” Akira glanced over Grace’s shoulder, toward the scanner, then turned her attention back to Grace. “Only the one kiss? In all these weeks?”
“How do you — oh.” Grace’s flush deepened. Of course the ghosts knew every move Noah made. They were invisible observers of his every act. “Anything more would be inappropriate. I can’t get involved with an employee.”
“But, Grace, if you rule out employees, who’s left?” Akira was still leaning against the door, barring the only avenue of escape.
Grace opened her mouth and closed it again. “Guys from other places?”
Akira made a scoffing noise. “Don’t tell me you don’t like Noah. I wouldn’t believe you for a minute.”
“That’s not… I can’t… he isn’t…” Grace lifted her chin and stopped talking. She wasn’t going to let Akira fluster her. Not any more than she already had, anyway.
“Oh, you do like him.” Akira gave an approving smile. “You shouldn’t wait for him to make the first move. He’s probably intimidated. You’re beautiful, smart, rich, even nice.” She added a shake of her head to the last word. “Any guy would be intimidated.”
“I’m not—” Grace started to object before pausing. Of course she was intimidating. If she wanted people to take her seriously, she had to be. Noah didn’t exactly seem intimidated, though. If anything, she had the feeling he was quietly amused by her efficiency.
“You should seduce him,” Akira went on.
Grace should end this conversation. Swiftly and decisively, the way she’d shut Jensen down the day she’d kissed Noah in the woods. Instead she found herself saying, “How am I supposed to do that?”
“I’ve always been a fan of the direct approach. Try saying, ‘I’m very attracted to you. Is the feeling mutual?’ And then when he says ‘yes,’ you say, ‘terrific, my place or yours?’”
Grace choked out a laugh. “And if he says ‘no’?”
Akira shrugged. “I can’t see that happening. I saw the way he was looking at you. But if he doesn’t manage an unequivocal yes, you just say ‘well, let me know if your feelings change,’ smile sweetly and move on. No big deal.”
“I don’t think I can do that.”
“Well, if it’s too soon for seduction, you should ask him out. On a date. A real date.” Akira spoke briskly, but then she paused. She frowned, nose wrinkling, and directed her words over Grace’s shoulder. “No go?”
Grace glanced behind her, even though she knew she wouldn’t see anything. “What is it?”
Akira lifted her chin toward the center of the room. “Nadira’s feeling the pull.” She sighed. “The shielding on the room must not be strong enough to break the connection. Back to the drawing board, I guess.”
“I was wondering...” Grace paused. Only one ghost in the room. Maybe this was the moment to ask Akira the questions she’d been thinking about.
“About?” Akira raised a brow.
“The whole unfinished business thing,” Grace started.
“Doesn’t work.” Akira shook her head.
“But Rose’s door — she only got it after Henry died, right?”
A hint of uncertainty creased Akira’s forehead. “I think that’s right. She and Sophia are watching movies at Nat’s, so I can’t ask her, but I’m pretty sure she said that.”
“So maybe the door had something to do with Henry, then.”
Akira rubbed her belly again, a rueful smile tugging at her lips. “It’ll be a long time before we can ask him. Even if he remembers anything, and I bet he won’t.”
“I wasn’t thinking about asking him,” Grace said. “I was wondering...” Grace couldn’t bring herself to say anything about Noah. What he’d told her, what she knew, it was private. It was up to him to decide what he wanted to share with other people.
But she had ghosts of her own.
“My dad suggested that maybe Dillon was a ghost because we couldn’t let him go. Because we were holding him here.” Her dad had specifically suggested that he was the one who’d trapped Dillon, but Grace wasn’t sure he was right about that.
Akira looked taken aback. She frowned. And then she seemed to have much the same reaction as Grace herself had had, flickers of expression — doubt, thoughtfulness, more doubt, rejection, curiosity, more doubt — crossing her face at high speed. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t everyone become a ghost, then? It’s not as if we ever want to let go of the people we love.”
“I’m imagining knots in a tapestry,” Grace said.
Akira shook her head as if to say she didn’t understand.
“The fabric of life, the plan, it is what it is.” Grace meshed her fingers together, like the warp and weft of threads on a loom. “Natalya can see the future because the future follows a pattern. Mostly. And then something happens.” She twisted her hands together, then pulled them apart. “A new path. But some of us, we fight the new path. We hold on. We refuse to let go. The threads become a knotted mess, instead of a picture.”
Akira wrinkled her nose. “You’re suggesting I might need to have more conversations with relatives, you know.”
Grace chuckled. “Sorry. Not what you want to hear. But I admit, I am wondering if there’s something we could do to open Dillon’s doorway. Not his unfinished business, but someone else’s.” She pressed her lips together, feeling a prickle at the back of her eyes.
“Not his dad,” Akira said thoughtfully. “He’s talked to Lucas. They’re good. Not his mom, either, or he would have gotten it after he met her. She definitely thinks he should move on. Ghosts kind of freak her out.”
“Really?” Grace blinked. She hadn’t noticed that — and she couldn’t imagine anything freaking Sylvie out — but she hadn’t spent a lot of time with her brother’s fiancée in the presence of ghosts other than Dillon. Not that she knew about, anyway.
“Little bit, yeah,” Akira said absently, frowning. “Makes sense, I suppose. In her line of work—” She shrugged. “No one wants ‘creating ghosts’ to be part of their job description.”
Her words trailed off and she frowned. “Nadira?” She pushed herself off the door she’d been leaning against since they entered the room.
“Stop that!” she said sharply. “Don’t! Wait. No!” She was turning, watching something Grace couldn’t see, her hands lifting, fingers spreading wide. “No, no, no, no!”
Lurching forward, she grabbed for the door handle. “This way. Go this way!” She yanked open the door.
“What’s wrong? What is it?” Grace said.
Akira turned to her. Her eyes wide, she opened her mouth before gasping and clutching her stomach. Dropping her head to her chest, voice rasping in her throat, she choked out, “Get Noah. Run!”
Grace ran.