Page 70 of If I Stopped Haunting You

“Can I have one of those?” Neil asked, leaning in past Pen.

“If it means you don’t steal mine,” Laszlo said, narrowing his eyes at a retreating Pen. “We have one more exercise today. Unless you two have otherthingsyou need to get to?”

Pen and Neil looked at one another. She thought of the grave, of the woman in the window, of the red journal and the stack of letters. Chewing a bite of sausage, she shook her head.

“No, no, we’re free.”

“How thoughtful.”

“What is it?” Neil asked, popping a potato into his mouth.

“More partner work. You pair off and describe each of the five senses in whichever place you’ve been assigned.” Laszlo raiseda brow. “Should we get new partners, or stick with the ones we drew earlier?”

Pen coughed, remembering the way she’d been wrapped around Neil in the mudroom when the others had found them. The way he’d touched her in the study, whispered obscene things against her skin as his fingers slid beneath her jeans.

“I think we should stick with the ones we already drew,” Pen said, motioning to Neil. He nodded vigorously, the corners of his lips curling, that dimple popping in his cheek.

“Wow, you two really dove headfirst into this partnership,” Daniela muttered.

“At least they’re not bickering,” Laszlo warned. “No offense.”

“No offense taken,” Pen said.

Pen and Neil sat at the end of the table. She shoveled a spoonful of potatoes into her mouth, chewing quickly. It felt wrong to be keeping quiet about the woman in white, but would it do more harm than good to claim that there was a ghost? No one had believed her when she’d screamed in the cellar; what would convince them otherwise but solid proof?

Though neither of them had any clue what they were dealing with here, it was probably best not to raise the alarm until they had some concrete answers.

“What is with you two?” Laszlo asked, leaning toward Neil.

“Nothing,” he said, not quite meeting his eyes.

Pen reached for Neil’s pint of beer, taking another long pull. She burped, covering her mouth with her hand. Her stomach gurgled dangerously, the beer in her threatening to make a fast escape. She was too nervous, too anxious about the things she and Neil were going in search of, but if not them, then who?

“Hey,” she ventured, “have you two seen anything yet?”

“No,” Daniela said. “Was hoping to spot the lady in black,you know? What’s the point in renting out a haunted castle if it’s not haunted by a murderous lady in black?”

Laszlo grunted, his expression twisted as if to say,I’m actually quite thankful this castle isn’t haunted.

Pen met Neil’s gaze, and he shook his head. She took another long pull of beer. The alcohol warmed her, making her cheeks flush as she silently shoveled more food into her mouth.

“While we’re eating, we should talk about the rooms you were all sent to earlier,” Laszlo announced. “What did you see?”

Daniela snorted. “We saw nothing in the study. We did find this cool old book about sex dungeons.”

“It was eye-opening,” he agreed.

“That wasn’t the only thing that opened,” Daniela joked, sputtering into her beer.

They turned to Pen and Neil. They knew about Pen’s scream in the cellar, about the things sheclaimedshe’d seen down there. This was her and Neil’s chance to finally tell them thetruth. Pen opened her mouth to respond, but Neil squeezed her knee, stopping her from spilling anything about the woman in white.

“It was creepy and cold,” he said with a nod, “but we didn’t really notice anything out of the ordinary.”

Their ordinary, anyway.

He wasn’t lying, per se, but he wasn’t telling the whole truth either. Neil tapped her knee in a tune she couldn’t quite pick out, and his bright eyes seemed to say,You know it’s better this way.

And she did, but it didn’t make it any easier.