Page 54 of Ghost in the Night

I shake my head. “It still doesn’t explain the orbs in that house,” I say. “Asher’s a trash actor, but I don’t think he would pay someone to flash some lights in an abandoned home. We’re still going in there. Tonight!”

Robby pauses. “Do you really think it’s Mr. Truman’s ghost?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Still can’t hurt to check it out since no one else will before it’s torn down.”

Robby’s lips twist back and forth. “I’m … a little scared.”

I touch his shoulder with a light squeeze. “Hey, you don’t have to go, you know. It’s okay.”

“No! I want to,” he says.

“Well. If it gets to be too much, you can tell me and we’ll leave right away.”

He groans. “Myah is gonna think I’m being a baby.”

“Okay. Then she doesn’t have to know. We’ll come up with a code word. My dad and I have that. I used to go to all his gigs and it would get really late and Dad would staytalking to everybody. So we came up with a code word that I used when I really really wanted to go home.”

“What’s your code word?”

“Peanut butter.”

“That’s two words.”

We laugh. “Okay, what’s yours?” I ask him.

Robby looks around the room, eyes landing on one of his robots. “Hero.”

“Okay. That works for me.”

He wraps the robot in some type of carrying case. “It’s cool, the way you and your dad have your own language. Code words and stuff.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I sigh.

“And you going on tour with him. That’s cool too. My mom would never let me do that.”

It has been cool touring with Dad. But was it all just a trick to get me out of our apartment?

Robby zips up his bag.

“I think me and my daddy would have had code words. If he was still alive, I mean. My mama said he liked robots too. I think we’d travel and do competitions together.”

I smile. “Well, you can still have a code word with him.”

Robby stares at me straight-faced.

“It’ll be just a word that he knows,” I continue. “Like your own secret.”

Robby sighs. “Let’s go before my mom sees we took off. The bus will be at the stop in four minutes.”

Lena should be long gone by now. But as soon as we reach the front door, her voice startles me.

“Aht aht aht. Just where do you think you’re going?”

She walks out of the kitchen, dressed in a yellow gown, fastening a gold bracelet to her wrist. She has a sparkly clip in her hair, makeup fire.

Robby freezes, his mouth hanging open.

“Oh. Hey, Lena,” I say, nervously. “Uhhhh, where’s Dad?”