Page 63 of Ghost in the Night

Jabari sniffs, wiping his face. It makes sense he’d stay hidden if  he was so afraid.

Myah reels herself back in. “You right. You right. But, Jabari, everybody’s been worried sick over you.”

He perks up. “Is my momma okay? And my brother, Jay?”

“They fine! They been looking for you,” Myah says.

He straightens. “Not around here, right? They can’t come around here!”

“No one knew you were up in here. But we’re gonna get you out now,” I say.

“No! I can’t leave,” Jabari cries, panicking. “They’ll know that I saw who did it! They’ll kill me too!”

He turns to look at me but knocks over the flashlight.The light hits the thick lenses of  his glasses, and he flinches away, the glare bright.

A bright white glare …

“Your glasses,” I gasp, pointing at him. I realize it suddenly. “The streetlights must have hit his glasses when he was looking out the window,” I tell Robby and Myah. “Those are the orbs I caught with my camera.”

Robby, too stunned to speak, nods his head and sets the flashlight back straight.

“It’s okay. We’ll keep you safe,” Myah insists, trying to nudge Jabari toward the door. “We promise. People are gonna be so happy to see you. ALIVE!”

“You don’t understand,” Jabari says, backing away from us.

He’s falling apart when I thought he’d be happy to be found. What did he see that got him so shook? What scared him so bad that he stayed locked inside a haunted house for days?

Except the house isn’t haunted, not like we thought. All the creaks and noises were just an old house being old. The EMF reader was probably just picking up staticfrom other houses—if it even really works.

There’s no ghost in here, not the ghost of Tim Truman or Jabari. Just a regular boy stuck inside a house. So, something outside must be keeping him in.

I think back to the photo I took from the square, the shot of what we now know was Jabari peeping through the window. He would have seen the killer in the square, heard his voice matching the voice he heard kill his uncle.

“Wait, you saw this person every night?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Jabari says. “Just about.”

My stomach tenses with a hard jerk and I grab my camera bag.

“Robby,” I say, with a firm look. “Peanut butter.”

Robby’s mouth drops. He jumps up, stuffing his robot in the bag.

“Come on, we gotta go,” I say, frantically searching around the room, making sure we have what we need.

“What’s going on?” Myah asks, confused.

“We gotta get out of here,” I say, pushing her and Jabari toward the door. “Right now!”

“What? Why?”

“He said he saw the killer every night. Who comes by here every night?”

Myah thinks for a moment before it clicks. “A ghost tour!”

Asher comes here every night. Asher knew about the house. Asher lied about everything. Stupid, stupid, stupid, I should have known!

But it’s too late. I hear slow footsteps coming up from the basement, lagging like he has all the time in the world. He’s probably been watching us this entire time. Waiting until we cornered ourselves in the one room without windows, unable to cry for help.