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“What if it’s—” I started to ask.

“No, it’s not supernatural.” He sounded confident. “It’s not a ghost, it’s not magic.”

I didn’t bother to argue again. More and more, I was thinking that there was no other explanation for what was happening. What else could cause music to come from your shower and create glitter when you washed your hands at the sink?

Oliver was still looking for a rational explanation for something that seemed totally irrational to me, and that was what I was going to research later today. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that I was living in the apartment of a former magician and now something mysteriously magical was happening. Or maybe, when I looked up “Milaflores Building,” I would find out more information about ghosts and hauntings. Maybe there had been former occupants who had reported strange happenings and this wasn’t even unusual in the context of our building.

This wasn’t anything I had ever believed in before. I had always rolled my eyes when my mom had done herbal smoke smudges in the places we’d lived. While she’d focused on the aura and vibrations, I’d been cleaning out the refrigerator from the last tenant and mopping the floors. I didn’t have faith in numerology or tarot cards, and I hadn’t thought that our lives were controlled by the stars and planets. But maybe she’d been on to something, and there were secret, stealthy forces out there. Maybe that was what was happening to me and Oliver: we were being haunted by a musical spirit.

I had my money on Jasper the Great, though. Since I’d hardly come across anything about him online, I needed to dive deeper and I hoped I’d find answers at the library today. I also wanted to dive deeper and find answers about Oliver’s ex-wife and her visit to Detroit. “Where did you go for dinner last night?” I asked.

“Hm? Sorry, I was thinking about blueprints.” He paused. “Uh, I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember where you went to dinner? It was about twelve hours ago,” I pointed out.

He checked his watch. “Our pace is two seconds faster than yesterday. Let’s see if we can keep it up for the next mile.”

Well, that pace precluded me from speech, which was a great ploy by him to avoid my questions. Then I had to take the elevator while he took the stairs, but he couldn’t avoid me forever. He was now my ride to the library.

Except the man wasn’t dumb. “Want to drive us?” he suggested when he came knocking on my door.

He must have known that the offer would make me nervous, and I was sure that Gramps had mentioned how I shouldn’t have been talking while behind the wheel. He was all about focus, after all, because I didn’t want to end up like the woman who had started looking at her phone and had gone straight into the James Scott Memorial Fountain on Belle Isle, damaging several of the bronze turtles (and for that, she’d received a sentence of life imprisonment, according to him).

I had doubts about that and also about driving Oliver’s car. It wasn’t fancy but it was nice and also new, which made it totally opposite to what I’d practiced on. “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe another time. I think it’s going to rain.”

Unfortunately for him, I also had time for questions as we walked down the stairs and over to the garage. “What is your favorite kind of food?” I asked.

“Indian. South Indian,” he answered immediately. “I love spice.”

“Is that what you had last night?”

“No, we had…” He sighed. “So, Gramps told you that Lexi was in town. My ex-wife.”

“He mentioned that because he was worried,” I explained.

“There’s no reason to worry.”

“So, nothing happened? Everything’s ok?” I questioned.

“It’s all fine.”

“Do you want to provide any additional information?” I questioned further.

“Is this what you did with your mom about her bad relationships? You interrogated her to try to get to the bottom of things, and that’s why you know so much?”

“Yes, exactly. For a long time, I was too young to offer good advice but I’m much more prepared now,” I said. “I didn’t know to warn her against things like getting back together with the same person over and over, like what happened with Daisuke.”

“My ex-wife isn’t involved in meth production,” Oliver said.

“But according to your grandfather, she must have done something bad. What was it? Why is she trying to reunite with you?”

“Who says she is?” He resumed the descent.

“I think it was me, just now,” I answered. “Why else would she come from California to Detroit?”

He finally did offer some additional information, very grudgingly. “She got a new job in Toledo.”

“Why? Because it’s close to you? Wow, that’s bold,” I said.