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The widow’s walk door.

Sully’s mention of finding it open the day before skittered into her thoughts. She’d laughed it off, said she hadn’t been up there in weeks.

Amy pressed her hands over her face. “Pull it together,” she whispered.

She slipped from bed and padded downstairs, the floorboards sighing under her weight. In the kitchen, a monitor light blinked dimly beside the coffee maker—the house’s small network of security cameras. She sat, opened the app, and scrubbed back through the previous night’s feed.

The upper hallway. The door to the widow’s walk. Nothing. Empty corridor and shifting moonlight. She flipped to the second camera—the one outside the east gable facing the ocean.

Static.

She scrolled back further, two nights ago. The screen flickered into view—a thin, distorted image swaying in and out of focus. For a second, she saw herself walking barefoot across the lawn, hair blowing in slow motion against the dark sky. Then, the picture dissolved into snow.

Amy leaned close, scrubbing the timeline. The same white noise.

Her throat tightened as she stared at her own frozen silhouette, half erased by interference. She should’ve felt relief. This was proof, maybe, that the camera had glitched. But all she felt was the cold, spreading awareness that the footage had been there once… and something had interfered with it.

Whatever was happening inside that house, she wasn’t sure whether it was haunting her—or whether she was haunting the house.

Chapter 11

Amy stood in the middle of the first finished room of the new spa treatment wing, a paint roller in hand and speckles of pale blue paint dotting her arms and jeans. A tickling sensation near her temple indicated her hair held some of that blue too.

The room smelled of fresh paint and the faint tang of cleaning supplies. Sunlight streamed through the freshly cleaned windows.

She stepped back to admire her work so far. The soft blue walls were already transforming the space into something soothing and serene, exactly what she envisioned for her future massage studio. It was finally coming together.

But there was still so much to do.

Amy dipped her roller into the paint tray again, determined to finish this room today. Sully’s crew would have gotten to the painting eventually, but with the team running at half strength and the timeline stretched thinner than ever, she’d decided to handle it herself.

Practically, once this section was completed, she could see her massage clients on site. It would bring people to the mansion, hopefully giving them a positive view of the place. That and help bolster her dwindling pocketbook. This studio was her chance to finally start the business she’d dreamed of, and she couldn’t wait.

The sound of laughter and light conversation drifted in from the adjoining room, where her sister Kelsey, Mac, and Kaitlin were hard at work with brushes and rollers. Amy smiled to herself. She hadn’t really expected them all to show up when she asked for help, but they had come through.

“Don’t forget the trim!” Amy called.

“Bossy much?” Kelsey replied, poking her head around the doorway with an exaggerated grin. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she had a streak of green paint across her cheek that didn’t match any of the colors they were working with.

“What is that on your face?” Amy laughed.

“Definitely not trim paint,” Kaitlin called from somewhere behind Kelsey.

Mac’s deep chuckle followed. “I think it’s from earlier when Kaitlin tried to ‘help’ me open the paint can.”

“I did help!” Kaitlin protested, stepping into view. She had a paintbrush in her hand instead of her ever-present notebook.

Amy shook her head, still smiling, and went back to her roller. As she worked, she let the rhythm of the painting and the chatter in the background settle her nerves. The past few weeks had been a whirlwind. Between the renovations, the ghost-hunting crew, and her own insecurities about the project, it felt like she was constantly sprinting just to keep up.

But here, as they completed the work in these rooms, she felt a flicker of hope that her dreams were actually coming to fruition. It was a good feeling.

Kelsey and Kaitlin moved on to the next room as she and Mac stayed to finish rolling. “Hey, Mac,” Amy said casually as she worked the paint onto the wall in smooth, even strokes. “You grew up here, right?”

“Born and raised,” Mac replied, looking at her curiously. “You know that. Why are you asking?”

“I was just thinking about Sully,” Amy said, trying to sound nonchalant. “We’ve been working together all these months, and I guess I don’t really know much about him. You know him, right?”

There was a brief pause before Mac answered, and Amy held her breath, hoping she hadn’t been too obvious.