Page 75

“Get your crew and your equipment,” she said each word deliberately cold, “and get out. And you better hope you’ve got a good lawyer.” When he hesitated, she met his eyes. “Now.”

For once, Mason had no clever line. He turned and signaled to his team. Outside, thunder rolled, shaking the house as they dismantled the lights.

Amy didn’t watch them go. She simply closed her eyes, felt Sully’s hand slide lightly to her shoulder, and leaned onto him. Tears coursed down her cheeks, a silent sob wracking her shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” Sully said, wrapping her in his arms. “It’s okay, you’re all right. It’s all over.”

She just let the tears come until she had nothing left.

Chapter 28

The storm had swallowed their world.

Wind roared down the chimneys and moaned through the shutters; the old mansion shook in its bones. Every few seconds, lightning lit the windows, framing the rain as silver needles driving sideways across the glass.

The crew was gone—Mason too. What remained were half-coiled cables, overturned light stands, and puddles glittering with reflections of the emergency lantern Sully had set in the hall. The echo of their retreat had left an unnatural stillness that made the storm outside seem almost personal.

Amy stood near the grand staircase, an old towel wrapped around her shoulders. Dizziness crawled at the edge of her thoughts. Hours ago, the place had been filled with shouted orders and the hum of cameras; now only the ticking of water through the gutters broke the silence.

She and Sully ran out to his truck and drove through the flooded lane toward her cottage—the warm, dry place beckoning. Amy disappeared upstairs to change. When she came down, Sully was in the kitchen, holding two mugs of tea that steamed in the dim light. He handed one to her wordlessly. His hands were raw from rope burn, the knuckles scraped. Hers were banged up, too, nails full of tar and wood.

She took the cup carefully. “Did they really pack everything up?”

“Yeah,” he said. “They’re gone.”

She sat gingerly on the couch and winced at the soreness in her arms and shoulders. Leaning back against the cushions, she said, “Without Mason’s contract, we’ll lose the second half of the payment. Your crew will be lucky if I can scrape together what’s owed for the last two months.”

“No backups?”

“Just Mac and Kelsey.”

A long silence settled between them. The cottage breathed around them—boards flexing, windows rattling. Ollie hopped onto the couch and curled himself against her.

Sully set down his mug. “I should have seen it sooner. Mason didn’t just want to record a ghost story—he was in this for himself.”

“You’re not the only one who thought that,” she said. “I told myself he’d be the savior of this project. I was so afraid to fail… again, and I should have listened when Matt warned me about him.”

“What happens now?” he asked.

Amy laughed weakly. “Disgrace. Financial ruin.”

He managed a half-smile. “Guess we’ll have matching failures.”

The remark broke the tension just enough for her to breathe. She set her coffee down and walked to the window, where the ocean could be seen in the distance. Outside, waves exploded against the rocks in bursts of white foam. The lighthouse across the bay flickered faintly through sheets of rain, a heartbeat in the dark.

“This place has survived worse,” she said.

“You sure?”

She turned toward him. “No. But I want to believe it. The mansion stood through storms, corruption, murder, fires. Maybe we’re just another chapter in its story.”

Sully joined her at the window, their shoulders brushing. The reflection of lightning carved their faces into halves of light and shadow.

“We can pivot,” he said. “Different approach. Something local. Historical tours, maybe. You’ve already got the research. The town might back that.”

“And you?”

“I’ll find a way.” He exhaled, fogging the glass. “It doesn’t have to be this site. But I’m not walking away from it—or you.”