When Natalie returned from her hunt for electrical outlets, she found that Jin and Hayato had set up a table in the middle of the living room. It was covered in black boxes, computer screens, and wires.

“Wow,” she said. “You weren’t kidding about the equipment.”

Jin smiled at her.

“It looks more complicated than it is,” he said.

Natalie looked doubtful. “What’s it all for?”

“Most of this is just hard drives for the video cameras. We record several backups simultaneously. The monitors are there so that we can see what is going on within the field of any given camera at any time.”

Natalie nodded, impressed. “So, what should I do?”

“You found the outlets for me?” asked Jin.

“I did.”

Jin looked over his shoulder at Hayato.

“Hayato, go with Natalie and set up the cameras, will you?”

Hayato popped out from behind a stack of large black cases. He frowned. “I don’t need her help.”

“She can show you where the outlets are,” said Jin patiently.

Hayato stood with a huge coil of cables over his shoulder and picked up two of the crates, one in each hand.

“I don’t need her help,” he repeated.

“She can’t go solo yet. She still needs to learn how things work.”

“You stay with her then.”

Hayato strode from the room. Jin sighed. He turned to Natalie with an apologetic expression.

“He’s honestly not as bad as he seems.”

“No?” asked Natalie looking after him.

“No,” replied Jin. “If you wouldn’t mind…”

Natalie resisted. She didn’t want to spend any more time with Hayato than she could help, but Jin’s expectant expression prodded her toward a specific response. She caved.

“All right,” she said.

“Thank you.” Jin smiled.

Natalie thought about taking one of the black cases with her as she assumed they contained cameras, but she decided against it. She already had her hands full keeping the visions away. It would probably be best if she could avoid touching things.

It didn’t take her long to catch up with Hayato. The house wasn’t very big. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a small office, kitchen, and living room. She found Hayato in the room furthest from the living room — the master bedroom. He’d laid down cable as he walked, leaving a neat trail and a coil in each doorway. In the short amount of time he’d been gone, he’d already gotten one of the cameras up on a tripod in the corner nearest the outlet. He plugged the camera in and turned it on as Natalie walked into the room. She watched as he started doing some fine tuning, making subtle adjustments to the position of the camera. Natalie had to admit, he looked like he knew what he was doing,

“Anything I can do?” she asked.

“Stay out of my way,” he said without looking up.

Affronted, Natalie spun away from him. She began looking around the room. Hayato had left the lights off, but there was quite a bit of orange sunlight streaming in through a set of sliding glass doors that lead into the backyard. There were photos on the bedside table of a smiling couple and two little girls. Where the closet was open, Natalie could see clothes neatly hung and organized by type. A knitted throw covered the foot of the bed and Natalie found herself wondering if Mr. Beckett’s late wife had made it.

Natalie suddenly felt uncomfortable standing in the bedroom of a perfect stranger. It didn’t help that in the little time she’d had to get to know him, Mr. Beckett had seemed like a very nice man. It just made her feel even more like she was intruding.

“He asked us to come,” said Hayato.

“What?” Natalie looked over her shoulder at him.

“It’s not like we forced our way in here. He knew what he was signing up for.” Hayato finished fiddling with the camera and straightened, looking at Natalie. She turned to face him.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Hayato shrugged.

“You’re uncomfortable. I took a guess.” He picked up the second camera case and strode from the room leaving Natalie gaping. She shook herself and hurried after him.

The next room, the office, had probably originally been a bedroom. Now it was filled with shelves and filing cabinets. A desk with a computer stood against one wall. Anyone who sat at the desk would be able to see out the window to the side fence lined with ivy and small shrubs.

Hayato had taken the coil of cable he’d left by the door and attached the end to a second camera which he’d set up in a far corner. He was bending down to plug the camera into a power strip when Natalie walked in.

“Okay,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing. Go bother Jin.”

“No, I mean… We need to work this out if we’re going to be spending time together.”

Hayato gave her a disgusted look and proceeded to adjust the camera without speaking.

“Hey, I’m trying to have a conversation here.”

“Well, you’re not making any sense.”

An exasperated noise escaped Natalie’s lips. She took a deep breath. “I can’t tell if you’re being deliberately rude to me because you don’t like me, or if this is the way you are with everyone.”

Hayato snorted. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters!”

“Why?”

Natalie gaped. She cast about for an answer and couldn’t immediately find one. “Because—“

Hayato shushed her.

“Don’t shush me!”

Hayato shushed her again, holding up a hand this time. Natalie was about to really tear into him when she noticed that his demeanor had changed. He was tense, poised. It was hard to tell through his sunglasses, but it seemed like he was looking around the room.

“Did you hear that?” he asked in a low voice.

“Hear what?” whispered Natalie.

Something scurried through the wall near Natalie’s head. She jumped, startled, and spun to face the wall. As soon as she did, she felt stupid. It really did sound like rats or something.

Hayato checked the camera and relaxed a little when he saw the blinking red light. Whatever had just happened, the camera should have caught it.

“Do you think it was rats?” asked Natalie.

“Too early to tell.”

Hayato checked the connections on the camera one more time and walked out, brushing by Natalie. She followed him back to the living room where they found Jin talking to Lightning.

“You’re certain?” he asked the cat. “And you didn’t see any sign of rodent or insect activity?”

The cat gave Jin a level, cool look that Natalie had no trouble understanding even without whatever rapport Jin seemed to have with him. Then, he curled up and appeared to fall asleep. Jin made a thoughtful noise.

“We just heard something in the walls of the office,” said Natalie.

Jin looked over at her.

“Did you?” he asked. Hayato nodded, picked up two more cases, and headed back down the hallway.

“Well,” said Jin smiling, “that’s something.”

“Is it?” asked Natalie.

“It is. We don’t often experience the phenomena the client called us in for on the first night.”

“No? Why not?”

“The paranormal tends to be a little shy of newcomers. It takes them a while to show themselves.”

Natalie took a moment to think about that.

“You should catch up with Hayato,” prompted Jin. “He might need your help.”

Natalie sighed. “He doesn’t.”

“He might. You should go check.”

Jin smiled. Natalie frowned at him, but he remained unaffected.

“All right. I’m going,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Jin returned to sorting things out on the table. Natalie went back down the hallway and found Hayato in the second bedroom. She crossed her arms and stared at him. Natalie couldn’t decide if he was a jerk or not. Sometimes he was incredibly rude, and other times he seemed fairly decent. What expression she could see around his ever-present sunglasses looked intent as he adjusted the camera. He seemed to take his work seriously, anyway.

A skittering in the wall made them both look up. It sounded like it was higher up in the wall this time, and it came from the wall that the bedroom shared with the office.

Natalie walked over to the wall.

“Are we sure it isn’t rats?” she asked.

“Lightning said it wasn’t.”

“Right,” said Natalie slowly. Well, she supposed a cat would know if there were or weren’t rats around.

“Still,” she said, “whatever it is in there, it had to get in somehow, right?”

“Could have gone through the walls.”

Natalie nodded. “We should check for holes. Maybe along the floors?”

Hayato snorted. Natalie spun to face him.

“What?” she asked.

“There don’t always have to be holes.”

Her confusion must have shown on her face because Hayato sighed and moved over to the wall.

“We’re ghost hunting. Just because the walls are solid doesn’t mean things can’t get through them.” He tapped on the wall with a knuckle for emphasis.

Something tapped back.