“Whoa,” Kasey breathes, staring down at the collection of evidence laid out on the workbenches.

“Yeah,” I answer, holding out my phone for Will, who is looking at the photo of the tool shed. “Yeah.”

“Oh, I’m so pissed that I can’t touch things, right now.” Kasey bends closer to look at the old Hot Wheels car, then the empty ammo box, then the ruined, bleached-out passports. “Even if these are just from the 1960s, they’re fragile, and I’m the only one who’s actually qualified to handle historical objects. Or-” She pauses, then looks relieved. “Wait, that’s not true, because Aiden.”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” he tells her. “We’re being careful.”

“The archivist is the only one who’s been handling these,” I add. “Since we left the farmhouse, anyways.”

“I can’t believe you unearthed so much,” Will murmurs, his eyes traveling slowly over the evidence. “The police must have scarcely examined the place, to leave all this behind. And did they not wonder at the missing saw? The spy - Botswick - he did not even return it to the tool shed.”

Aiden nods at Will.

“Yeah, man. We were talking about this on the drive home. It’s frankly unbelievable that the police would rule this an accident, when it was so obviously intentional that even Jamie and I could tell, decades later, after taking one look around. It’s like Botswick didn’t even bother covering his tracks.”

“So…” Will arches a blonde eyebrow. “The question is, why didn’t he? Did he somehow know that it would be ruled an accident?”

A thoughtful silence falls over the Ghost Office for a minute, populated only by the rustle of the nighttime breeze in the tree boughs beyond the open windows.

“If John Botswick was an American spy,” Kasey says slowly, “He probably knew that the higher-ups would tell the cops not to look too closely. I mean - an officer sent the head detective a note pointing out the obvious connection between the collapsed house and John Botswick, and still, it never went anywhere. Why do we think that is?”

As always, Kasey makes a good point - and one that gives us information we didn’t have before. Whatever John Botswick’s true identity was, it sounds like he was probably working for the States.

Aiden leans back against the workbenches, his blue eyes clouded with thought. “Why would they send an agent to collapse a farmhouse, though?”

“To cover something up?” Kasey suggests. “That’s the only thing I can think of.”

I don't love the sound of that. “To cover up what, Kase-face?”

“Well, we know that a kid was involved somehow.” Kasey nibbles her lip, looking down at the Army Man toy, the Hot Wheels car. “If it was the 1960s, I’m guessing that no one would have bought these particular toys for their daughter, so - can we safely assume that the kid was probably a boy?”

Will, the only one of us to actually personally experience the 1960s, nods his confirmation.

“I have a question,” I jump in. “Why the hell did John Botswick stash his go-bag there? We know that he didn’t live at the farmhouse. He was staying at the hotel, and he was only in town for a few days. And, I mean - he destroyed the house. It makes no sense for him to hide his bag there. It could have been incriminating, if these passports both belonged to him.”

“Unless…” Kasey’s eyes narrow as she works through her thoughts. “Unless the go-bag wasn’t his. Maybe it belonged to an agent who was living at the farmhouse. Or - two agents? There are two passports... honestly, that’s the only good reason why someone would hide it on the property. They had to be living there.”

“Living there - with their kid?” I ask doubtfully. “What sort of agent would bring their kid along for a job?”

There’s another silence, this time broken by the deep rumble of Aiden’s voice.

“Maybe the kid was the job.”

“Oh - yes, Aiden!” Kasey smacks a hand to her forehead, then points at him. “Maybe he was the son of somebody important? And the agents were a protection detail? Why else would an agent - or agents - be living there with a kid?”

“So then…” Aiden turns back to the evidence, his blue eyes troubled. “Did Botswick collapse the house to cover up whatever he did to this kid?”

“You don’t think-?” Will draws his head back sharply. “Botswick was sent there to harm a child?”

Kasey looks unconvinced. “What would anyone stand to gain from that, though?”

“Yeah, and I really think that if a kid was found hurt or killed in the collapse, it would have at least gotten a mention in the officer’s note,” I put in. “There’s no evidence that anybody was hurt or killed, actually. It would have been harder for the police to just write it off as an accident if someone was, right? People would want answers.”

“Then why do it?” Aiden asks. “Why collapse the house?”

Kasey suddenly blinks hard, a realization spreading over her face.

“It was a cover-up, I think,” she says, hovering her translucent hand over the toys. “But maybe… a cover-up of a kidnapping? The child of someone important is only worth something to the opposition if they’re alive, right? Like - as a hostage, or something?”

We all stare at each other in startled silence. This unpleasant possibility fits better than any other explanation we’ve come up with so far. I have to assume that it’s much easier to cover up someone going missing than it is to cover up a suspicious death.

So John Botswick... kidnapped a child? Or tried to, at least?

Calla’s words ring in my head.

Do you guys even know who John Botswick was? What he would have done, if…?

I can tell that Aiden is thinking about the same thing, because he says:

“The house collapsed on the same night that John Botswick was murdered, so - do we think that someone killed him to prevent the kidnapping? Or to rescue the kid, after he’d already been taken?”

“Too early to say for sure,” Kasey answers. “But that’s a good theory, Aiden. I think it's our best one so far.”

We collectively fall quiet again, taking a second to absorb all this.

Kasey leans over the bag of cash we found in the backpack, and quirks an eyebrow.

“Looks like we could have ourselves a rager,” she says. “How much is in there? We could get bougie with it.”

I’m caught off guard by this, and in spite of everything, I let out a laugh.

“Oh, that’s a brilliant idea, Kase-face! Let’s throw a party with mystery cash that we found at the bottom of a fucking well. Cash which also happens to be evidence in a decades-old, unsolved criminal investigation."

She breaks into a grin, and winks at me. “That’s one to check off the bucket list, am I right?”

Will chuckles, wraps his burly arms around her from behind. “You have an exceptionally unusual bucket list, Miss Lavoe.”

She leans comfortably back into him, resting her hands on his forearms.

“Seriously, though,” she says, with a nod at the cash. “Did you guys count it?”

We didn’t, so Aiden gently pries open the sealed bag with the money inside. He takes it out and sorts carefully through it, then stops, staring.

“Aiden?” I ask, watching with concern as his blue eyes widen.

He extracts something from the slim stack of bills. It’s a piece of paper.

A folded-up, typewritten note.

“Oh, shit!” Kasey’s hands fly up over her mouth. “What does it say, Aiden?”

He unfolds it, then stares down at it, confusion spreading over his face.

“I have no idea,” he answers, and turns it around to show us.

The entire page is filled up with neat rows of letters, but the letters don't form any words. It looks like someone just hit random keys on the typewriter until they ran out of room on the page. There are no spaces, no punctuation, no idents. No rhyme or reason to it that I can discern, not one single word I can make out.

“Well, well,” Kasey says, her dark eyes glittering with excitement. “It looks like we’ve got a code to crack.”

~~~~

We know that we probably can’t get too much further tonight, but I wouldn’t say that we’re stuck.

Kasey’s going to try her hand at code-cracking. And Floyd might be able to tell us more, when we bring the evidence and our theory to him. Aiden and I decided that we want to talk to him in person, not over the phone. We’ll go this coming weekend, which means that all we can do for now is wait.

But there’s still an hour before I need to pick up Noah for our smoke sesh, and there are things I need to fill Kasey in on. So while Aiden and Will are poring over the evidence, I follow Kasey out into the night air.

We sit together on the pebbled beach by the river.

“Damn,” she says, when I finish telling her about what happened with Ralph.

“Yeah, I know.”

Kasey sinks deep into thought, and I watch her affectionately. I move a little closer to her on the pebbles, so we can sit how we used to when she was alive.

She sees what I’m doing, and leans her head against my shoulder. There are times when she’s solid enough for that, and other times when she isn’t. I’m glad that tonight is one of the times she is.

“You don’t think it was an act, do you?” she asks. “Ralph’s whole breakdown? We all know what a good liar he is.”

“Yeah, but he had no way to know that Aiden and I were going to find him like that,” I point out. “And if it was an act, then I don’t even feel stupid for getting played. It felt so honest, Kase-face. The most honesty I’ve ever seen out of Ralph.”

“The only honesty we’ve ever seen out of Ralph,” Kasey corrects.

“Yeah, that’s true,” I answer, rubbing my elbow. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Kasey smooths down the fabric of her bright red pants, staring thoughtfully out at the half-frozen, moonlit water.

“You know, Jamie... I’m glad that Ralph is trying to sort his shit out, and I think it’s nice that you guys helped him. But I don’t really want him hanging around with us, after all the shit he’s pulled.”

“Me neither,” I say firmly. “I don’t want Ralph back in our orbit, and I would never do that to Noah, anyways. But, I mean - you can still try to be compassionate to people you don’t really like, and don’t want to be friends with. Can’t you?”

Kasey breaks into a warm smile, then pokes my ribs. I don’t feel it, but I guess it’s more about the gesture.

“That’s so you." She looks at me fondly, lets out a laugh. “And I can’t believe you gave Ralph one of my women’s studies textbooks.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I answer, suddenly concerned. “I shouldn’t have given away your stuff without asking, that was-”

“No, no,” Kasey laughs, flapping a hand at me. “Please distribute my textbooks from that class to any man who could learn something from them. I’m not using them, anyways.”

I smile at her, relieved.

“Just don’t give away my history books, please,” she pins on. “I’m sorry if they’re taking up space in your apartment, but-”

“Oh, no, I would never do that!” I interrupt immediately. “I’ve still got all of them, I promise!”

I never would have gotten rid of them. They’re too high-level for me to fully understand - not without taking some intro courses first - but they’re too much a part of Kasey for me to ever give them up.

She shoots me a grateful look, puts her head back on my shoulder. I can’t feel it, but the familiarity of sitting with Kasey like this feels good, regardless.

“Sometimes I wish that Will and I had our own place,” she says, after a silence. “I could keep my old stuff there, and that way we wouldn't have to crash on your couch. We’ve kind of been using the Ghost Office, and - don’t get me wrong, I love it here, but - it’s not exactly a home.”

I understand what she means. I know that the ghosts want to travel after we make the battery, but I like the idea of them having a place to come back to. Someplace that’s just theirs. Someplace to fill up with Kasey’s old history books, her towering stack of thesis notes, and the other stuff I rescued from her apartment. I have it all in boxes, currently filling up the floor of my closet.

Kasey's diplomas. Some of her most-loved items of clothing. Her favorite candle, which she’s never lit. Milo gave it to her, and she didn’t want to use it up.

Letters and postcards that I sent to her in New York. A very low-quality ring that says BFF, which she got at a fair when we were nine. I have a matching one, because we went together. We stopped wearing them when they turned our fingers green, but we both kept them.

A framed picture of us as little kids. Me in my grandpa’s flannel, which was still way too big on me. Kasey in her shiny yellow rain boots, which she used to wear to cross the creek between our houses when we’d have our sneak-overs. I would see the bright flash of them through the trees, and go rushing to meet her halfway.

All those memories, stored away in boxes. I don’t know what I planned to do with that stuff. I only knew that I couldn’t part ways with any of it. It’s all too precious to let go.

But Kasey just gave me an idea.

In the imagined home that I've been picturing, the one I share with Aiden - I add another room. A place for the ghosts, when they need a break from their travels. When they want rest, comfort, the closeness of friends.

Something tells me that Aiden would be down for that. Assuming he’s down for living with me, that is. I still haven’t even worked up the courage to talk to him about us living together yet, much less with two ghosts, but - I can picture it so clearly. I can hope.

I smile to myself, folding an arm around Kasey’s shoulders.

“We’ll figure something out,” I tell her. “Does my place work for now, though?”

She nods, tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear.

“Mhm. Between that and the Ghost Office, we’re all good.”

I glance back at the open Ghost Office door, through which I can see Will and Aiden. They’re leaning over the workbenches, still discussing the note we have to decipher.

“How’s Will doing?” I ask, dropping my volume. “After reading the letter from Ariana?”

Kasey looks over her shoulder at him. He’s smiling, laughing at something that Aiden said, his leaf-green eyes bright and warm.

“It took him some time to recover,” Kasey says softly. “He read it over and over again, that first night. That letter is really precious to him, I can tell. I mean, obviously, because Ariana is precious to him, and she always will be. Not that I'm complaining. I understand that. I feel the same way about Milo.”

Kasey glances back at Will again, then breaks into a small, intimate smile.

“It doesn’t stop us from loving each other,” she says quietly. “Not at all.”

Struck with sudden warmth, I make an ohmygod awww face at Kasey, pressing my fingers to my mouth. She rolls her eyes, but lets out a little laugh, curls into me some more. I plant a kiss on the top of her head, then lapse into thought.

Will’s death was some two hundred years ago, but even he has precious things he wants to keep. Ariana’s letter. The flower petals she sent us. Maybe even the chip of his headstone, given that his moss-laden grave is slowly being reclaimed by the forest.

And doesn’t he deserve a place to call his own? After centuries of wandering around Ketterbridge by himself, living outside?

All the more reason to make a cozy, special, warm place for him and Kasey to share.

Human or ghost, it doesn’t matter. Everyone deserves a place to call home.