The Dead and the Dark(40)

She didn’t say came home.

“I…” Logan started. “Why is it changing now?”

“Good question.” Gracia laughed. “I don’t know. I want to know what your dads think. I could tell them my thoughts, but they don’t listen to me. They never have.”

Logan looked at her hands. She’d thought there was something off since she first got here, from the creepy mob at the cemetery to the strange heat to the cabin. But until now, it was like everyone else thought it was normal. Gracia said that Snakebite was wrong and Logan was flooded with a sudden crash of relief.

“Was it ever like this before?”

Gracia chewed on the question. “You know, for a long time I felt it. There was a thing under Snakebite, like a little buzzing. It was like it made people nervous, even if they didn’t know it was there. It was quieter than it is now. But then, one day it was gone. None of us ever really talked about it, but I know we all felt it go. Like we could breathe again. The little buzzing sound went away the day your dads left Snakebite.”

The last sentence dropped like a stone in Logan’s stomach. “And it didn’t come back until…”

“Until Brandon returned.”

“So, wait—”

Gracia held up a hand. “In a minute. The show is back on.”

BRANDON VOICEOVER: Alejo and I have never seen a haunted windmill before. The investigation this morning turned up nothing, but any good paranormal investigator knows that most ghosts come out at night.

BRANDON: Can we check this loose patch?

[Brandon walks to the side of the windmill and nudges the crumbled brick with the edge of his shoe.]

BRANDON: It looks like a crawl space, doesn’t it?

[Alejo crouches and looks through the bricks.]

ALEJO: Too small for anything human.

[He looks at the camera.]



Gracia laughed and crunched on a burned strip of bacon. Logan wanted to laugh—her fathers were always overdramatic on the show, which Twitter loved for screencap potential—but Gracia’s words still sat heavy in her gut.

[Brandon points to Alejo’s satchel.]

BRANDON: Let’s get the ThermoGeist on this. I have a good feeling.

[Alejo digs through his satchel and pulls out the ThermoGeist. He points it at the open night, waiting for it to calibrate. He swings it toward the hole in the windmill’s side. As the ThermoGeist passes, it flickers blue.]



“Wait,” Logan said. “Is this a recording?”

“Yes,” Gracia said. “I love your dad, but this show comes on past my bedtime. I always record.”

“Can I rewind it?”

Gracia arched a brow, but surrendered the remote. Logan sat up and rewound the episode by a few frames. The ThermoGeist was steady in Alejo’s hand, dead quiet each inch of the way to the crawl space.

Except one.

It passed so quickly it was almost impossible to see. As the ThermoGeist passed Brandon, it flickered. Not soft like a glitch. Not small like a temperature difference. Not a mistake.

It passed Brandon and it flared the color of the dead.





17


Old Sins


Ashley yanked the Ford across the lakeside highway, knocking Logan against the passenger door. Elexis groaned in the back seat, tapping away at his phone. At first, this whole investigation thing had felt like a longshot. But now, with revelations unspooling themselves everywhere she looked, it felt real. Logan didn’t know what they would find at the end of this—she didn’t even know what they were trying to solve—but they were getting close.

She and Ashley weren’t friends. They were just investigating Tristan Granger’s disappearance together. But after the party at the cabin, there was something easy between them. Maybe it was just the comfort of knowing Ashley had already seen her messy drunk and passed out.

Logan wasn’t sure.

“I found out something else,” Logan said.

“What?” Ashley asked, clearly only halfway paying attention.

“Our parents used to date.”

Ashley looked at her, then focused back on the road. “Wait, like my mom? No way, that’s—”

“Guess which dad.”

Ashley scrunched up her nose. “Alejo? I’m assuming. I heard them talking at the store one time and their conversation was so weird. They were saying they hated each other, but I don’t know.”

“I’m still in shock.” Logan unfolded her legs, propping her feet up on the dash. “I just kinda assumed my dads were together since birth. They’re so annoying about it.”

Ashley slapped Logan’s ankles. “Feet off the dash.”

Logan rolled her eyes.

“Was he, you know … back then?”

“Was he bi?” Logan snorted. “Yeah, the whole time.”

Ashley blinked. “Oh, he’s both. I didn’t know.”

The truck hiccupped over one pothole, then another, and Logan restrained her laughter. “You’re so straight.”

Ashley opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She shoved Logan against the passenger door. “Stop—I’m trying. I get it. It’s just all really new to me.”

“Well I, for one, am glad we’re not sisters. It would’ve made this whole thing weird.”