He paused only a couple of steps into the hallway, the car’s grumble fainter from here, making space for a silence that twined around him. And for one eerie moment, he was fourteen again and flustered, still unused to the house’s nighttime quiet. None of the noise of the busy street he’d lived on in Edinburgh—constant traffic and the whine of sirens not unusual.

No, here there was only the occasional rattling of old pipes or the rap of tree branches against windows. And, if he listened hard enough, at times, the lulling whoosh of the nearby sea.

Well, and tonight, a car’s muffled idling.

“Remember Diana’s ghost?”

He jerked at the startling sound of Lilian’s voice, something a little too close to a yelp catching in his throat. “Sheesh, Lil, give a guy some warning before creeping up on him in the middle of the night.”

She snickered, huddled against her bedroom’s doorframe. “A little jumpy tonight, are we?”

“Not jumpy.” Still discouraged at yet another setback of the broken-farm-equipment variety—yes. Concerned over another of Maggie’s lost-granddaughter “discoveries”—of course. Confused about who in the world was sitting in a car out in their driveway—certainly.

But he’d stopped bristling at ghost stories years ago. “There was never a ghost.”

Lilian brushed her fingers through her cropped blond hair, rolling her eyes. “Obviously.”

Never mind the way he and his sisters used to scare themselves silly at night, ears perked for every little creak and groan of the aged house, telling made-up tales of Diana Muir’s spectral presence still roaming its hallways.

Stories, he’d realized when he was a little older, that would’ve hurt Maggie deeply if she’d ever overheard. Thankfully, her room was down on the first floor, which meant most of their late-night shenanigans went unnoticed. But still.

“What’re you doing up, anyway?” Lilian’s hands disappeared into the long sleeves of her sweatshirt the way they always did when she was cold. Which was probably most nights the closer they drifted to winter, what with the draftiness of this old place. There were times he could swear the wind crept through its walls and tunneled through the hallway. He’d heard it howling in the fireplace often enough.

Guess he couldn’t entirely blame his younger self for indulging in ghost stories. “I heard a car outside. Did Indi mention anything about coming home early this week?”

Their sister owned a couple of antique shops—one in Muir Harbor and another in Maine’s capital. She usually spent half of each week staying in the apartment over her Augusta store. But maybe she’d decided to return earlier than planned this week.

But that didn’t explain stalling at the end of the driveway. And Indi drove an SUV, not the long sedan he’d spotted.

And Lilian was shaking her head. “Nope. Probably just a lost driver. It happens. They’ll turn around.”

So why did it sound as if the engine had just quieted? Not disappeared into the night, but stopped altogether. As if the engine had been cut.