These children weren’t hers, but they had been here, if Kaylin understood what she’d heard, for the entirety of Mrs. Erickson’s life. She wasn’t getting younger. She knew she’d be leaving them behind when she died, trapped in this house. Maybe other people would move in—but the likelihood that they could see the dead was very low.

No wonder Jamal hated visitors.

“Hey,” he said, looking past Mrs. Erickson to where Kaylin stood. “You can sit. I’m done.” His tone was grudging—but it seemed to please Mrs. Erickson, and that was probably the intent.

None of the children told Kaylin their names, but she picked them up as Mrs. Erickson addressed them. Jamal was the oldest, Callis next, followed by Esmeralda; Katie was youngest. Of the four, Esmeralda was the most transparent; she was also mostly silent. Kaylin couldn’t tell if that was because a stranger was present or not.

But had Kaylin been dead and trapped in the house, she’d’ve probably been far more like Jamal than Esmeralda. She had questions she wanted to ask, and she sat on most of them. Jamal, the boldest of the four, had disappeared when she’d started, and she didn’t want to chase them all away.

She was also worried about the neighbor. The neighborhood itself was considered both good and safe, in the usual Hawk sense of the word, which didn’t mean murder didn’t happen in them. Still, she couldn’t camp out here tonight. She couldn’t spend the evening standing guard outside—she had work in the morning.

But she intended to get herself put on the front desk everyone tried to avoid—because she could ask Mrs. Erickson questions there that she couldn’t bring herself to ask in front of the children they concerned.

“You’re here early today, dear,” Caitlin said, as Kaylin’s jog came to a stop at the desk that all Hawks had to pass to enter Marcus’s branch of the Hawks’ offices.

Kaylin nodded.

“You saw Mrs. Erickson home safely?”

“I did. I want to run a check on one of her neighbors. And I want to run a check on the house she’s living in now. Oh, also: if Severn’s still out with meetings, I want to be put on the front desk again.”

Caitlin’s brow furrowed as her expression shifted into concern about the state of Kaylin’s health.

“I’m fine,” she said, although Caitlin hadn’t actually asked. “But the neighbor appears to be perfectly happy to trounce across her lawn to bully her—even when she’s accompanied by a Hawk.”

“And the house?”

Kaylin winced. “You know those ghosts she’s always talking about?”

“Yes, dear.”

“I met them.”

Caitlin didn’t get involved in office business but she wasn’t oblivious. She glanced at Hope, who was flopping out across Kaylin’s shoulder.

“Sort of.”