He jerked the steering wheel to the right, taking a sudden turn off the main road. The wheels screeched in protest.

Ching spun around to look out the window. “Where are you going?”

He pulled into the twenty-four-hour diner parking lot, the hot spot for truckers and kids without fake IDs. “I’m going to talk to Addy.”

“But . . . oh.” Ching looked at him carefully. “I thought you were mad at me about that.”

“Oh, for sure,” he said, getting out of the car. “But now I have the perfect excuse to talk to her.”

“What excuse?” Her voice sounded hollow.

“Your true feelings about her ghost.” He took a moment to appreciate how his door slamming was an excellent punctuation mark.

Ching froze. She was looking almost green now.

“Sanjiv Kumar Reddy, don’t do it,” Ching ordered with all the captain authority she could muster. “Don’t you dare.”

He slid past her attempt to stand in his path. “And don’t think you can hide in your ghost dimension. If you do, I’ll go straight to the de-ghosting center.” This was kinda fun. Had he never issued an ultimatum to Ching before?

“You . . . are blackmailing me?”

“You’ll thank me later.”

“No, I’m going to haunt you later,” she threatened, eyes a little wild and voice too high. “Even if you de-ghost me, I will find a way to haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“And that will be different from the last eight years?” Sanjiv asked.

The diner was lit up, glowing a little at the edges, the only bright thing in the darkness.

Until Addy stepped out.

She was waving goodbye to a coworker, her jacket over her uniform. Her hair was curlier than his, which was almost impossible, and kinda short. She wore this purple-y lipstick color and had this way of looking like she was just about to laugh most of the time. She was still Addy from the house three doors down. But she was also Addy from halfway across the country. And he just really wanted to ask her about everything he’d missed in between.

“Hi.”

She looked up from her phone, her brown eyes round with surprise. “Oh, uh, hi.”

“I don’t know if you remember me from when you lived here ten years ago, but I’m Sanjiv. And I think my ghost was in love with your ghost.”

“You are the fucking scourge of the earth.”

Thankfully this came from Ching, not Addy, though Sanjiv wasn’t 100 percent sure if she was talking to him or Addy’s ghost.

Addy’s eyes went even rounder as she turned to her side, where her ghost presumably floated, and raised her eyebrows. Then she looked back at Sanjiv. Then she finally burst out laughing.

“I knew it,” she gasped.

“You did?” Sanjiv asked.