But when Dana reaches the doors, even before her eyes adjust to the change in light, even before she has time to feel the relief at seeing her friend (yes) alive, she sees that Kit is not alone.

Kit is at the free-throw line at the far end of the gym, lining up the shot the way she does, elbow perfectly in, left hand perfectly supporting. But the seven-foot woman who smells of smoke and whiskey, who is as out of place in this gymnasium as a black bear, is stepping toward her, arms extended, her bare hands open.

Dana pulls the gun from her waistband, takes aim, and thinks:

She’s not a ghost. The bullet won’t go through her. The bullet won’t hit Kit. Shoot her, Dana. There’s no such thing as ghosts…

McGowan knocks on Coach Wanda’s front door. That’s the thing with smaller-city coaches; nobody imagines them outside the roles they play in the community. When you see them at the bar, you call them Coach. At the store, you nod, Hey, Coach. On the street: Go get ’em, Coach.

In fact, often you don’t even pay real attention to their full names.

She knocks again.

“Coach?”

See? Like that. Even now. “Coach.” Not Wanda Van Horn as McGowan knows her last name to be through interviews and police reports filed in conjunction with the investigation the detective has all but left behind.

She tries the knob. It’s locked.

She wonders if a bullet will be enough.

Instead, she takes the porch steps and walks along the side of the house, looking into each window she passes. The interior matches McGowan’s idea of Coach Wanda the person. Spartan, simple, dull.

The backyard is half-mown. A couple lawn chairs look the worse for wear. The fence is about neck-high and there is no sign a basketball coach lives here.

No sign of a dog either.

She climbs the back steps and shoulders the back door hard enough to break it.

She’s inside now.

“Coach?”

Gun chest-high, McGowan steps through the small, clean kitchen. Spartan, indeed. A table with no cloth. No dishes in the sink. The walls are bare of any paintings or pictures.

There’s no sign of anybody present either. No creaking boards, no running water, no voices.

McGowan eyes the tiled floor. And while it’s nothing like the pattern from the new photo in her pocket, she thinks of the small head all the same.

“Coach?”

Yes. Coach Wanda. Wanda Van Horn. Forty-one years old. Been head coach of the Samhattan High School girls’ team for fourteen years. Grew up in Michigan. But not Samhattan.

Or did she? McGowan doesn’t remember asking Wanda where she was from. It didn’t seem pertinent to the line of prepared questions. But now, having faced Chief Pollen, and the look on Pollen’s face as she described growing up in a city with unspoken shared trauma…it suddenly feels very important to her.