“You’re the ones who gummed the lock?” Amy asked. “We thought someone broke into the store. Basil has us doing floor sweeps. One loop around the Showroom every hour.”

“Sucks to be you,” Trinity said. “Once this breaks big, we’ll be all sorry about it to Basil, but he’d never have authorized our shoot in the first place. Not with all the filming we’re going to do.”

“Now I get it,” Ruth Anne said. “You’re like the Paranormal Investigators on A&E.”

“We are nothing like the Paranormal Investigators on A&E,” Matt said. “For starters, we are not lame.”

“But you have lots of equipment, just like the people on A&E,” Ruth Anne pointed out.

“Stop saying A&E,” Matt said. “We’re aiming higher than that. Trinity wants us to be the first ghost hunters on Bravo.”

“What happens when you find a ghost?” Ruth Anne asked.

“We get high-resolution footage,” Trinity said. “No camera tricks, no CGI. Just real evidence of spiritual phenomena.”

“And then?” Ruth Anne asked.

“If the ghost is up for a full Charlie Rose–style interview, we’ll give it a shot,” Matt said. “But I don’t see that happening.”

“You realize ghosts don’t exist,” Amy said.

“They do too exist,” Trinity said. “Lots of people have seen them.”

“Lots of people have seen Bigfoot,” Amy said.

“Cryptozoology is a totally different area of research,” Matt said. “Look, whether you believe in ghosts or not, you have to admit something strange is happening in this store. The broken Pronks, the help messages, the poop on the Brooka. Maybe it’s not ghosts, but maybe it is.” He tapped the floor with the toe of his boot. “Do you know what used to be here before they built Orsk?”

“Nothing,” Ruth Anne said. “I used to drive past this place all the time and it was always just swampland.”

“Before the swamp, there was a prison.”

“I don’t think so,” Ruth Anne said.

“A long time ago,” Trinity replied. “In the eighteenth century.”

“Nineteenth,” Matt said.

“What’s the difference?” Trinity said.

“About a hundred years,” Matt said. “It was pretty grim. A bunch of people died right where we’re standing and the jail sort of disappeared. Most people haven’t even heard of it.”

“That is spooky,” Ruth Anne said.

“It’s not spooky,” Amy said. “It’s not anything.”

“Ignore the history if you want,” Trinity said, hopping with excitement. “But all those people who died left behind psychic energy, and that’s what’s haunting the store. People used to get thrown in jail for stealing loaves of bread, so I bet their spirits are all pissed off.”

She hoisted one of the massive gear bags onto the Müskk bed, unzipped it, and removed nine putty-colored plastic eggs. She arranged them in a line across the bedspread, cracked open a Valu-Pak of batteries, and began swapping in fresh nine-volts.