“What are those?” Ruth Anne asked.

“EMF readers,” Trinity said. “I dropped in flash drives that time-stamp any spiking, so we can plot the changes over the course of the night.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Ruth Anne said.

“Remember when everyone thought cell phones would give you brain cancer?” Trinity asked. “A bunch of cheapo electronics companies started making these so that people could see if electrical fields from their phones and power lines and stuff were floating through the air. Health nuts still use them, but mostly they’re for ghost hunters.”

“Because?” Amy asked.

“Because ghosts are energy,” Trinity said. “Duh.”

Amy turned to Matt. “You really believe this stuff?”

“It makes sense,” he shrugged. “There’s been a lot of research showing that electromagnetic fields caused by underground water or high-tension power lines induce haunting symptoms. People hear noises, they smell things, they get disoriented, they have mood swings. You can do it in a lab with a big magnet.”

Trinity shook her head. “Ghosts cause electromagnetic activity, they aren’t caused by electromagnetic activity.”

“Have you ever seen one?” Amy asked.

“God, I want to,” Trinity said. Her eyes were big. “Wouldn’t that be awesome? When I was a little kid, I used to watch horror movies when my parents weren’t home and afterward I’d turn off all the lights and walk around in the dark trying to see a ghost. Matt says he saw one once. I’m totally jealous.”

“You saw a ghost?” Ruth Anne asked Matt. “Was it scary?”

“Well, it could have been anything,” Matt admitted. “It was just out of the corner of my eye.”

“It was a ghost. A full-body apparition,” Trinity insisted. “You told me.”

“It was a long time ago,” Matt said, with a sideways glance at Amy. “The point is, something strange is happening in this store. So we’re going to shoot some footage, keep an open mind, see what we see.”

“Because you know what those jerks on Haunted Investigations, Paranormal Patrol, Strikeforce: Ghosts, and Ghost Detectives never have?” Trinity asked. “Footage. They never actually get footage of a ghost. It’s all just a bunch of fat dudes walking around dark houses going, ‘Hello? Hello? I know you’re here. I can feel your presence. Give me a sign.’ Then they pretend to hear something and whip the camera around.”

“Did you see that?” Matt imitated. “Did you hear that? Oh my God, it said, ‘Help me.’ ”