“Maybe it came to life and Solano had to torch it.”

“Oooh, Jack, that’s good. I have to remember that.”

“Get a photo of that pissed-off one too.” I pointed to a doll with an onion-domed head that seemed to be scowling at us, one plump arm outstretched.

Pepper aimed the lens inches from the evil thing’s face. The camera clicked.

I adjusted the doll’s arm so it was now reaching above its head.

Pepper seemed shocked I touched it. “What are you doing?”

“Take some more photos. You can tell people it moved on its own. It will make good TV.”

He was nonplussed. “The documentary will make good TV regardless.”

“Even if nothing spooky happens?”

“Patience, Jack. We only just got here. Let’s wait and see.”

“For what? Night of the Living Dead—only with dolls?”

He huffed. “Okay, fine. You don’t believe in spirits, or an afterlife. I’m not going to try to persuade you otherwise. You are too stubborn.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I’m stubborn?”

“You’re the most stubborn person I know.”

“I beg to differ.”

“See, you won’t even admit I might be right.”

“Because I’m not stubborn.”

Pepper sighed melodramatically. “Yeesh, Jack.”

“Tell me, Peps,” I said, “in all your TV shows, all your investigating, have you ever seen a ghost, really?”

“Not in the sense you might be thinking.”

“What sense is that?”

“Not a white sheet that goes ‘boo.’”

“So what have you seen?

“Things that cannot be explained. I’ve recorded cold spots, abnormal ion counts in the atmosphere, photographic anomalies—”

“With your Ghostbusters equipment.”

“Scientific equipment, Jack. Electromagnetic field detectors, infrared cameras—”

“I hate to point out the elephant in the haunted room, Peps, but if any of that stuff actually worked, wouldn’t it have proven the existence of a ghost already?”

“There’s no more scientific evidence to support the existence of black holes than there is to support the existence of spirits. But you believe black holes exist, don’t you?”

“You’re talking apples and oranges.”

“Why, Jack? Parapsychology is not a pseudoscience, or at least it shouldn’t be classified as one. There are plenty of respected institutes and universities investigating paranormal phenomena. There was a particularly important experiment done a couple of years ago. A person with a terminal illness volunteered to die in an air-tight glass box. At the moment he passed away the glass, which was thirty centimeters thick, cracked in numerous places. The amount of energy needed to accomplish this would be tremendous.” Pepper paused dramatically. “Now with this in mind, remember what Einstein said. All the energy of the universe is constant. It can’t be created or destroyed. It just gets transferred to a different form. So what happens to the electrical energy in you and me, the energy that makes our hearts beat, when we die? It continues, just in another form. And that form is…”