“I haven’t seen anything,” I admitted, keeping my gaze on Lucas. “Not . . . exactly.”

“How do you not exactly see something?” Another question from the enchanting Charlotte.

“What about your sister?” prodded Lucas, like he didn’t want Charlotte’s question to derail my answer. “Has she seen him?” The intensity of his stare told me his heart had to be pounding as fast and hard as mine. From fear or excitement, though . . . Well, I guess I didn’t know him well enough to say.

“She blames a lot of stuff on him,” I said. “She says he talks to her. I thought he was some kind of imaginary friend but—”

“What does she say he looks like?” This question from Patrick, who, along with Wes, had also begun to take me more seriously.

I shrugged. “She says he wears a mask.”

Several things happened all at once.

Patrick threw up his hands, saying, “I’m out.”

“Holy shit,” Wes muttered before making the sign of the cross at me.

And though Lucas did his personal best to keep his poker face, the quiet way he sat back in his chair told me that I had obliterated the doubt in him, too.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, you guys,” spat Charlotte. She stood fast enough to cause the legs of her chair to screech. “I’m not sticking around for this.” She took up her tray. “We’re serious investigators. Not gullible idiots willing to risk our hard-earned reputation on something that was proven to be a hoax anyway.”

“They never proved or disproved anything,” argued Lucas.

“Rastin came out and said he faked it,” Charlotte snipped back.

“Who’s Rastin?” I asked. “And faked what?”

“Controversial clairvoyant,” Wes answered in an aside. “He had an episode during that, uh . . . episode.”

I scowled, the already tight knot of worry in my chest constricting. “What kind of episode?”

“Like you don’t know,” scoffed Charlotte.

Lucas cut in. “Boq later claimed Rastin only said he faked it because he was afraid of what the entity might do if people went snooping around the house.”

“The episode was . . . bad,” Wes said, answering my question.

“Rastin’s episode,” clarified Patrick. “ ‘Phantom Fury’ itself was actually pretty awesome.”

“Though you have to agree that the show itself isn’t as good as Ghost Adventures,” said Wes.

“Ghost Yellers, I think you mean,” snorted Patrick.

Charlotte brandished a finger at Lucas, ignoring the others. “That’s because it was Boq’s show on the line!”

“Boq died shortly after that investigation, Charlotte.”

I blinked at the dual rapid-fire discussions happening around me until the gravity of what Lucas had just said finally hit me. Someone else had died in the house?

“Later. Of natural causes.”

“A heart attack at age thirty-eight is not a natural cause!”

“She watched the documentary, Lucas.”

“She said she didn’t!”

I folded my arms. Because here I was again—just part of the scenery. And what the hell was I even still doing here? Why hadn’t I, at the barest mention of there being a documentary, gotten up and walked away from these Winchester-boy wannabes?