“Serious architectural flaw,” I said lightly, but Gabriel didn’t even favor me with a nod. This impossible layout told us we weren’t in a real house, and that bothered him.

The hairs on my neck prickled again.

“Up, then?” I said.

At the top of the stairs, we reached a landing that stretched in every direction. I took three steps…and the floor disappeared, leaving us on a platform, the stairs behind us, the rest darkness.

“Go back down,” Gabriel said. “Quickly.”

He hauled me toward the stairs. We made it down one riser and then the rest vanished, the next step a drop into nothingness. Gabriel yanked me back, and his arms wrapped around me as if I’d been about to tumble over the edge. I felt his heart slamming against his ribs, as that sixth sense kicked in, and whatever it detected—

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “Now.”

I could point out the obvious—that there was no apparent exit. But his pounding heart warned that if I couldn’t say something useful, I’d best not say anything at all. When I twisted to look up at him, he was scanning the darkness, every muscle taut.

“Something is wrong,” he said. “Something is very wrong. We shouldn’t be here.”

He took my hand again, his fingers wrapping around mine tight enough to make me wince. Then he stepped carefully toward the edge, leaning, as he turned on his cell phone light.

“I don’t see any—”

The floor fell away.

No warning. No time to do more than let out a yelp before I plummeted through darkness, scrabbling for a hold, none to be found. Yet I hit the floor no harder than if I’d slipped on ice.

Darkness swirled. When it cleared, I sat on a wooden floor, staring at a wooden wall. A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jumped to see Gabriel on all fours.

“I wouldn’t have stayed,” he said. “At Evans’s house. I wouldn’t have stayed.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. Our first “case.” Trapped in the basement by a killer, Gabriel injured, telling me to just go, leave him behind, that he wouldn’t stay for me.

“That’s not much of a secret,” I said. “You told me then you wouldn’t have stayed.”

“But I meant it. I wasn’t saying it to make you leave. I would have found you a safe place and brought help, but I still would have left.”

“Okay.”

“No, you don’t understand. I would have left. I’ve told myself I wasn’t sure, maybe I was just saying that, but that’s a lie. I would have left you there.”