“Shit, Helen,” Nate continued. “Are you going to charge admission at Halloween? Welcome to Helen’s Haunted House: enter if you dare!”

She didn’t speak.

“Do you have any idea how totally fucked up this is? You’re obsessed. It’s a sick, unhealthy obsession. I think you need help. Seriously. And I don’t mean help from Dicky and his spiritualists. I think it might be time for therapy. For someone to help you figure out where this need you have for these things is coming from.”

She didn’t say anything, just stood, concentrating on trying to keep breathing.

“Your father wouldn’t have admired this. He would have been horrified.”

This was more than she could stand. She barked out a cold laugh. “You’re one to talk. You’ve got your own fucked-up little obsession, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I saw your nature journal, Nate. You’ve filled the entire fucking thing with notes on that deer. If that’s not an obsession, I don’t know what is.”

He opened his mouth to speak, to defend himself, but she kept going before he got a chance.

“Have you been keeping track somewhere in one of your little spreadsheets of how many hours you spend looking for your white deer? Of the money you’ve sunk into it—the top-of-the line infrared cameras, the cables, the bags of deer food and salt licks? While you bitch and moan about being over budget. And you haven’t even gotten a single clear picture yet, have you?”

“No, but I will. The deer is real, Helen. An actual flesh-and-blood creature. Unlike these ghosts you’re apparently trying to summon.”

“You know what I can’t help but wonder? If maybe your need to do all this research and gather all this proof about the deer is because part of you worries that maybe, just maybe, Riley was right. Maybe that deer really is the ghost of Hattie Breckenridge. And you refuse to accept that possibility, so you’re determined to prove her wrong.”

“That’s absurd,” Nate said.

“You write about her like she’s a human being, Nate. Like she’s got magical abilities. Like you have some kind of special relationship. Like she’s your fucking mistress!”

He turned from her, reached down, grabbed the remaining three beers. “We’re done here.”

He walked away, down to the trailer, where he slammed the door so hard the whole sad little tin building seemed to shake.

CHAPTER 34

Olive

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

“Dammit!” Helen said when she missed the nail, smashed her finger with the hammer.

“You okay?” Olive asked.

“Fine,” Helen said, shaking her finger. “I just need to take a break for a minute.”