“A better judge of character than we were in that case,” Owen decided.

“Sounds like. She’d spook some of the crew now and then, but sort of playful. And . . .”

“Uh-oh.” Beckett pointed at him. “You’ve been holding back.”

“It didn’t seem relevant. But since we’re getting in deeper.” Ryder shrugged. “That time with Hope wasn’t the first time she’d stuck me in The Penthouse. Right after Hope showed up, and Mom hired her. On the spot.”

“Proving I’m a good judge of character.”

“Well, okay, yeah. Anyway, maybe I was a little irritated about hiring somebody so fast, without talking it over.”

“You were rude,” his mother reminded him. “Rude and pig-headed.”

“It’s not pigheaded to express an opinion. Rude, okay. I apologized,” he pointed out. “Maybe I was still a little steamed. I went back up to do a little more work. The door slammed shut behind me, and wouldn’t open. We didn’t have the lock sets on yet, but that damn door wouldn’t open.”

“She gave you the smackdown,” Avery said.

“Who’s telling the story? I could smell her in there, and that just pissed me off more. Windows won’t budge, door won’t budge. She fucking grounded me.” Then he laughed, quick and easy. “You’ve gotta respect that. Then she wrote your name on the window glass, inside a little heart.”

Hope blinked in surprise. “My name?”

“Inside the heart. I got the picture. She liked you, she wanted you around, and I’d better fall in line. Pissed me off more, but it’s hard to argue with a ghost.”

“Which you resolved by being snotty to me. Tell the innkeeper this, tell the innkeeper that.”

Ryder shrugged again. “She was okay with it.”

“Hmm.”

“Maybe you should try talking to her, Ryder,” Clare suggested. “Since she mentioned you specifically. And since you and Hope are . . . friendlier.”

“You don’t have to use code,” Justine told her. “But you’ve got a point.”

“I don’t have that much to say to live people.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” Hope insisted. “She has a connection to you, to the three of you,” she said to the brothers. “Avery and I talked about this. We think because you brought her place—her home—back to life, there’s a connection. Because you and your mother cared enough to bring it back, make it beautiful, give it warmth again, you helped her. She doesn’t know how to be anywhere else, she said. So it matters that where she has to be is loved and cared for. Because it is, she’s more there. All of you had a part in that. But you, Ryder, had the most hands-on in the actual work. Maybe she’ll tell you what she can’t seem to tell the rest of us.”

“Fine. Fine. I’ll ask the dead girl.”

“With respect,” his mother warned.