Page 16 of Ghost in the Night

Myah swallows hard, gripping the picture with both hands.

“Yeah,” she utters in a hushed voice. “It’s a ghost. And I know exactly who it is.”

Robby blinks in surprise. “Who?”

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “Tim Truman.”

FIVE

TimTruman?” I repeat nervously.

“Yes! The man they found dead downtown the other day. That’s his ghost!”

I gasp, remembering how upset Lena was about the death of her friend. How we saw his story on the news, and that the police were still searching for his nephew.

“How … do you even know that’s him?” I ask Myah. “They said they found his body in an alleyway or something. Not at this house.”

“Some of his family came to this shop to print flyers for his missing nephew Jabari,” Myah says. “Hang on.” She whips around the counter, shuffling through a stack of papers until she pulls out a yellow sheet. “Look.”

I stare at the missing person flyer. It’s a picture of a young boy in a red shirt, an orange life vest hugging his neck. He’s holding up a fish nearly the size of him that’s dangling off the line and cheesing like he’s about to eat for weeks off  his catch. Grandma would say he has chipmunk cheeks. With his big brown eyes behind glasses, he looks a little like Robby.

“That’s … terrible,” I say, thinking of how sad the family must be.

“I know,” Myah says. “When the family was here, they were talking about how Tim kept going by that old house in Calhoun Square right before he died. No one knew why, he just kept saying he was ‘researching.’?”

Robby frowns. “Okay. So?”

“Look, I know all about ghosts,” Myah says firmly. “And a spirit always lingers near a place that means something tothem.” She studies the photo of the orbs again. “So that’s gotta be him!”

Hmm. From what I know, ghosts do stay close to the place they last inhabited or where they died. Does that mean Tim Truman could have DIED in that house? If so, then how did his body end up in the alleyway?

“Well … actually,” I start off slow. “It might not be Tim Truman’s ghost. This is the Myers House.”

“The who?” Myah snaps.

“On the tour, the guide told us about this woman who died by that window, a really long time ago. So. It might actually be her ghost, not Mr. Truman’s.”

Myah shakes her head. “No. It’s him. He’s calling from the beyond.”

Dread fills my stomach. Am I really about to argue with some girl over a ghost?

Robby chuckles.

Myah shoots him a glare that could burn the eyebrows off his forehead.

“What?” she asks Robby.

“Come on! So what if there’s some white lights in the pic. That don’t mean it’s a ghost.”

“And you just gonna ignore the shadow standing behind those lights.”

“That could be anything.”

“And how you gonna ignore what … Wait, what’s your name again?” Myah asks me.

“Harmony. And this is Robby.”

Robby puffs his chest out with a hard nod to make himself look big and bad.