Page 85 of Haunted

I let myself believe it for almost a full minute.

Then the obvious truth pushes it aside. Strangers don’t know where I live.

“Fairhaven Police Department,” a man at the other end of the line says.

“I’d like to make a report,” I answer.

Strangers don’t warn you like that.

Nash always warned me first.

And then did it anyway.

Chapter thirty

Jonny

“Jonny Bishop,” I tell the man with the clipboard when I enter the auditorium. “Checking in.”

He smiles at his clipboard. “You’re right on time,” he says, checking my name off his list. “Come with me.” He looks over the pre-printed tabs and curses. “Who even are these people?” he mutters. “Here.” He takes a sharpie and writes my name on a sticker. I glance at the names. Half of them are names like Candee Edifafa and Sheldo McGilliguffy-Rhodes and the other half have first names: Annie. Stevie. And, of course, YoMama.

“Looks like you’ve been pranked.”

“And how,” he says, slapping the sticker onto my breast pocket. “The lights are stuck at the wrong setting, the microphones have had to be swapped out at the last second, and we’ve had to jerry-rig the presentations to run from a laptop behind the curtain. At least you’re on time.”

I look over my shoulder at Lance, who’s trying not to smile in that irritating I-told-you-so way. We’re fifteen minutes early, but Lance runs on a different clock, and he was hustling me out the door so fast I was chewing coffee and eggs in the elevator.

It’s the kind of auditorium normally used for choir recitals. There’s a stage with a heavy blue curtain pulled shut and the screen for a projector lowered in the middle, a single podium with a screen and a row of tables hugging the lip of the stage. The man guides me up a set of side stairs and motions me to one of the tables. Ahead of me is a sea of heads, and in the front row, Lance. He smiles at me. I smile back and take out my notes.

Last night was a nightmare. I sat at our only table with Lance four feet away, writing and rewriting my presentation until at least two in the morning. At one point I even offered to go to my aunt’s to which he acted like I had personally offended him. Apparently, he requires no sleep at all, and while I’m sure that he had some real thoughts about the fact that I was throwing together my presentation with literally hours left to go, he kept them—wisely—to himself. In my defense, I’m not used to adhering to other people’s deadlines.

Lance settles into the front row and winks at me.

“So that’s your guy?” Ryan says next to me.

“Hi, Ryan. Yeah, that’s him. How did your rewrites go?”

“I emailed them to the coordinator last night and they lost them.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Fortunately, I had a backup copy on the cloud, but man, it’s been a mess.” He lowers his voice. “Good thing you didn’t come in earlier. They had us locked out. We were waiting out in the hall for about twenty minutes.”

Lance stands, crosses to the stage, and climbs onto it in one easy motion that makes me catch my breath. He crouches in front of me. “How’re you doing?”

“A little underslept. I’ll make it. Lance, this is Ryan.”

Lance turns his gaze. “Hi. Lance. Boyfriend.”

I try not to roll my eyes.

“Five minutes,” the organizer says, hovering at the edge of us. “Sir, you’ll need to take your seat,” he tells Lance. “Try running the test audio now,” he tells someone else.

The auditorium fills with the opening chords to Takin’ Care of Business, played so loud that we jump. Lance pivots, searching the back rows of the auditorium like he’s got a rifle in his hand. The volume decreases. “Sorry!” someone calls from the back. “Audio’s working now!”

Lance breathes a little more easily.

“You okay?”