“No,” Nessa groaned.
She scrambled on top of the table to check for signs of life. There was no pulse and his flesh was cold. Josh had clearly been dead for hours. His ghost stood in the studio’s doorway, gazing up at the corpse as if captivated by its swollen head and blue face. Then it looked straight at the package Nessa had stuck in her purse, and she knew that was why she’d had to come to New York. She climbed down from the table and ripped it open. Inside was an unlabeled microcassette. When she looked up, the ghost was gone, and there was only one Josh left in the room.
Nessa grabbed her phone and dialed 911. As soon as the police were on the way, she started snapping pictures. She wasn’t going to let anyone rewrite history again.
As she held the camera up, a new text arrived from Josh’s phone.
Sorry I missed you, it said. I’ll catch up with you later.
The threat was clear.
Nessa got back to Mattauk at a quarter past midnight. Harriett, Jo, and Franklin were waiting for her outside her house, Jo pacing the sidewalk and Harriett sitting on the lawn smoking a joint and sipping a Chateau Lafite Rothschild. The second the car came to a stop, Jo pulled open the door and wrapped her arms around Nessa. When Jo finally let go, Harriett stepped forward and handed Nessa an empty glass, which she filled to the brim with wine.
“I’m so sorry,” Jo said. “I should never have asked you to talk to Josh on your own.”
“It’s okay.” Nessa stopped speaking to guzzle the wine. “I think I managed to take care of myself pretty well.”
“Yeah,” Jo agreed. “Speaking of which, you and Harriett are really starting to give me a complex. If you’re both so good at protecting yourselves, what the hell am I here for?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Harriett said.
Jo spun toward her. “Is that supposed to be a joke? If not, what does it mean? If you know something, Harriett, you better tell me!”
“What I know and what you discover may not be the same thing,” Harriett said.
“Would you stop speaking in riddles? You’re an advertising executive, not a fucking Zen master.”
Nessa left them to argue and went to greet Franklin, who was waiting for her by the front door. As soon as she was within reach, he pulled her close.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I am,” she said. “Poor Josh. His ghost was here this morning. He came to warn me. I don’t know what would have happened to me if he hadn’t.”
“I couldn’t see any evidence that someone broke into the house, but I need you to have a look for yourself. You ready now or do you need a few minutes?”
“Let’s do it now,” Nessa said.
She toured her own house, carefully noting the position of every object and examining every scuff and mark. Nothing seemed out of place until she reached the living room. There, sitting on the coffee table, was her grandmother’s scrapbook, filled not with family memories but of newspaper clippings and sketches of all the women she’d found. The message was clear. Whoever had been in her house knew about her gift.
Jo had spent all afternoon searching through boxes in the gym’s basement storeroom, looking for the microcassette player she’d purchased back in the nineties when such devices were cutting-edge tech. She found it in a box, along with a collection of tiny tapes that she’d used to practice her responses to job interview questions.
Nessa, Franklin, Harriett, and Jo gathered around Nessa’s dining-room table with the cassette player in the center. Then Jo leaned forward and pressed the play button.
“Okay, we’re recording.” It was Josh Gibbon’s voice.
“What is that thing?” asked a female voice. She sounded young and nervous.