Rhys seemed to be noticing it, too, frowning as he looked around, shining his flashlight on a framed photograph tacked to the wall. Piper was in it with a couple of other teenagers, all rocking a very mid-nineties look, standing in front of one of the buildings at Penhaven College.
“Well, at least we know we’re in the right place,” he said, and then swung the beam around the room. “But why is the floor so clean?”
“Maybe she had a spell,” Vivi suggested. “Some kind of cleaning spell that sort of hung on after she died?”
Rhys shrugged. “Possible. Stranger things have happened.”
Avoiding glass from a broken window, Vivi moved farther into the room. One floorboard felt mushy as she stepped on it, creaking ominously.
“So,” she said, swallowing hard. “We just need to figure out where she had her altar, light the candle—”
“And get the fuck out of here. With alacrity,” Rhys finished, and Vivi nodded.
“Lots of alacrity, yes.”
Luckily, the cabin was small. There was just the front room with a tiny closet, a small room that had probably been Piper’s bedroom and a kitchen, the appliances old and rusting in places.
Vivi had thought the bedroom would be their best bet, but the room was completely empty and, unlike the front room, covered in dust. Plus there was no hint of lingering magic there, no ancient wax stains or soot-marked walls, all the things Vivi would’ve expected to find.
She checked the kitchen next, but like the bedroom, it was empty except for an ancient table and chairs that had half rotted, the chair little more than a pile of wood.
Rhys was still checking the living room, squatting down by the fireplace and shining his flashlight over the cracked brick. “I’m not feeling anything,” he said, and Vivi looked at him, his jeans taut over his thighs, his shoulders broad as he peered up into the chimney, the beam of her own flashlight highlighting the sharpness of his cheekbones, the line of his jaw.
“Um. Yeah. Me, neither,” she said, then turned away before he caught her basically ogling him.
She was here to catch a ghost, pretty much the least sexy thing on the planet.
Of course, library study rooms were supposed to be unsexy, too, and they’d certainly proven that wrong.
She and Rhys plus dimly lit small spaces clearly equaled Bad Choices, so the sooner she got this over with, the better. “There has to be something we’re missing,” she said. “Maybe—”
They heard it at the same time.
Footsteps.
Vivi’s mouth went dry, her knees suddenly feeling a little watery as her stomach pitched. Seeing a ghost in broad daylight in a building full of people had been terrifying enough. Having one appear here, in this, the setting for one of those cheesy ghost hunter shows Gwyn liked so much?
Vivi shuddered. No, thank you.
Rhys stood up, clicking his flashlight off, and Vivi did the same, also extinguishing her illumination spell, and they stood there in the dark room, only lit by the moon, listening.
The footsteps were closer, but now Vivi realized they were outside. She could hear the leaves and the pebbles crunching on the path outside, and as whoever it was moved closer, she heard the whispers of what sounded like more than one person.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Vivi looked over at Rhys. No ghost, she mouthed, and he nodded, but then gestured at the door.
But who is it? he mouthed back, and Vivi moved silently toward the cracked window, keeping in the shadows as she peered into the darkness.
There was just one flashlight, but it was clearly two people moving up to the house, leaning on each other, their heads close together. And then as the moon moved out from behind a cloud, Vivi got a good look at one of their faces.