“Well, that’s why we’re here, to help them.”

“I thought we were here to help the Harpers,” she said with a crooked grin.

“The kids, yes, but we were always here to help the EBs. It’s what the ones around me back in Connecticut have been urging me to do for weeks now. They knew something was up and were quick to pressure me to find you. It’s not often spirits ask to help other spirits. Now that we’re here, I can see why.”

Alice Harper came bounding in the back door. “Good morning Ms. Backman. Did you sleep tight?” She had on a teal sundress and her hair was already wild from running around outside.

“Kinda,” Jessica said, smoothing down the more errant strands of the girl’s hair.

“I slept like a rock knowing you and Mr. Home were here,” Alice said. “So did Jason. The Last Kids didn’t once try to wake us up.”

Because they were with Jessica all night, Eddie thought. “Do they do that a lot?”

“Every night. They like to talk. It’s like they’re lonely, even though they’re all with each other.”

Jessica offered the last bit of her granola bar and Alice happily accepted, stuffing it in her cheek like a hamster. She asked, “Alice, honey, what do they say when they talk to you?”

She was about to answer when Jason shouted from outside, “Mom and dad are home!”

Alice ran out the front door to join him.

“I guess I can always ask later,” Jessica said.

“We have all week.”

“I have a feeling it’s going to be very important to know what they’ve been talking about.”

The front door swung open. Daphne and Tobe walked in, trailing Alice and Jason who had grabbed their hands.

Jessica looked at Eddie and mouthed, “Where’s Paul?”

He shrugged his shoulders. He could sense Paul’s presence, a living mind in a sea of dead, but he couldn’t pinpoint his whereabouts. Another part of him that was temporarily out of service—please stand by.

Tobe dropped an overnight bag on the stairs. “Hello Jessica, hello Eddie. So sorry we weren’t around last night. It got late and I’d had one drink too many. I’m not comfortable enough with the boat to take any chances.”

“Not a problem. You don’t need to be accountable to us. We’re the guests,” Jessica said.

Eddie shot her a look that screamed bullshit! She ignored him.

“We also stocked up on provisions,” Daphne said after laying untold kisses on the tops of her children’s heads. “I’m still getting used to planning ahead when you live on an island.”

They both looked slightly worse for wear. Hung over, Eddie thought.

A collective scream from the EBs all across the island rang through Eddie’s skull. It was the equivalent of sitting in a packed grammar school auditorium and asking all of the kids to shout at the top of their lungs. The force of it made him dizzy, almost knocking him off his chair. To counteract the incoming tsunami of sound, his mind reflexed outward. The front door suddenly slammed shut, startling everyone in the house.

“Was that a ghost?” Jason yelped, melting into his mother’s side.

Jessica cast a quick glance at Eddie and moved in to settle things down. “Alice left the back door open. A cross breeze just blew it shut.”

“Are you sure?” Jason asked.

“Positive.”

Just like that, the screaming was gone. Eddie stayed in his chair, giving himself some time to recover.

What the hell made them do that?

The door opened again, and Paul came through lugging black leather bags and a hard plastic case.

Two others came in after him. Their arms were laden with all kinds of odd-shaped luggage.

Tobe stood between Jessica and the newcomers. “I almost forgot, we have two more guests for the week. Jessica, Eddie, I’d like you to meet Rusty and Mitch. They’re old friends of Paul.”

Eddie eyed them with suspicion.

Despite the psychic blow Eddie had just received, he tried to cut through the white noise that had settled into his psychic sense and peer into the Harpers and Paul’s friends. It was a pile up of thoughts and emotions, mixed in with what he was gathering from the deceased Ormsby children. Try as he might, he couldn’t latch onto a solid thread.

But he didn’t need psychic ability to sense something was up—something that Jessica wouldn’t take kindly to.

Rusty was an animated wire with a full mustache, receding hairline and long ponytail that hung over his leather jacket. Mitch was clean-shaven and possessed a full head of wavy blonde hair, and although he seemed younger, Eddie could tell by the crinkling at the edges of his eyes that he was most likely the same age as Rusty. Mitch was barrel chested with a no-nonsense air that must have made him a tough man to negotiate with, whether in a boardroom or a bar.

“Nice to meet you both,” Jessica said. Eddie noted the reticence in her voice. “You must be staying a lot longer than us.” Her head flicked toward their bags.

“Maybe just a day or two to get some B roll,” Rusty said.

B roll?

Mitch saw the confusion on Eddie’s face. “That means extra shots around the island and house. We can insert them throughout the editing process to give a better sense of the place.”

Jessica turned to Tobe. “What does he mean by shots of the place?”

Tobe’s skin flushed paler under her critical gaze. Any thoughts of her being a young pushover were put to bed at that moment. “Well, they’re, ah, filmmakers. Paul went to film school with them. They’re here to shoot the documentary.”

Eddie felt the tension building within Jessica. He saw her shoulders square as her hands balled into fists.

“I’m sorry, what documentary?” she said.

“Children, why don’t you go outside for a moment? Mommy will be right with you. Here, Daddy and I brought this back for you.” Daphne handed Alice a blue plastic bag full of toys. Her little eyes lit up like Fourth of July sparklers. Both kids jogged through the house to the backyard.

“We intend to document the strange goings-on in the house and island,” Daphne said. “If you wish to be in the documentary, I’m sure Paul could get a release form for you to sign. If not, I still need you to do what we initially asked of you. We’ll simply film around you.”

Eddie was about to jump into the fray, hoping to quell the stream of curses that he knew were building up inside Jessica, when another visitor entered the house. She had long, amber hair and wore a black veil over her head. Her flowing skirt and layers of black lace reminded Eddie of a young Stevie Nicks.

The woman caught their gaze, brushed the veil back and smiled. “Finally, I get to meet the great Eddie Home and Jessica Backman. I’m the one that located you for the Harpers.” She extended a lace-gloved hand to Eddie. “I’m Nina D’arcangela. I look forward to learning more about you.”

“My God, your mind is a thing to behold.”

The voice came unbidden into his head, clear as a bell. Nina winked at him and walked into the great room without a care in the world.

Jessica’s ensuing tirade was lost in the fog of his mind as he tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

Chapter Eighteen

“We’re leaving,” Jessica said, shooting daggers at Daphne and Tobe. She was so incensed, the sharp pain in the back of her skull concerned her. It felt like she was seconds away from popping a major blood vessel for real this time, and not just a figure of speech.

“Please, Jessica, give us a moment to explain,” Tobe Harper said. The man looked crestfallen, standing there with a hand over where his heart should have been.

Jessica jabbed a finger in his direction. “You brought us here under false pretenses. If I knew you were going to have a camera crew, I would have never agreed to come. This isn’t a game. You want to play around out here? I can’t stop you. It’s your house, your damn island. You don’t know what you’re fucking with.”