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“When was this?” I ask.

“About six years ago.”

“Before the accident.”

“Yes.”

I look back at the picture. Ben’s grin is wide, reckless, alive enough to hurt.

I hand the photo back and he tucks it away like treasure.

“What do you want?” I ask, but the wary edge has left my voice.

His gaze returns to mine. “To help find Maggie.”

There it is.

The other name that can still make me open doors I shouldn’t.

I hesitate, then I undo the chain.

When I open the door fully, he steps back slightly instead of forward, giving me space. Another point in his favor, though I resent awarding them.

“Lucy’s asleep,” I say. “If you wake her, I’ll kill you.”

His gaze flicks up the stairs visible behind me. “Understood.”

“You think I’m joking?”

“No.”

I believe him, step aside, and let him in.

He enters carefully, as if aware the house is full of ghosts with opinions. He’s even bigger inside. The doorway seems relieved when he clears it. He removes his boots without being asked, setting them neatly on the mat.

That surprises me.

He catches me looking.

“Ben would haunt me if I tracked mud in.”

My chest tightens again.

I close the door and lock it. “Ben tracked mud everywhere.”

“Yeah. Then complained when anyone else did it.”

“Sounds like him.”

Briggs’s gaze moves around the entryway. I can see him taking in the crooked coat hooks, the old umbrella stand, the scuffed floorboards. The places where paint has chipped near the baseboards. The framed print Maggie picked out when we were teenagers because she thought it looked “haunted but classy.”

“Living room,” I say.

He follows me in.

I move the sock from the couch this time and gesture vaguely. He doesn’t sit right away. His eyes go to the bookshelves, the fireplace, the framed photo on the mantel of Ben with Maggie and me when we were kids.

I hate that picture now. Not because of how happy we look. Because we look too happy. It’s like evidence of a life that belonged to someone else.