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Ezra looks at Theo. “She was absolutely going to climb.”

“I have excellent reach.”

Theo smiles. “You’re five foot five. Let me get it for you.”

“Okay, then. Thank you for the assist.” I hug the survey box to my chest and continue down the hall.

The next room is a narrow conservatory with long windows facing the channel. Ferns crowd the corners. Clay pots line the sills, and sunlight gleams across damp leaves.

Ezra steps inside and exhales. His body settles more fully into itself.

I watch the change move across him. “You feel better here.”

“Much.”

“How much?”

“Enough that I can do this.” He plucks my pen from behind my ear.

I gasp and reach for it. He holds it above my head, grinning.

“You’re taller than I expected for a ghost.”

“Fading man,” he corrects. “Ghost feels premature.”

Theo takes the pen from Ezra and returns it to me.

Ezra presses a hand to his chest. “Betrayed in my own home.”

“You stole from our guest.”

“I was flirting.”

My face warms.

Theo’s gaze shifts to mine, heavy and quiet.

Ezra's grin softens. “Also, the pen made me feel powerful.”

I tuck the pen into my notebook. “You can borrow it when you answer more questions.”

“Cruel scientist.”

A third knock travels through the wall beside the conservatory door.

We all turn.

This one was softer, almost polite. I step into the hall and follow the sound toward the rear of the house. Theo stays close enough that his purr vibrates through my back. Ezra moves ahead, solid near the water, opening doors as we go.

The first reveals a laundry room. The second holds cleaning supplies and a broom that falls outward before Ezra catches it.

“Possessed?” I ask.

“Poor shelving,” Theo says.

The third door opens into a bright studio with a day bed. A long worktable runs beneath the windows. Tablets, brushes, camera lenses, and stacks of printed landscapes cover the table’s surface. The walls hold photographs and digital compositions of Sweetheart Haven at dusk, the cemetery under rain, the channel lit by moonlight.

I walk in, set down my records box, and lose the next several minutes. Every image pulls me farther. Ezra has captured the town without polishing away its strange corners. Water shines where tourists never look. Cypress roots resemble clasped hands. The cemetery paths curve through fog like half-remembered sentences.