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Miriam would say that it was Nate’s job to convince Leo that staying was not an option.

But Nate was not his mother and he didn’t have the words—or her conviction.

“I know you’re not an object,” he said.

“Good.” Leo nodded again, a little more self-righteously this time.

Nate looked at him for a moment longer before turning away. “I should take some pictures of your portrait to take into town.”

He went into the sitting room without waiting to see if Leo followed. The painting was still on the mantel where they’d put it.

Nate stood back and took a picture with his phone.

The light was wrong. He opened the curtains all the way and tried again. Now there was too much glare. He moved to the other side of the painting.

Better.

Leo floated in. He stood next to the mantel, next to his own face, and looked at the phone in Nate’s hands. “Are you happy with your work?”

“It’s not perfect, but it looks like you.”

Leo turned to the painting. “If you say so.”

Nate took another picture, trying to capture the ghost next to his likeness. It didn’t work, of course. On the screen, the painting sat alone on the mantel in the morning light. Leo wasn’t in the picture.

He wasn’t real—to most of the world. And Nate had spent most of his life learning to pretend this was fact.

Ghosts are not real.

Let them drown.

Leo looked at him. “Do you really think someone will recognize me?”

“I hope so,” Nate said, hearing the honesty in his own words.

Leo was real.

And Nate did not want him to drown.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

Diane looked at the photo for only a moment.

“Handsome,” she said, and handed the phone back. “Never seen him, though. Where’d you find that painting?”

“Upstairs. Behind a wall.”

“Hm.” She pushed her glasses up into her hair. “My nephew says you’ve got a ghost now.”

“People get excited easily. It’s only the house settling.”

“I’m sure.” She rang up his wood filler. “He also says half the internet thinks there’s a body in your cellar. Are you going to dig it up on camera?”

“There’s no body.”

“Well. That’s a shame for your numbers.”