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“You think there’s really a corpse down there?”

“No. But Leo doesn’t like it when people approach the basement.”

Something flickered across Caleb’s expression. Did he think it was silly that Nate accommodated Leo this way?

A few weeks ago, Nate might have thought it silly.

“I understand,” Caleb said, following Nate through the house.

There wasn’t much Nate could show him. The dining room with its opened wall, the hallway with the stripped wallpaper. Caleb looked at everything quietly, hands in his pockets, asking how long it would take to finish all the work. Nate replied honestly that he wasn’t sure.

Leo followed them the entire time, staying close to the ceiling, watching Caleb as if to make sure the man didn’t steal anything.

He still didn’t like people strolling his house.

After a few minutes, they ended their tour in the sitting room.

Nate went in first. His sleeping bag still lay against the wall, and Bartholomew sat beside the pillow. Caleb took that in without comment, which was more mercy than Jonah would have shown.

Then he saw the mantel, and the painting sitting on it.

“It got damaged,” Nate said. “It’s being repaired.”

Caleb didn’t seem to hear him. “You painted the ghost?”

“He’s worth painting, don’t you think?”

Caleb’s gaze didn’t move off the painting. He was looking at the scratch. “How did it get damaged?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

For a moment, Caleb looked as if he was going to insist, but then he turned away from the painting. “Well, I’m sure you can fix it. You should. It’s a good painting. You always could draw.”

That said, Caleb turned a slow circle in the sitting room, the way he’d done in the foyer. His gaze passed over the sleeping bag again. The seal. The armchair.

“You’re still sleeping down here?”

“The upstairs rooms aren’t done.”

“Right.” Caleb nodded and didn’t say anything else about it. He wandered to the window and looked out at the drive, at his own dusty sedan behind Nate’s truck. “So. I would like to take a look at your ghost.”

“A look?”

Caleb turned. “Just a short examination.”

“No,” Leo said.

Caleb looked in Leo’s direction. “It wouldn’t hurt. I can sense that you’re getting stronger, and I’d like to see how strong.”

“No,” Leo repeated, though he preened a bit at the mention that he was getting stronger. “I don’t want you poking around in me. The last person who did that said I was torn and ruined my whole evening.”

“Okay.” Caleb accepted this with a small nod, hands back in his pockets. If he was disappointed, it didn’t show. “It was worth asking.”

“You can tell my mother I have things under control and the ghost is recovering,” Nate said. “As you said, he’s getting stronger.”

“Yes.” Caleb looked around the sitting room once more, and his gaze caught on the painting again on its way past. It didn’t linger this time. “How’s the research going, then? Anything on who he was?”

“We’re working on it.”