“And you’re sure that you need to go to this warehouse?” my mother’s tinny voice rang through the speaker of the phone as I ran mascara over my eyelashes one last time. “You couldn’t just call them and see if they have the ghost of a small child that lives in the building?”

“Luke and Liam didn’t mention it in their video, so I’m sure that none of them have noticed anything. You know it’s a rare skill anyway.”

“It still seems like a long way to go for the potential of finding something. I’m sure Poe will miss you!”

I sighed, looking over at the black cat sitting next to me on my bathroom vanity, purposely looking in the other direction so that it might seem that he had just accidentally chosen to stay in the same room. I had found him as a kitten in an old, abandoned house that I was cleansing, and when I asked the owner about him, he had said that he’d never seen a cat there before, and he’d better not be there by the time he got back. And so, he came home with me. He proved relatively helpful to have around - he certainly wasn’t the brightest, but one time, I had accidentally brought a spirit back to me that I hadn’t yet noticed, and he didn’t leave me alone until I got the spirit to go into the light. Plus, he was soft and loved to cuddle. “I’m sure he will, but he’s gotten used to me being gone for work. And you know he would love to see grandma for a couple of days.”

“Well, alright sweetheart.” I screwed the top of my mascara into place and started on my black lipstick. “Just make sure you keep the police updated so they don’t think you’re breaking in.”

“I know. I haven’t gotten caught breaking into anywhere yet!” I joked.

“And don’t let this be the start. One conviction and I’m sure you won’t be able to get any more jobs with the police.” Personally, I highly doubted it, but I wasn’t about to start arguing with her on that point. While I’m sure the police wouldn’t enjoy it if I suddenly had a record for breaking and entering, they only called me when it was their absolutely last option. Record or not, sometimes the only way to get cases solved was to ask the victims, and if they wanted to keep their record for the number of solved cases, they kind of had to deal with me. “I’ll be over tomorrow to take care of him. Stay safe!”

“I will!” I put the last touches on my lips before I hung up the phone, switching quick over to messages. I had heard a few notifications while I was on the phone with my mother, and I was hoping that the owner of the Peter’s building would get back to me, but regardless, it was only a couple of hours drive, and I could definitely get there and check into my hotel before midnight.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I had no new text messages, though. Confused, I checked my notifications and saw I had a new DM on Instagram.

I felt my pulse start to race as I waited for the app to load. I had reached out to Luke and Liam’s account on Instagram as one last hail Mary and they happened to have the phone number of the owner of the building, just in case the building hadn’t gotten back to me. I’d done that every time I’d gone on a haunting investigation based of a YouTube video, and I’d never gotten a response back from any of them. Granted, half the time, I didn’t get a response for the building owner, either, and the other half of the time, I had to convince them to let me come in and remove the ghosts. A lot of the time, they don’t actually want their locations to be free from ghostly activity, because then people will stop renting them for ghost hunts, but I always explain that the activity that they’re picking up isn’t actually from the ghosts anyway. Sometimes they believe me and let me in. Other times, they don’t.

But this time, Luke and Liam answered. Or, well, whoever probably runs their account answered.

“Hey Andromeda! Yes, we did recently post our video from the Peter’s Building. Our actual filming of the location took place at an earlier date, however. I will check with the boys to see if they still have the owner’s contact information, but in the meantime, I am interested in hearing more about what you saw and what your connection to this particular building is. Can you please contact me at the number below at your earliest convenience? Thanks - Caitlin, Account Manager.”

I nearly dropped my phone when I read the message. Shit. The account manager wanted to know more about what I saw? Aside from my mother, it’s been damned near impossible to get anyone to believe me when I tell them what I see, and now the manager of a famous ghost-hunting group wanted to hear about it? There was no way this was going to end well - there was probably a zero percent chance that she would believe me anyway, and if she did, I’m sure she’d do whatever she could to make sure I stayed quiet about it. After all, there was nothing that would kill the channel’s buzz more than being told that it was all fake.

I googled the channel name and Caitlin, hoping that it would bring up something that might prove that she might be a skeptic. After a quick search, there was nothing of the sort that I could see - in fact, it didn’t seem like there were very many pictures of her at all. She was in a couple of pictures along with Luke and Liam at what looked like an award show, but other than that, it looked like she’d mostly kept herself off the radar.

I cursed myself silently. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to reach out to the channel - yeah, nothing back had happened up until that point, but there was no way that a channel (especially an award-winning channel, apparently) would want to jeopardize their future over the possibility of saving a spirit.

I stared at the picture of the three of them at the awards show. Caitlin looked quite nice - or at the very least, she didn’t look like she’d immediately tear me down if I jeopardized their channel. Or maybe she’d give me enough time for me to explain that I had no interest in jeopardizing anything - even if it was confirmed that the whole this was 100% false, I wasn’t interested in telling anyone that. I just wanted to help out the spirits and find out what was going on with that ghost of a young girl.

Fuck it, I thought, as I clicked the button to make the call. She had my name and could probably find me anyway if she really wanted to. I may just be speeding up my own destruction, but at least I’d go out trying my best to help.