A business card sat on Eve’s kitchen table under a rock—from the lake, gray so dark it was nearly black, smooth, shaped like a pear—and Eve pointedly ignored it while she heated her leftover delivery fried rice. She hadn’t put it there; it had been forgotten in the pocket of a pair of shorts. Which meant that Chelsea was nagging again.

Eve’d been home for a few hours since she and Jon had gone to the North Henge, and in that time had barely managed to get one order finished. Her mind kept straying to the henge runes and the “spell.” At least she wasn’t so tired anymore—she was back to normal ghost-sucking levels of energy. She had put on a sweatshirt, though. The apartment was always cold, now, even on the hottest days.

Harvey sat next to the card and poked at it with a gentle paw. He meowed. Eve didn’t look at him or the card. He stood up and meowed again, this time for 9 continuous seconds. Eve timed it.

“Damn,” she said, “the lung capacity.” Harvey looked at her with the kind of judgmental stare only cats and nosy old ladies could manage. “You’re as bad as Chelsea. I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

Detective Ishida had asked her to call if she had any information, after all, when they’d talked at the beach a week ago. Though, considering how Jon had found the medical examiner’s report in the trash, giving the cops more information was unlikely to help. But, her reaction might give Eve something to work with, and part of Eve wanted to believe Ishida was still trying to solve the case.

Eve dialed the number and listened to the ringing.

“Ishida,” said a raspy voice on the phone.

Eve suppressed a yawn. “Hi, this is Eve Donnelly, I had a thought about the Chelsea Horton case. Is this a good time to talk to you about it?” she said.

“Yes!” Ishida said. “Of course. Just give me one second to grab a pen.” Eve could hear Ishida rustling on her end and wondered if she was at the station. Was it Ishida herself who was tampering with evidence? Or did Kyle have a different cop under his thumb? After a few seconds, she spoke again. “I’m ready. What did you want to tell me?”

“Chelsea’s boyfriend, Kyle, talked to me the day I found her body,” she said. Ishida hummed. “You know how she had bite marks on her? He specifically asked me if she’d been bitten.”

“Okay,” Ishida said. “And what did you tell him?”

“I told him it was a weird question.” Eve rested her elbows on the table. Harvey stared at her and sniffed delicately. “He acted like I’d said yes, though. And, uh.” Eve frowned, not wanting to say the words out loud to the detective. “He used it as support for his werewolf theory.”

Ishida sighed. “Yeah, he’s mentioned that to me.”

“But like, my point is, I didn’t say she’d been bitten.”

Ishida sighed again. “And how would he have known, if he didn’t see her body?” she said. “That is odd. He has an alibi for the night she went missing.” Eve heard papers flipping on the other end. “But I can’t remember what it was. Where did his statement go?”

Eve pursed her lips. Exactly how much evidence had Kyle tossed?

Ishida sucked in a breath. “Well, I’ll make a note of what you told me and double-check Kyle’s alibi. Thanks for letting me know.” She paused, and Eve was about to hang up when she spoke again. “I knew something was off about him,” she said. “Thanks again.”

Eve stared at her phone. Ishida hadn’t seemed at all surprised by Eve’s information. But whatever that meant, she needed to let Ezra and Jon know.

“Cops lost Kyle’s statement,” Eve texted to the group chat labeled “Ghost Nerds (and Eve).”

She looked at Harvey and around the room. There was no sign of Chelsea. “Can I eat now? Thank you.” She sat down, and her phone dinged.

“That seems like something they should be keeping in Evidence,” Ezra had replied.

Jon sent the eyes emoji. Then, a moment later: “we should meet up. can we come to your house Eve?”

Eve sighed. “Whatever,” she wrote. “The door is unlocked, don’t bother knocking.”

By the time Jon showed up, Eve was done with her food. She hunched over her desk, working on the henge rune translation. Harvey perched on the back of her chair, which he was much too big to do, and trilled when Jon walked in. Eve didn’t look, just waved the hand not holding her head up and kept working. He sat down on the couch behind her and started typing on his laptop. Eve was so close to a translation, it felt like the words were lurking at the outskirts of her mind, like an introvert at a party. If she looked too closely at them, they skittered off and she was left with nothing but vague impressions.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Ezra half-knocked as he opened the door, which was honestly better than Eve had expected. She’d just turned to yell at the door when he walked in, and she shut her mouth. He was back to his nerd attire, which Eve figured could be explained by the huge bite scar on his shoulder and neck. Then again, he could have worn high collars and not fully assimilated the nerd-hood into his personality, so he probably had always been a nerd. And Jon was leaning across the back of the couch, looking at Ezra with the dopiest smile Eve had seen since her dad last looked at her mom.

Ezra waved as he toed off his shoes and stepped in. “I hope I’m not too late, I had lasagna in the oven when you texted.”

“I said to come whenever,” Eve said. She turned fully in her chair and sighed, scrubbing at her forehead. “I need a break from these stupid runes.”

Jon straightened up and closed his laptop. “Then let’s begin the next official meeting of the Ghost Nerds,” he said.

“And Eve.” Eve stared at him.

“Right,” Jon said. “The Ghost Nerds.” Ezra snickered behind a hand, heading to the kitchen and straight for Chelsea’s yellow kettle, still steaming. Chelsea seemed to like to keep it hot, which Eve guessed was nice because she could make coffee whenever she wanted.

“I’ll curse you,” Eve said, narrowing her eyes. Jon laughed.

“By the way,” Ezra said, “can we change the name of the chat?”

“What’s wrong with my name?” Eve asked. She stood and stretched, walking to the kitchen for one last cup of coffee. “It fits perfectly.”

“What about our names?” Ezra said. “Or our initials, or something more informative than ‘Ghost Nerds’.”

“And Eve,” Eve said automatically. She pointed at Jon: “Ghost.” Then at Ezra: “Nerd.” And finally at herself. “Eve.” She held out her mug with instant coffee powder in it and looked at the steaming kettle Ezra was pouring over his mug of tea.

He pursed his lips at her coffee but poured water for her anyway, setting the kettle primly back on the stove. It wasn’t even on.

“I’m just saying, I would have named it EE&J or something.”

“JEE,” Jon suggested. He gasped, then cackled. Eve dreaded what came next: “The Heebie-JEEbies!” he said.

“No, absolutely not,” Eve said, her voice drowned out by Jon’s laughter.

Ezra laughed and sat down at the kitchen table. “I like it.”

“I hate it,” Eve said. “Vetoed.” She leaned against the counter and crossed her arms.

Jon brought his duffle bag to the table and sat down. “You’d rather be the Ghost Nerds?” he said, casting a sly glance at Eve.

“And Eve,” Eve said. And then she said, “Fuck off.”

Jon cackled again.

“Anyway,” Eve spoke over him. “I have actual important things to talk about.”

Ezra’s face straightened, and he nodded. He pulled out his notepad and turned his focused gaze to Eve. “Right. What exactly happened?”

Eve repeated the phone call with Ishida, and Ezra dutifully took notes.

Jon grinned as he pulled the folder with the medical examiner’s report out of his bag. “Speaking of missing evidence, I also have updates.”

“What is that?” Ezra asked hesitantly, staring at Jon with wide eyes and an air of terror.

“The medical examiner’s report on the autopsy,” Jon said. He opened the folder, and Ezra’s eyes locked onto the papers.

“How did you get that?” he whispered, clutching his metaphorical pearls and his literal notepad. The paper scrunched in his hands.

“I happened to be at the police station,” Jon said, glancing sidelong at Eve, “and pulled it out of a recycling bin. I figured they wouldn’t miss it.”

“Jon!” Ezra hissed. “I can’t believe you broke into a police station. You’re gonna get arrested!” Then he looked at Eve. “Tell me you weren’t involved.”

Eve just managed to keep a straight face. “I stayed in the car.”

Ezra looked thoroughly scandalized. “I can’t believe you two! And why was evidence in the recycling?”

“For the same reason Kyle’s statement is missing, I’d guess,” Eve said. “Maybe we should go back and check in the paper shredder.”

“You—“ Ezra said, his voice strangled.

“Kyle probably hypnotized the cops the same way he did you and Jon,” Eve interrupted him.

“More importantly,” Jon said, poking the papers into Ezra’s face, “the bite wounds were not animal or human.” Ezra stopped looking so scandalized and blinked, opening his mouth. “You didn’t kill Chelsea. Eve and I both saw your teeth; if it had been you, the bites would’ve been listed as wolf bites.”

“The police never even talked to me,” Ezra said quietly. “Almost no one knew I was close to Chelsea. And—“ he pressed his lips into a line and his hands into the tabletop. “I don’t know what I was doing that night.”

“The full moon,” Jon said. Ezra nodded.

“But we know it wasn’t you,” Eve said. She didn’t bother to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “So stop worrying about it. I saw the body firsthand. We have the report. And you were locked up in your garage. Have you ever gotten out before?” When he opened his mouth she cut him off. “Not counting mind-controlled times.”

“Never,” he said. “But what if I was being controlled then, too?”

Eve scowled at him. “Like I already said, stupid, the bite marks on Chelsea were not animal. You did not kill her. Stop feeling guilty for something you didn’t do, or I’ll come up with worse things to call you than stupid.”

He looked up at her, a grateful sort of hope in his eyes. “Scary,” he said, sniffing. A breeze wafted across the table toward him, and Ezra’s eyes widened. Eve could almost see an invisible hand pat down on his head, flattening his curls. “Thanks, Chels,” he whispered.