He stops counting and holds out his hand, an invitation to come out and play.

He flashes me a trickster’s grin, but when I shake my head, his face falls, dropping from a smile into a child’s sneer. The effect is so sudden and eerie that I pull the viewfinder away from my eye. Without it, the street below looks empty again.

And when I get up the courage to lift the camera and look again, Thomas is gone.

The floor trembles and the walls shake, as if the whole hotel is shivering.

I’m crouched on the floor behind a pillar, trying to avoid the debris as it flies across the lobby.

“Jacob, listen to me!” I call out over the sound of rattling picture frames and breaking glass.

He’s curled in on himself in the center of the marble floor, the air around him whipped into a frenzy.

“Stop,” he pleads as water runs from his clothes, dripping onto the marble floor. His hair floats around his face, which is ashen, gray.

“Cassidy!” orders Lara from behind the front desk. “You have to send him on.”

No. I can still save him.

I grip my camera, take a deep breath, and lunge out from the shelter of the pillar, already turning the lens on Jacob. I hit the flash, hoping the burst of light will jar him loose, bring him back to his senses. But the function on the camera jams, and before I can try again, a violent gust snaps the strap and rips the camera from my hands. It slams into the far wall with a sickening crunch. No, no, no.

A gust of wind shoves me backward, and I struggle to stay on my feet.

“Jacob!” I shout as the ceiling cracks and splits, raining down dust.

The hotel shakes around us, as if it’s about to come down.

“Stop,” Jacob says, finally lifting his head. “Stop me.”

And when looks at me, his eyes are glowing, no longer blue but red.

I sit up with a lurch, my heart racing.

Sunlight streams in through the curtains, and through Jacob, who’s perched cross-legged at the end of my bed.

“You should see your hair, Cass.” He runs his hands through his own, making it stand on end.

“You know it’s super creepy,” I say, “when you watch me sleep.”

Jacob hops up, leaving the barest mark on the comforter. “I wasn’t watching you sleep. I was trying to wake you up.” He points at the phone on my bedside table. “It was going off. Lara kept calling.” He pokes the cell, his fingers going straight through the screen. “Trust me, if I could hang up on her, I would.”

I scramble up and grab the phone, scrolling through the texts.

Lara:

I found something—or rather someone.

Lara:

Call me.

Lara:

It’s important.

“Who uses proper punctuation in a text?” says Jacob.

“Uh-huh,” I say half-heartedly, still shaken from the dream.

“You okay?” he asks, eyeing me. “You seem … off.”

“I’m fine,” I answer quickly, my stomach dropping even as I say the words. Second rule of friendship: No lies.

I hit call.

“Finally,” says Lara.

“Do you ever sleep?” I ask, rubbing my eyes.

“I get the requisite seven to eight hours,” says Lara, “though I confess I’ve always functioned better on seven.”

“Cass!” calls Mom, rapping her knuckles on the door even though it’s ajar. “We’re heading down to the salon for breakfast. You ready?”

I put my hand over the phone. “I’ll meet you there!” I call back. “I need a few more minutes.”

“Don’t go back to sleep!” warns Dad.

“I won’t.”

It took me ages to fall asleep last night after the Thomas sighting, and between that and the dream, I feel wide-awake.

“What dream?” asks Jacob, reading my thoughts.

I shake my head, pushing the nightmare to the back of my mind.

“And you saw the creepy kid?” he presses.

“Hello?” says Lara. “Earth to Cassidy.”

“Sorry,” I say, turning my attention back to the phone. “What were you saying?”

“Only that I have a lead for you. You’re very welcome.”

“You’re supposed to say that after I say thanks. What’s the lead?”

“Okay, so the bad news is that there’s no information on Thomas Alain Laurent, besides what you already know.”

“Talk about a literal dead end,” muses Jacob.

“Yes,” says Lara, “but not really a surprise. He did die a hundred years before the invention of the internet. But I found something. Thomas’s older brother, Richard.”

My heart does a flip. “He’s still alive?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Lara. “But he did stay in Paris. Now, French names have far less variance than, say, American ones—there are a thousand Laurents—but thankfully Thomas and Richard’s parents had pretty unusual prénoms; that means first names—”

“Can we fast-forward?” I ask, desperate for a lead.

“Fine,” snaps Lara. “I’m pretty sure I found them. Your Laurents. Richard died thirty years ago, at the ripe old age of eighty-nine, but his granddaughter, Sylvaine, still lives in the city. I’m texting you her address. Maybe she knows the full story. Maybe she even has something that can help jog Thomas’s memory.”

“Lara,” I say. “You are amazing.”

“I know,” she says, “but this wasn’t terribly difficult. You’d be surprised what you can find if you know how to look. My school teaches fairly rigorous research methods.”

“Is there anything your school doesn’t teach?”

“Apparently how to hunt a poltergeist.”

Jacob makes a gasping sound. “Lara Chowdhury, did you just make a joke?”

I can almost hear Lara smile. “Anyway,” she says. “Good luck. And be careful.”

“You don’t have to say that every time.”

“You’d think not,” she says. “And yet.”

The call ends, the screen replaced by Lara’s text bubble with the address of a Madame Sylvaine Laurent in the eleventh arrondissement.

I have a lead.

Now I just have to convince my parents to let me follow it.

We’re having breakfast down in the salon when I bring it up, and in the end, it’s easier than I expected.

Dad preens when I tell him about a break in the case, clearly excited to have a budding sleuth in the family. But Mom, for once, seems wary.

“Where’s this sudden interest coming from?”

I look down at my croissant.

“Well,” I say, “I know you asked me to take photos for the show, but I also started thinking about the people whose stories don’t make the show. I wanted to learn more about them, and something about this Thomas boy just stuck with me. I can’t shake the feeling there’s more to his story,” I finish, hoping it doesn’t sound like I practiced that in the mirror. Several times.

“I’m sure it’s a very interesting tale, Cass,” says Mom, “and good on you for digging deeper. But our schedule here is so tight. It’s our last day to film and—”