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highlights from whatever had just been said to him and put a sour spin on them.
    “You two should plan on getting some dinner in town tonight, and I’ll make sure to have a few breakfast things around in the morning just in case,” I said, directing my message to Nan for fear that Morgan would repeat “breakfast things” with a disappointed tone.
    The Hendersons went to their room to change for dinner. Melissa wasn’t back from her best friend Wendy’s house yet, so I went to the game room. At one time I could look for the resident ghosts in the attic, where they had often liked to retreat from the usual chaos that occurred on the lower floors, but I’d converted the attic space into a bedroom for Melissa the previous summer, and now I was more likely tofind Paul in the game room or the kitchen, the two areas least often frequented by guests (which led me to think the “game room” might be better suited to another purpose, but I hadn’t yet figured out what that might be).
    Sure enough, I’d found him in there—Maxie was still in the attic, since she considered herself and Melissa to be “roommates”—and had filled him in on the whole askew scenario at my mother’s house.
    “Your father,” Paul mused. “How do you know? Did you recognize his voice?”
    I grimaced to indicate I was unsure. “Not exactly,” I told Paul. “He wasn’t speaking loudly enough for me to really hear his voice clearly. It was more of a murmur through a closed door. I don’t see and hear other ghosts as well as I do you and Maxie.”
    Paul nodded slowly, digesting the information. “You have seen your father at least once since you found us, though,” he reminded me.
    It was true—or at least, I thought it was true. In a moment of extreme duress, not long after I’d met Paul and Maxie, I thought I’d seen—or, more precisely, sensed—my father coming to my rescue. But I hadn’t seen his face at all and heard his voice only briefly. And it was the only time.
    “I don’t know. If he could, why wouldn’t he get in touch with me? Maybe I just wanted to believe it was him,” I said. “I was new to ghosts then.”
    Paul grinned a sly grin. “Not like the pro you are now,” he said. He likes to gently tease me about my limited ghost-seeing abilities.
    “You were a private investigator,” I told him, on the off chance that he’d forgotten. “How would you proceed under these circumstances? Suppose I was hiring you.”
    “To find out what?” Paul asked. “Just go to your mother and ask if she was talking to your father.”
    I shook my head. “Not the way she was acting. This wassomething she honestly didn’t want me to know about. She wasn’t happy that I was there, and you know my mother—she’s always happy that I’m there.”
    Paul tilted his head to the side, which presented an odd image, since he’d been idly listing a little bit that way to begin with. “Yeah,” he said. “That is odd behavior for her.”
    Maxie stuck her head through the ceiling and looked down at us. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Planning more renovations? I have ideas.” Maxie had been a budding decorator in life and never fails to have splashy ideas for projects I either can’t afford or simply don’t want to do.
    “Calm down,” I told her. “The only thing I’m planning on doing is reorganizing the library and maybe trying to widen the doorframe to make it seem roomier. If you have any ideas for that, feel free.”
    She looked disappointed but held up a finger. “Well, I’ve always thought you should—”
    I cut her off. “Shouldn’t you think about it first?”
    “Why?”
    I ignored her and turned my attention back to Paul. “What do you think I should do under the circumstances?” I asked him.
    “I still say asking is the best way to find something out,” he responded. “She’s your mother. She’ll talk to you.”
    “What’s going on with your mother?” Maxie asked with concern. Maxie likes