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in the EMF readings, no fluctuations in temperature, nothing on the K-2 meter or Frank’s Box. Nothing, nada, zilch.”
    “Then why not give up?”
    “Because something is here.” His voice dropped and Ree sensed a tremor of excitement go through him. “Can’t you feel it? It’s like an echo…a vibration…”
    Ree felt something when he looked at her like that. “But no ghosts,” she said.
    He shrugged.
    “Maybe you don’t hear them because they don’t exist.”
    “A nonbeliever, I take it.”
    “Have you ever seen one?”
    “No,” he admitted.
    “Heard one?”
    “Debatable.”
    “And yet you still believe.”
    He didn’t say anything to that, but merely gazed down at her. He looked pale and very mysterious in the moonlight. Ree trembled in spite of herself.
    “Tell me about your dream,” he finally said.
    She really didn’t want to talk about it, especially with him, but the moment he took her arm, she was lost. An odd bond had formed between them, one she still didn’t fully trust. But neither could she ignore it. She dropped down on the steps of the mausoleum beside him, and for some reason, it didn’t seem so strange anymore. He was easy to talk to, a very good listener, and Ree found herself telling him about some of the things she’d experienced since Miss Violet’s death, carefully skirting the blackmail scheme. If that somehow got back to Dr. Farrante, he’d suspect she was the source and she shuddered to think how far he might go to protect his work and his family’s legacy.
    “You think Miss Violet’s death somehow triggered the dream?” Hayden asked when she was finished.
    “Probably. But she wasn’t the young woman in the blue dress. I’m almost certain of that. I think that woman was her mother, Ilsa. According to the inscription in the book, Ilsa was ten years old in 1915. Violet was well into her eighties when she died, which means she would have been born in the early twenties when Ilsa was a teenager.”
    “How do you suppose Violet ended up in the psychiatric hospital?”
    “I have no idea. But she was there for years. As long as anyone on staff can remember. I think her confinement was somehow connected to her mother. Something bad happened to Ilsa in this cemetery.”
    “You said you heard chanting in your dream. Could you tell what they were saying?”
    “Not really. I had the sense that it was some sort of ritual, but it was just a dream.”
    “And yet here you are.”
    Here he was, too. Ree had to wonder about a man who could seem so completely at ease in an abandoned cemetery in the dead of night.
    “It’s possible Ilsa is trying to communicate with you,” he said.
    “Through my dream?”
    “Have you had any other unusual experiences? Cold spots, electrical surges, anything like that?”
    Ree thought about the radio playing in her bedroom and the stopped clock beside Violet’s bed. She thought about the frosted windows, the musty smell in her apartment, the sensation of someone behind her. And she drew a shaky breath.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
    “Noted.”
    “But…ever since Violet died, I’ve had this sensation of being followed, of needing to glance over my shoulder. And I’ve been hearing this strange song. It’s so haunting. Like a lost memory.”
    “Go on.”
    “That’s pretty much it. It’s all just my imagination, of course. I’ve been working too hard and I’m under a lot of pressure with my thesis. The mind can play tricks when exhausted.”
    “Are you sure that’s all it is?”
    She hugged her arms around her middle. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
    “Before tonight, you probably thought sleepwalking in an old graveyard pretty unlikely.”
    “That’s different.” But an icy finger traced along Ree’s spine. “Do you really think I’m experiencing some sort of paranormal activity?”
    He turned to gaze out over the crumbling graveyard. “I think there are a lot of things in this