Page 36 of Paws & Order

She passes it to me, and I catch a scent.

Faint.

Herbal.

Definitely not from this century.

While she's occupied, I do a subtle circuit of the windows, checking for scratches, new marks, anything.

There's nothing.

Whoever—or whatever—is getting in, it isn't using doors.

I scan the apartment for another hour, then set up motion capture on the fire escape for good measure.

Liza makes me coffee and then, because neither of us can pretend it's a normal day, puts on music and sings along, off-key, to a playlist she built for "emergencies and Mondays."

I watch her.

And for the first time in a very long time, I wish I believed in happily-ever-afters.

Or at least Blackthorn Bay's version of one.

Midafternoon, I get a call from Enoch.

"You need to come in. Both of you."

We drive over.

Liza cracks jokes about ghostly dinner dates andThe Bachelor: Afterlifethe whole way, each one a little more desperate than the last.

I want to say something.

To put a hand over hers and tell her it's going to work out.

But I don't.

When we walk into the office, Enoch looks up from behind a mountain of old files.

"I pulled the original registry logs for your apartment complex. Look what I found."

He slides a yellowed, crumbling page across the desk.

Under layers of dust and a century of questionable filing practices, one name stands out.

Theodore Whitmore.

Liza leans forward.

"Theodore."

Enoch nods.

"Your building was originally a boarding house. Theodore Whitmore owned it in the late nineteenth century. He lived there until his death."

I study the name.

It's the first real lead we've had.