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The diner was fuller than last time, a little bit louder too, but the volume fell shortly after he entered and people noticed him. Frank the Elder raised a hand, waving.

“Here he is. The celebrity.”

A chair was pulled out for him. The waitress put coffee down without asking.

“My grandson called me from college,” Bill said before Nate had finished sitting. “He never calls, but he wanted to talk about your house, asking if I’d seen the door, can you believe it?”

“Everybody’s seen the door,” said Frank the Younger.

“It’s just the hinge,” Gordon argued. “I keep telling you. There’s nothing there.”

“There’s something there,” Bill said. “We all know there’s something there.”

Evidently, they’d had this argument before. If only they knew what was really there… Nate couldn’t tell them. As much as these old men enjoyed talking about that eerie, creepy sense they got from the house, they’d call Nate crazy if he started telling them about Leo.

“So,” Frank the Elder said. “Is it a stunt?”

Nate drank his coffee. “It’s an old house.”

“That’s a no, then.”

“I don’t do stunts,” Nate insisted, and Frank looked at him a beat too long and let it go.

Walt was in his seat by the window. Coffee, no pie. He’d nodded when Nate came in and hadn’t said anything since.

“People been driving out there,” Frank the Younger said. “We see cars with license plates from out of state coming through. You’re attracting a crowd.”

Nate hadn’t known that. He didn’t like it.

“You’ll want a chain across that drive,” Bill said.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Or a bigger camera,” Gordon said, and got a laugh.

Nate let the laugh settle before he took his phone out. His hand wasn’t quite steady, which annoyed him, because there was nothing to be nervous about. He was going to show these five men a photo. The worst thing that could happen was nothing.

The best thing was that someone would recognize Leo and the ghost would finally have a part of his identity back.

And then Nate could start restoring him in earnest to help him move along.

You can’t keep him.

He pushed the traitorous thought aside.

“I found something in the house,” he said. “Behind a wall upstairs. I’m trying to figure out who it is.”

He held the phone out to Frank the Elder.

Frank took it. Held it at arm’s length, then close, then arm’s length again. “Huh,” he said. “Painting?”

“Yes.”

“Nice work. Who is it?”

“That’s what I would like to know.”

Frank looked a while longer and shook his head and passed the phone to Bill.