Betrayal - By Lee Nichols Page 0,3

over from England and the wheel was on the right.

“It was my fault,” I finally said. “Both their deaths were.”

I’d not only lost Coby, but Martha, who’d been Bennett’s nanny growing up. I was amazed he was still talking to me.

“Emma, Neos killed them. Not you.”

“If he hadn’t been after me—”

“Is it also your fault Neos murdered Olivia?”

I flinched. “Your sister died three blocks from my house.”

Bennett pulled away from the curb, and I sat there miserably, holding my cold fingers to the heating vents. Had he not made that connection between me and Olivia’s death?

“Say something,” I said.

He glanced at me, then forced his eyes back to the road. “You’re right about one thing—if Neos hadn’t been after you, Coby and Martha would still be alive. But you didn’t pull the trigger, Emma; that’s like blaming a deer for a hunting accident. Neos didn’t kill my sister because of you. And what’s the alternative? That you’re dead and they’re not?”

He placed his hand on the seat beside me but didn’t quite touch me. He wore a thick silver band on one finger, and I traced it with my fingertip, carefully not touching his skin, wondering if his hands were always that warm.

“I’m sorry they’re dead,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re alive.”

He turned into the museum gates and drove down the maple-lined drive toward his family home, a Federal-period house that during the summer was a museum open to the public. I’d been staying there with Bennett and our friend Natalie, also a ghostkeeper, since Coby’s death. We’d basically shut out the rest of the world after losing so much to Neos.

“We need to find him,” I said.

“Yeah,” Bennett agreed. “Find him and dispel him.”

He parked, and I watched him walk around to my side, liking everything about him. His voice, the way he moved, the way he dressed in boho-preppy clothing that you only ever saw on New England college kids. But mostly I loved who he was, that he was loyal and protective. He even opened my door—such a gentleman.

“It’s going to be okay, Emma. We’re going to stop him. Together.”

Bennett had once told me that when Neos was gone, he’d be with me, even if that meant losing his ghostkeeping abilities. I followed him into the house, wanting to touch him, to press myself against him—but how do you ask someone to make that kind of sacrifice? Unlike me, Bennett had been raised as a ghostkeeper; it was all he’d ever known.

Could I really ask him to give that up? Would he be the same guy I fell for without it?

2

I didn’t think I’d ever tire of walking into the museum. The French blue, sea green, and pale yellow palette of the walls and furnishings always comforted me, along with the hearty scent that wafted in from the kitchen.

Bennett leafed through the mail, then asked if I’d be ready to leave in a couple of hours. “I know the timing’s not great, so soon after the funeral, but they’re expecting us.”

“They” were the Knell, the covert society that ruled the ghostkeeping world. Actually, I wasn’t exactly sure what they did. Sometimes they sounded like the secret police, other times like a crazy cult. Bennett had made an appointment for us to meet them at their headquarters in Manhattan.

“They’re really going to help us?”

He nodded. “This is what they do. They’ve been investigating Neos, and Yoshiro knows more about this stuff than anyone.”

“Who’s Yoshiro?”

“The leader of the Knell. Not the friendliest guy in the world, but he’ll know exactly how to beat Neos.”

I brushed at the mud on my coat, thinking about the Knell. “Is it like CONTROL in that Get Smart movie?”

“No,” Bennett said. “Although they do have the Cone of Silence.”

My eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Yeah, and you enter the building through—”

“A telephone booth?”

“Porta-potty.”

“Oh, ha-ha.”

He smiled. “Are you going to be ready to hit the train at three?”

“As long as I can eat first,” I said, starting upstairs to pack. “Though I’d be faster if you had a shoe phone.”

He turned back to the mail. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I smiled, but my stomach soured. I didn’t want to go. The Knell and I didn’t exactly have a cordial relationship. Admittedly, the only members I knew were Bennett and Natalie, who were also my only friends at the moment. But back in San Francisco, the Knell had ordered Natalie to get me into trouble with the cops, and Bennett to play my savior. It’d taken