Came Back Haunted (Experiment in Terror #10) - Karina Halle Page 0,70

encounters. We’ve only seen him at the house, nowhere else. Never seen him get in a car or an Uber. Never seen him beyond the property. He just always sort of…appears. Beyond cryptic and creepy too.

“He could be,” I say. “But…it doesn’t make sense. If he’s dead, what does he need us for?”

“To open the Veil to get his mother out. Look at the ginger bastard. He can only do so much.”

“But Atlas has a phone. What ghost has a cell phone?”

Dex shrugs. “I don’t fucking know. The millennial ones? What I do know is we need to talk to him and we’re not going back in that house until we do.”

“Dex, come on. We can’t do that to our friend.” Then again, with Dex so mad at me up until now, we’ve never really had a chance to discuss Maximus together. I mean, wow, there’s a lot to unpack right there.

He gives me a slight nod. “You’re right. But we still have to talk to Atlas first. I have to know who his mother is.”

“Well, if you can’t find anything about Atlas online, maybe you can find something on Samantha?” I point out.

He agrees, walking past me into the den. I follow, taking a seat beside a napping Fat Rabbit on the twin bed while Dex pulls up Google on the computer.

We find an old Facebook profile belonging to her, but it’s private and locked down. Her profile picture is one of a casket though, which is jarring. I’m assuming that after she died, either Harry or Atlas took over the account and that was their way of letting people know she was dead? Either way, creepy.

Then I remember what Maximus said about her being a witch. I get Dex to type in “Samantha Poe witch” figuring it’s a long shot, but lo and behold some public Instagram page for Washington State Wiccas comes up. Apparently about ten years ago Samantha Poe was part of leading an intensive three-day program in the Olympic Peninsula about elemental witchcraft.

“That could be something,” I say.

“Could be. Could be there are a million witches named Samantha Poe. I mean, come on. If you were a witch, wouldn’t you pick that name?”

“Are witches even real though?”

“Are ghosts real? Sasquatch? Zombies? Come on, kiddo, you know better than that.”

You’d think I would.

“So now what?” I say.

“We just have to keep trying Atlas.”

“Well, when is Harry’s funeral? Why don’t we keep an eye on the obituary columns and see when it is? Then we can show up, see if we spot Atlas.”

“Providing he’s not a ghost.”

“Even if he is a ghost, he still might be there and we’ll still be able to confront him.”

“I like the way you think,” he says. “In the meantime, have you tried Rose yet? Can’t forget about her.”

“It slipped my mind,” I admit. Nearly dying at the hands of a dead witch in a shower stall at the gym will do that to you. I head into the living room to grab my phone from my coat (remembering now that I left my favorite water bottle at the gym), then come back into the den, scrolling through my contacts until I find Rose’s number.

It’s so fucking weird. The last texts I sent to Rose were over three years ago; I’d ended up sending five in a row after she stopped responding to me. I had first called her on the phone to deliver the awful message that Maximus had died. That phone call broke me.

Then after the fact, I tried to keep in touch, to know how she was doing.

My eyes drift over her last text to me: I knew he should have never left, never gone to New York. He’d still be alive.

AKA, if it wasn’t for me flipping out because Dex had gone missing, Maximus would have never come to help, and never would have died.

I responded to that, asking for forgiveness, telling her I was sorry.

I texted for a few weeks.

Nothing.

Now I’m about to text her again. Better news this time, I hope, but what the hell do I say? Your boyfriend’s back and you’re going to be in trouble?

I end up texting: Hey Rose, I hope this is still your phone. It’s Perry. I have some information about Max that you need to hear. Please let me know if we can talk on the phone.

I push send, wondering if it will reach her.

After I send the text, I decide to text the other blonde who won’t talk