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But that was the plan, wasn’t it? The strangers would see a door, argue about a draft, and pay for the roof—without ever knowing about him.

“Leo?” Nate had the camera off the tripod, halfway to the sitting room already. “I’m making food. Come criticize it.”

“Someone has to,” Leo said, and went.

The video was cut by midnight.

It hadn’t needed much. Trim the front, trim the back. Nate watched the cough a few times, then decided to leave it in. Just dust.

He titled the video Hallway Wallpaper Is Fighting Back, wrote a short description, and then he hovered over the upload button.

Should he publish it?

Once he did, there was no coming back.

He tabbed out of the upload window and played the clip one more time.

There was the hallway. There were his shoulders. There was his voice, easy, a man with no problems. Behind him, the closet door swung open and shrieked, while he didn’t turn around to acknowledge this.

You couldn’t see anything. There was nothing super unusual about a door and a noise. A thousand videos like it went up every day. Nobody got called a freak over a door.

Except, of course, that people were already calling this place a haunted house. Nate would be throwing fuel on that fire, deliberately.

Jonah would be watching this video, and he would know. He’d call Nate asking what the hell he was doing.

What was Nate doing?

Monetizing a ghost. That was unheard of. That was insane.

In his head, Nate could hear Uncle Richard’s voice, calling him irresponsible, uncaring. He’d be called worse things than that if he did this.

Upstairs, faintly, a door closed.

Leo, practicing.

Because tomorrow there might be another video, and he had a job now, and he intended to be good at it.

Because he wanted this.

Wasn’t that more important than whatever Nate’s family had to say?

Nate decided that it was.

He clicked upload.

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

When Leo drifted down after his practice session, Nate had already gone to bed, leaving his laptop closed in the kitchen.

Had he posted the video?

Leo had no way of knowing. Maybe Nate had changed his mind and fallen asleep without showing the strangers the haunting.

Either that or the video was out in the world and strangers were commenting on it even now.

Leo glared at the closed laptop.