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his shoulders. Stretching from end to end was a full color tattoo of a guy on a Harley Davidson riding against the sunset in open desert.
    “It’s about freedom,” Derek said before any of them had a chance to ask.
    Lysander and Samantha exchanged a glance.
    Derek spoke over his shoulder. “I got it after my brother died. It’s a long story, but that’s him on the bike. He and I always talked about someday opening our own bike shop. He was real smart, my brother, maybe not school-wise, like Sam, but he knew everything there was to know about bikes.” He looked up with a strained smile, then let his shirt fall to his waist.
    “Can we talk about something happy please?” Sam pleaded.
    Just then the thunderous boom that came from the basement made them all jump.
    “What the hell was that?” Sam whispered.
    Lysander’s eyes darted around the room. “Thunder,” he said, hardly believing a word of it.
    But the fear on Sam’s face wasn’t going away. She turned to Derek. “Coming here was a mistake,” she said to him. “I just didn’t know where else you could stay.”
    “Old houses make noise, Sam,” Derek said calmly. “Your nerves are still frayed from earlier. And if it’s that old ghost story garbage that’s got you all hot and bothered—”
    “Ghost?” Lysander cut in. “What ghost?”
    Sam shook her head, eyeing Derek. “This house used to belong to a rich family.” Her voice was trembling. “The McMurphys. They went back generations. Probably the most prominent family in Millingham. One day they disappeared. All seven of them. Not a trace. The police said they all just up and left. But that never really made much sense to most people in town, since every stitch of clothing they owned was still in their closets. No one really knows what happened to them.”
    Lysander let out a deep sigh. “Just like the Mary Celeste .”
    Derek’s mouth fell open. “The Mary what?”
    Lysander spun the bottle of JD on the floor and it made a sound like scuttling claws. “The Mary Celeste was a sailing ship from the eighteen hundreds, found adrift in the Atlantic. The ship was in nearly perfect condition. Plates with half eaten food, pipes that were still lit. Except when they boarded her, they couldn’t find a soul.”
    “What happened to them?” Derek asked.
    Lysander shrugged his shoulders. “Heck if I know.”
    “Difference here was that the McMurphys were seen again,” Sam said. “At least one of them was. When I was maybe twelve or thirteen, an aunt of mine told me she had seen James McMurphy standing on her lawn.” Samantha leaned forward. “She said his cheeks were all sunken in and his skin was gray like an old piece of steak that’d been sitting out too long. She opened her front door thinking he was sick, that he needed her to call the doctor. She saw he was trying to speak, but when his mouth opened she could see right through to the other side of the road. The back of his head was gone, just as if it had never been there. Said she’d never been so scared in all her life. She slammed her front door, sank to her knees and prayed all night for the good Lord to save her.” Sam looked from Derek to Lysander. “Every small town has skeletons in its closet, I think.”
    Derek stifled a laugh. “Amityville, yes. Salem, maybe. But Millingham? The most boring town in the world. We don’t have a shady bone in our whole collective body. I’d stake my life on—”
    “Don’t say stuff like that Derek,” Samantha cried. “Maybe it isn’t true. Maybe it is just a story our parents whipped up to scare us into being good. But what if we’re wrong?”
    Lysander was thinking about his disturbing encounter with Peter Hume that morning. “ You were warned not to come here .”
    Another crash. This time louder.
    He was pretty sure that whatever had made that noise wasn’t a rat.

Chapter 6
     
     
    Peter Hume was startled by the knock at his door. He glanced up from the heavy leather-bound