CHIRP
"I've triedeverything," Tristan groaned, clearly being driven to insanity. "Disconnected it, smashed the reset button, even wrapped it in two bath towels and shoved it in a drawer. The damn thing still chirps,throughthe towels, from the other end of my apartment."
I bit my lip. "That's... wow. What a pain. How's Archie dealing with it?"
"He's not here right now. He's actually spending the night at a friend's house tonight."
"He is? That's great."
CHIRP
"Oh, my God," Tristan said. "I think I have to throw this thing out the window. Or get the hell out of here and spend the night in a hotel."
"Oh, no."
Did I feel a teensy bit bad about it? Maybe. Or maybe it was just annoying the crap out ofmenow too. So I texted Ethan, asking if he could turn it off. I had no idea how he had hacked into it, or now that it was disconnected if he could even fix it. But it was worth a try.
CHIRP
"Hotel it is," Tristan said, the sound of drawers opening and closing in the background.
Was he seriously packing?
"Done," Ethan replied.
I held my breath, waiting, kind of like when you had the hiccups and you thought they might be gone but you weren't one-hundred percent sure yet.
Silence. More silence. Even Tristan was quiet, pausing in his packing apparently.
"Dare I hope?" he whispered.
Still no chirp. I should have had faith in Ethan. If he said it was a done deal, he meant it.
Tristan let out an exhausted breath. "Oh, my God. I think it stopped. What the actual hell?"
I smiled to myself. "Better now?"
"I was about five seconds away from losing my goddamn mind. What just happened though? Why would it randomly stop like that?"
"Uh... maybe it just needed time to reset?"
He exhaled again. "Yeah, maybe. Or maybe the sadistic little ghost in here finally decided to leave me alone."
Letting out a laugh, I leaned back. "That's definitely it. Ghosts can be tricky like that."
I glanced at my phone, a new message from Ethan popping up on my screen."Hope you enjoyed the show," he wrote, along with a winky face emoji.
Quickly, I texted him back, calling him an evil genius, which he most certainly was. But it was also time to turn my full attention back to Tristan and get my own plan back on course.
"So now that we can actually focus," I began, "you said Archie's away for the night?"
"Yeah, at a friend's, and I can't sleep, worrying that he's going to start a fire or cause a flood or sneak out and join a cult or—"
My laughter interrupted his worrying rant. "I'm sure he'll be fine. Do you know the other kid?"
"I've met him a few times and met the parents." His voice dropped lower. "Don't tell anyone but I did a background check on the parents."
"You what?" I gasped.
