The Dead Still Live Upstairs

Official public synopsis

A complete, unpublished work.

A North Tampa family hears footsteps, running water, and furniture moving above the ceiling of a two-story house. Their daughter’s phone photographs a staircase that is invisible to the naked eye, and nine-year-old Caleb disappears after warning them about a wet-haired woman upstairs. Bram Kestrel and Nozomi Kuroda arrive to investigate a floor that should not exist—and discover that cameras, reflections, and stories can reveal different versions of an expanding upper architecture.

As impossible floors spread across homes, the team’s office, and eventually the Tampa skyline, public attention gives the phenomenon more rooms and more victims. With Malik, Kenji, Barbara, and even rival investigator Gideon drawn into the case, Bram and Nozomi must find Caleb, understand the buried history of the Aurelia, and deny a haunting that turns people into roles, memories into architecture, and certainty into an open door.