In the small town of Harlow, Maine, young Craig lives with his dad, who has been in a constant
blue mood since his wife passed away. They go to church together every Sunday without fail,
and Craig is often allowed to read the Bible to everyone as part of the service. It's during one
of these many masses that antisocial billionaire Mr. Harrigan takes notice of Craig and later,
decides to pay him a visit to make a job offer: since his eyes are failing, he wants to hire the
boy to read books to him. Craig isn't sure why he's chosen over other town kids that are smarter
or better readers, but he isn't about to pass on the opportunity to bring some extra cash home.
Harrigan's mansion is at the edge of town, and Craig walks there three times a week to read to
Harrigan and drink tea prepared by the housekeeper Edna. Some of the books are advanced for his age,
but Craig slowly learns to understand them and enjoys the philosophical discussions that they
bring to the table. He also enjoys looking around the fancy rooms in the mansion and Harrigan's
collection of flowers, but there's a locked closet he isn't allowed to look into because according to
Harrigan it's full of terrible secrets. Sometimes Craig does odd jobs around the house too,
like shoveling the snow from the porch, but when it comes to newspapers, Harrigan reads
them himself to keep up with financial news. The more time Craig spends with Harrigan,
the more curious he becomes about the man's past, so one afternoon he finally gives in
and googles him. It turns out Harrigan used to be a businessman known for being ruthless and
for his hostile takeovers, meaning he isn't well-liked in general. He never got married
or had any kids, and the few relatives he has don't get along with him either,
meaning he lives a very lonely life. Since Craig has always felt guilty for his mother's death,
he sympathizes with Harrigan more than he should. Now that Craig is working for him, Harrigan sends
him a card with a lotto ticket for Valentine's, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Craig's birthday;
but he never wins anything. Five years pass and while Craig becomes a teenager, his age has never
stopped from still coming to Harrigan's house three times a week to read, only having missed
one day when he got the flu. Although he was sick at that time, Craig still felt guilty since
he suspects their time together is the high point in Harrigan's week. Because Harlow doesn't have a
high school, Craig must take a bus to the closest city every day when his time to attend finally
comes. It's quite a shock for a small-town kid like him to learn about cliques and social rules,
especially since most of the locals have phones and he doesn't, but he still manages to make
some friends. The most shocking part of his first day however is being approached by a bully called
Kenny, who expects Craig to shine his shoes in the bathroom because that's the newbie's job.
Craig refuses and when their conversation becomes an argument Ms. Hart checks on them, but Craig
isn't a snitch and tells her everything is fine. Unfortunately Kenny doesn't see this as a good
gesture and once the teacher is gone, he still promises Craig a bad time in the future. When
Craig gets home after class he doesn't mention the incident to his dad and asks for a phone instead,
but he's denied. The next time Craig goes to Harrigan's, he asks him if he ever encountered
bullies or people that tried to take advantage of him at work in order to fish for advice. Harrigan
explains he did, and he dealt with all of them harshly. A few months pass and when Christmas
comes, Craig gets two wonderful gifts: his dad finally gets him a phone, and Harrigan's lotto
ticket earns him three thousand dollars. Craig's first call is to Harrigan in order to thank him
for the gift, and Harrigan explains it's just a little something he does for every person he calls
a friend. Having a phone allows Craig to sit with the popular kids and connect with a cute girl that
he has a crush on. Getting new friends doesn't stop him from still going to Harrigan's and it
prompts the old man to ask Craig why he keeps coming even if he can have a social life now,
thus Craig explains he doesn't come because of some sense of obligation, he genuinely enjoys his
time in Harrigan's company, which makes Harrigan cry. After hearing such a sad question, Craig
convinces his dad not to put all the lotto money in his college fund and uses part of it to buy a
phone for Harrigan. At first the old man doesn't want it because he's afraid he would get addicted
to it, this is why he doesn't have a tv or a radio either, but he quickly changes his mind when Craig
shows him he can keep up with the stock market and the news in real-time instead of having to wait
for the next day's newspaper. From then on, during each visit, Craig would teach Harrigan new ways of
using the phone before they jump into reading. This includes setting up his voicemail message
and choosing a nickname, which is "Pirate King" because the newspapers used to call him that.
Craig also asks Harrigan for his favorite song to put as his ringtone. As weeks pass, Harrigan
becomes addicted to the phone and sometimes ignores Craig's reading, but fortunately it's easy
to get him back on track. Craig begins worrying a bit when Harrigan starts needing an oxygen tank to
sleep and wonders why Harrigan has chosen to live in such a small town away from more advanced care,
prompting Harrigan to confess he wanted to live in a place where people don't ask things from him. In
return, Craig explains he would love to move to the big city to become a screenwriter; Harrigan
doesn't approve because there are always enemies getting in your way in that kind of business
and makes Craig promise that if he ever goes down that career road, he'll dispatch any enemies with
haste and without any guilt. Craig is impressed by the fact Harrigan can still hold himself with
power even in this weakened state, but he also feels bad for Harrigan because he found a drawer
full of lotto tickets, meaning he doesn't have many friends to send them to. A few days later,
Craig comes to the mansion while Edna is having her day off and lets himself in after Harrigan
takes too long to open the door. Sadly it's not the phone that is distracting him but something
worse: Harrigan has died on his chair with his phone in his hand. It's a very disturbing and
upsetting image to find, and it hits Craig harder when he grabs the phone and discovers Harrigan
had been about to call him. Crying, Craig calls his dad for help before honoring Harrigan's life
with his favorite literary quote. An ambulance and the police come to take care of everything,
and by the time Craig makes it home at night, he's so tired he didn't realize he brought Harrigan's
phone with him as well. As a final goodbye to his best friend, Craig sends a text to Harrigan's
phone saying he'll miss their afternoons together. The day of the funeral, not many people attend,
but Craig still reads a passage from the Bible and puts Harrigan's phone inside the suit they've put
on the body. Harrigan is buried near Craig's mother, who is visited weekly by his dad but
Craig himself only came once because it would be accepting she's gone forever. After the burial
is over, Craig is given an envelope by the man in charge of Harrigan's finances with a letter
from the old man explaining what he's left him in his will. While Harrigan didn't approve of Craig's
career choice he still wanted to support him, so he left him eight hundred thousand dollars
in trust to cover college and any postgraduate work he may choose. The most shocking part is a PS
saying Harrigan'll miss their afternoons together too, as if replying to Craig's text message, and
while Craig wants to blame it on a coincidence, he can't stop thinking about it. Later during
a stormy night, he calls Harrigan's voicemail and leaves him a message thanking him for the gift but
also admitting he would give it back if he could have his friend again because he misses him. The
next morning, Craig wakes up to find the creepiest message on his phone: somehow Harrigan has texted
him back, although the reply is just a bunch of random letters. Freaking out at the idea they
may've buried Harrigan alive, Craig asks his dad for help, but his dad explains this is probably
a prankster that cloned the number. Harrigan can't be alive because the hospital did a full
autopsy before releasing the body for the funeral. This explanation is still not enough for Craig,
who visits the cemetery and calls Harrigan's phone only to freak out again when he hears the
ringtone coming from his grave. Afterward, Craig goes to Harrigan's house and has tea with Edna,
who confirms Harrigan left her and the gardener some money as well. She also agrees that Harrigan
was a good man but you didn't want to have him on your bad side, for example the previous gardener
stole from him and Harrigan made him regret it. After refusing to offer details, Edna allows Craig
to take something so he can remember Harrigan by, and Craig takes one of Harrigan's favorite
flowers. Soon afterward, Harrigan's house goes up for sale and Edna is allowed to stay meanwhile to
take care of the place. Once he's feeling better, Craig goes back to school and actually enjoys his
classes, especially thanks to Ms. Hart who is an incredible, supportive teacher. Kenny doesn't
bother him much anymore and eventually gets expelled for selling grass on campus, Craig wasn't
the one to rat on him but Kenny still thinks he did. Things get even better when Craig gets to
attend the winter dance with his crush, but the perfect night is ruined when Kenny shows up at
school again to beat Craig up for snitching and threatening to kill him if he ever tells anyone
about this. It's Mr. Hart who finds him moments later and she suspects Kenny did it, but Craig
denies it because he wants to graduate without getting in any more trouble. When Craig gets home
he refuses to discuss what happened, prompting his dad to point out he needs to talk to someone
instead of bottling his feelings up. Following this advice, Craig decides to call Harrigan's
phone and share his fears with the voicemail. The next morning, the whole town is shaken up
by the latest news: Kenny has been found dead. Craig can't stop feeling overwhelmed with guilt
when he sees Kenny's family grieving, realizing even bullies have people that love them. He can't
stop thinking about this the rest of the day and it keeps him distracted during his lessons, so
Ms. Hart talks to him after class to comfort him and remind him not to blame himself. Since she's
always been so understanding, Craig brings up the subject of ghosts and Ms. Hart admits she doesn't
like to mess with things like ouija boards and the like because his grandma always taught her not all
ghosts are holy. Later that day, Craig visits the place where Harrigan's old gardener used to live
and a neighbor explains to him the man ended things in his truck when it became impossible
for him to get a new job after Harrigan fired him. Craig's curiosity gets the better of him and makes
him check said truck only to get more upset when he finds a lotto ticket inside. On his way out,
Craig sees graffiti on the garage door that wasn't finished but was clearly an insult towards
Harrigan. In the evening, Craig calls Harrigan's phone to ask him to send him a signal if he truly
had anything to do with Kenny's death, and as soon as he hangs up, his phone rings with Harrigan's
number and receives another message that doesn't make sense. The following day, Craig shares what
has been going on with the local priest under the Seal of Confession, but the priest agrees with
Craig's dad and thinks someone cloned the phone number for a prank. Trying to make Craig feel less
guilty, the priest shares the details of Kenny's death: he had been drinking heavily that night and
when he tried to sneak out of the house he slipped and fell, meaning it was an accident. What the
priest doesn't know however is that Kenny's mouth had been full of shoe polish. The priest advises
Craig to rethink his obsessive relationship with his phone and Craig does exactly that by going to
the store and getting a new updated model. The clerk that sets everything up for him explains
that the weird messages could've been stuck in the software, which is known as a ghost in the
machine. All the contacts are transferred to the new phone and when Craig tries to call Harrigan
this time, it doesn't work, so he assumes it's finally over. As soon as he arrives at his house,
Craig throws the old phone in the trash, but he soon regrets it and puts it inside a box full of
little memories that he hides in his closet. With Kenny's tragedy and his friendship with
Harrigan always present at the back of his mind, Craig graduates from high school and is accepted
to a university in Boston. The day he leaves home, he thinks he could see his mother saying
goodbye to him next to his dad. University life is actually great and Craig enjoys being surrounded
by the subjects he loves, but not a long time passes before tragedy strikes again. One night,
he receives terrible news from his dad: Ms. Hart died in a car accident caused by a drunkard called
Dean. Devastated, Craig immediately goes home to attend Ms. Hart's funeral and keep an eye on
Dean's trial, which has the most disappointing of endings. The guy has had many arrests for driving
while drunk in the past and didn't even have his license anymore, but he gets to avoid jail yet
again by promising to do rehab time instead. This result enrages Craig, who rushes back to
his childhood bedroom to retrieve his old box and while searching his closet, he finds an old flower
crown his mother had made for him when he was a kid and he also hid after she died. Not even this
little souvenir is enough to comfort him though, and once he finds his old phone in the box,
he calls Harrigan's number and leaves a message on the voicemail asking for Dean's death. The call is
made in a moment of blind fury, and after Craig calms down and goes back to his usual routine,
he can't stop feeling guilty about what he did, constantly googling Dean's name to be sure he's
still fine. A few days later, Craig's fear becomes a reality when Dean's death appears in
the newspaper, although the cause is still under investigation. Determined to find out the truth,
Craig drives all the way to the rehab center and pretends to be a journalist to pay a nurse for
some information. It's believed Dean did it to himself because he was found in the shower with
half a bar of soap down his throat and shampoo had been found in the autopsy that pointed to
him having swallowed it to make the passage of the soap easier. What makes the incident extra
disturbing is the fact the soap was the same brand Ms. Hart used, and the note Dean left
behind was a quote from Harrigan's favorite song. As soon as the nurse finishes giving the details,
Craig returns to his car and has a total breakdown over the fact he's a murderer now. When he returns
to his old house later, Craig finds another weird message from Harrigan and remembers that after his
death, he finally took a look inside the secret closet and found the contents were just memories
of Harrigan's childhood, especially his dead mother. Craig thinks Harrigan has always been
as lonely as he is and that's why he keeps trying to stay in touch, so he visits Harrigan's grave
and wonders if those messages were Harrigan's way to tell Craig to stop. After thanking
Harrigan for everything and apologizing to his mom in tears, Craig runs to the town quarry,
considering ending things for himself. Thankfully he sees clarity before doing something stupid and
throws his old phone into the river instead, allowing Harrigan to finally rest in piece.