“That’s better,” Jesse said, releasing him.

Craig sagged against the door. Even though he was kind of a jerk and all, I felt sorry for the guy. I mean, he had had an even tougher day than I had, what with being dead and all.

“It’s just,” Craig said in a suffering tone as he reached up to rub the arm Jesse had nearly broken, “that it isn’t fair, you know? It wasn’t supposed to have been me. I was the one who should have lived. Not Neil.”

I looked at him with some surprise. “Oh? Neil was with you on the boat?”

“Catamaran,” Craig corrected me. “And yeah, of course he was.”

“He was your sailing partner?”

Craig sent me a look of disgust, then, with a nervous glance at Jesse, quickly modified it to one of polite disdain.

“Of course not,” he said. “Do you think we’d have tipped if Neil had had the slightest clue what he was doing? By rights, he’s the one who should be dead. I don’t know what Mom and Dad were thinking. Take Neil out on the cat with you. You never take Neil out on the cat with you. Well, I hope they’re happy now. I took Neil out on the cat with me. And look where it got me. I’m dead. And my stupid brother is the one who lived.”

chapter

six

Well, at least now I knew why Neil had been sort of quiet all through dinner: He’d just lost his only brother.

“The guy couldn’t swim to the other side of the pool,” Craig insisted, “without having an asthma attack. How could he have clung to the side of a catamaran for seven hours, in ten-foot swells, before being rescued? How?”

I was at a loss to explain it as well. Much as I was at a loss as to how I was going to explain to Craig that it was his belief that his brother should be dead that was keeping his soul earthbound.

“Maybe,” I suggested tentatively, “you got hit in the head.”

“So what if I did?” Craig glared at me, letting me know my guess was right on target. “Freaking Neil—who couldn’t do a chin-up to save his life—he managed to hold on. Me, the guy with all the swimming trophies? Yeah, I’m the one who drowned. There’s no justice in the world. And that’s why I’m here, and Neil’s downstairs eating freaking fajitas.”

Jesse looked solemn. “Is it your plan, then, to avenge your death by taking your brother’s life, as you feel yours was taken?”

I winced. I could tell by Craig’s expression that nothing of the kind had ever occurred to him. I was sorry Jesse had suggested it.

“No way, man,” Craig said. Then, looking as if he was having second thoughts, he added, “Could I even do that? I mean, kill someone? If I wanted to?”

“No,” I said, at the same time that Jesse said, “Yes, but you would be risking your immortal soul—”

Craig didn’t listen to me, of course. Only to Jesse.

“Cool,” he said, staring down at his own hands.

“No killing,” I said loudly. “There will be no fratricide. Not on my watch.”

Craig glanced up at me, looking surprised.

“I’m not gonna kill him,” he said.

I shook my head. “Then what?” I asked. “What’s holding you back? Was there…I don’t know. Something left unsaid between the two of you? Do you want me to say it to him for you? Whatever it is?”

Craig looked at me like I was nuts.

“Neil?” he echoed. “Are you kidding me? I’ve got nothing to say to Neil. The guy’s a tool. I mean, look at him, hanging around a guy like your brother.”

While I myself do not hold my stepbrothers in very high esteem—with the exception of David, of course—that didn’t mean I could sit idly by while someone maligned them to my face. At least, not Jake, who was, for the most part, fairly inoffensive.

“What’s wrong with my brother?” I demanded a little hotly. “I mean, my stepbrother?”

“Well, nothing against him, really,” Craig said. “But, you know…well. I mean, I know Neil’s just a freshman and impressionable and all that, but I warned him, you can’t get anywhere at NoCal unless you hang with the surfers.”

I had, by that time, had about all I could take from Craig Jankow.

“Okay,” I said, walking to my bedroom door. “Well, it was great to meet you, Craig. You’ll be hearing from me.” He would, too. I’d know how to find him. All I’d have to do is look for Neil, and ten to one, I’d find Craig trailing along behind.

Craig looked eager. “You mean you’re going to try to bring me back to life?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, like, I’ll determine why you are still here, and not where you’re supposed to be.”

“Right,” Craig said. “Alive.”

“I think she means in heaven,” Jesse said. Jesse doesn’t go much for the whole reincarnation thing the way I do. “Or hell.”

Craig, who had taken to eyeing Jesse quite nervously since the whole incident by the door, looked alarmed.

“Oh,” he said, his dark eyebrows raised. “Oh.”

“Or your next life,” I said with a meaningful look at Jesse. “We don’t really know. Do we, Jesse?”

Jesse, who’d stood up because I’d stood up—and Jesse was nothing if not gentlemanly in front of ladies—said with obvious reluctance, “No. We don’t.”

Craig went to the door, then looked back at both of us.

“Well,” he said. “See you around, I guess.” Then he glanced over at Jesse and said, “And, um, I’m sorry about that pirate remark. Really.”

Jesse said gruffly, “That’s all right.”

Then Craig was gone.

And Jesse let loose.

“Susannah, that boy is trouble. You must turn him over to Father Dominic.”

I sighed and sank down onto the place on the window seat that Jesse had just vacated. Spike, as was his custom when I approached and Jesse was anywhere in the near vicinity, hissed at me, to make it clear to whom he belonged…namely, not me, even though I am the one who pays for his food and litter.

“He’ll be fine, Jesse,” I said. “We’ll keep an eye on him. He needs a little time is all. He just died, for crying out loud.”