“Well,” I said, hanging up. “She’s mad.”

“It sounded like it,” Jesse said. “Who is this new person, the one running against you, who she is so afraid will win?”

And there it was. The direct question. The direct question, the truthful answer to which was, “Paul Slater.” If I did not answer it that way—by saying “Paul Slater”—I would really and truly be lying to Jesse. Everything else I’d told him lately had been only half-truths, or maybe white lies.

But this one. This was the one that later, if he ever found out the truth, was going to get me in trouble.

I didn’t know then, of course, that later was going to be three hours later. I just assumed later would be, you know, next week, at the earliest. Maybe even next month. By which point, I’d have thought up an appropriate solution to the Paul Slater problem.

But since I thought I had plenty of time to sort the whole thing out before Jesse got wind of it, I said, in response to his question, “Oh, just this new guy.”

Which would have worked out fine if, a few hours later, David hadn’t knocked on my bedroom door and went, “Suze? Something just came for you.”

“Oh, come on in.”

David threw open my door, but I couldn’t see him. All I could see from where I lay on my bed was a giant bouquet of red roses. I mean, there had to have been two dozen at least.

“Whoa,” I said, sitting up fast. Because even then, I had no clue. I thought Andy had sent them.

“Yeah,” David said. I still couldn’t see his face, because it was blocked by all the flowers. “Where should I put ’em?”

“Oh,” I said with a glance at Jesse, who was staring at the flowers almost as astonishedly as I was. “Window seat is good.”

David lowered the flowers—which had come complete with a vase—carefully onto my window seat, shoving a few of the cushions aside first to make a place for them. Then, once he’d gotten them stable, he straightened and said, plucking a small white tag from the green leaves, “Here’s the card.”

“Thanks,” I said, tearing the tiny envelope open.

Get well soon! With love from Andy, was what I had expected it to say.

Or We miss you, from the junior class of Junipero Serra Mission Academy.

Or even, You are a very foolish girl, from Father Dominic.

What it said, instead, completely shocked me. The more so because of course Jesse was standing close enough to read over my shoulder. And even David, standing halfway across the room, could not have missed the bold, black script:

Forgive me, Suze. With love, Paul.

chapter

twelve

So, basically, I was a dead woman.

Especially when David, who did not, of course, know that Jesse was standing right there—or that he is the man I happen to love with an all-consuming passion…at least when Paul Slater was not kissing me—went, “Is that from that Paul guy? I thought so. He was asking me all these questions about why you weren’t in school today.”

I couldn’t even bring myself to look in Jesse’s direction, I was so mortified.

“Um,” I said. “Yeah.”

“What does he want you to forgive him for?” David wanted to know. “The whole vice president thing?”

“Um,” I said. “I don’t know.”

“Because you know, your campaign is really in trouble,” David said. “No offense, but Kelly’s handing out candy bars. You better come up with something gimmicky fast, or you might lose the election.”

“Thanks, David,” I said. “Bye, David.”

David looked at me strangely for a moment, as if not sure why I was dismissing him so abruptly. Then he glanced around the room, as if realizing for the first time that we might not be alone, turned beet red, and said, “Okay, bye,” and was out of my room like a shot.

Summoning all my courage, I turned my head toward Jesse and went, “Look, it’s not what you…”

But my voice trailed off, because beside me, Jesse was looking murderous. I mean, really, like he wanted to murder someone.

Only it was anybody’s guess who he wanted to murder, because I think at that point, I was as prime a candidate for assassination as Paul.

“Susannah,” Jesse said in a voice I’d never heard him use before. “What is this?”

The truth was, Jesse had no right to be mad. No right at all. I mean, he’d had his chance, hadn’t he? Had it, and blown it. He was just lucky I am not the kind of girl who gives up easily.

“Jesse,” I said. “Look. I was going to tell you. I just forgot—”

“Tell me what?” The small scar through Jesse’s right eyebrow—not the result, I had learned, of a knife fight with a bandito, as I had always rather romantically assumed, but from, of all things, a dog bite—was looking very white, a sure sign Jesse was very, very angry. As if I couldn’t tell by the tone of his voice. “Paul Slater is back in Carmel, and you don’t tell me?”

“He isn’t going to try to exorcise you again, Jesse,” I said hastily. “He knows he’d never get away with it, not while I’m around—”

“I don’t care about that,” Jesse said scornfully. “It’s you he left for dead, remember? And this person is going to your school now? What does Father Dominic have to say about this?”

I took a deep breath. “Father Dominic thinks we should give him another chance. He—”

But Jesse didn’t let me finish. He was up and off my bed, pacing the room and muttering under his breath in Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying, but it did not sound pleasant.

“Look, Jesse,” I said. “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you. I knew you were going to fly off the handle like this—”

“Fly off the handle?” Jesse threw me an incredulous look. “Susannah, he tried to kill you!”

I shook my head. It took a lot of guts, but I did it anyway.

“He says he didn’t, Jesse,” I said. “He says…Paul says I would have found my way out of there on my own. He says something about there being these people called shifters, and that I’m one of them. He says they’re different from mediators, that instead of just being able to, you know, see and speak to the dead, shifters can move freely through the realm of the dead, as well….”