On the other hand, Max, the family dog, had always known about Jesse—wouldn’t go near my room because of him. And on an intellectual level, Brad and Max had a lot in common…though Max was a little bit smarter, of course.

“I sincerely hope,” Mrs. Elkins said, when she’d released me and my fellow prisoners at last, “that I won’t see you here again this year, Suze.”

“You and me both, Mrs. E.,” I’d replied, gathering my things. Then I’d bolted.

Outside, it was a clear, hot September afternoon in northern California, which meant that the sun was blinding, the sky was so blue it hurt to look at it, and off in the distance, you could see the white surf of the Pacific as it curled up against Carmel Beach. I had missed all of my possible rides home—Adam, who was still eager to take anyone anywhere in his sporty green VW Bug, and of course Brad, who’d inherited the Land Rover from Jake, who now drove a beat-up Honda Civic but only until he obtained his dream car—and it was a two-mile walk to 99 Pine Crest Drive. Mostly uphill.

I’d gotten as far as the gates of the school before my knight in shining armor showed up. At least, that’s what I suppose he thought he was. He wasn’t on any milk-white palfrey though. He drove a silver BMW convertible, the top already conveniently lowered. It so figured.

“Come on,” he said, as I stood in front of the mission, waiting for the traffic light to change so I could cross the busy highway. “Get in. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“No, thank you,” I said lightly. “I prefer to walk.”

“Suze.” Paul looked bored. “Just get in the car.”

“No,” I said. See, I had fully learned my lesson, insofar as the whole getting-into-cars-with-guyswho’d-once-tried-to-kill-me thing went. And it wasn’t going to happen again. Especially not with Paul, who’d not only once tried to kill me but who had frightened me so thoroughly while doing it that I continually relived the incident in my dreams. “I told you. I’m walking.”

Paul shook his head, laughing to himself. “You really are,” he said, “a piece of work.”

“Thank you.” The light changed, and I started across the intersection. I knew it well. I did not need an escort.

But that’s exactly what I got. Paul drove right alongside me, clocking a grand total of about two miles per hour.

“Are you going to follow me all the way home?” I inquired as we started up the steep incline that gave the Carmel hills their name. It was a good thing that this particular road was not highly trafficked at four in the afternoon, or Paul just might have made some of my neighbors mad, clogging up the only pathway to civilization the way he was driving.

“Yes,” Paul said. “That is, unless you’ll stop acting like such a brat and get into the car.”

“No, thanks,” I said again.

I kept walking. It was hot out. I was beginning to feel a little moist in my sweater set. But no way was I going to get into that guy’s car. I trudged along the side of the road, careful to avoid any plants that resembled my deadliest of enemies—before Paul had come along, anyway—poison oak, and silently cursed Critical Theory Since Plato, which seemed to be growing heavier and heavier in my arms with every step.

“You’re wrong not to trust me,” Paul remarked as he slithered up the hill alongside me in his silver snakemobile. “We’re the same, you and I, you know.”

“I sincerely hope that isn’t true,” I said. I have often found that with some enemies, politeness can be as strong a deterrent as a fist. I’m not kidding. Try it some time.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Paul said. “But it is. What’d Father Dominic tell you, anyway? He tell you not to spend any time alone with me? Not to believe a word I say?”

“Not at all,” I said in the same distant tone. “Father Dominic thinks I should give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Paul, behind his leather-covered steering wheel, looked surprised. “Really? He said that?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, noticing a beautiful clump of buttercups growing alongside the road, and carefully skirting them in case they hid any dangerous stalks of poison oak. “Father Dominic thinks you’re here because you want to bond with the only other mediators you know. He thinks it’s our duty as charitable human beings to allow you to make amends and help you along the path to righteousness.”

“But you don’t agree with him?” Paul was staring at me intently. Well, and why not? Considering how slowly he was going, it wasn’t like he had to keep an eye on the road or anything.

“Look,” I said, wishing I had a barrette or something I could put my hair up with. It was beginning to stick to the back of my neck. The tortoiseshell hair clip I had started out with that morning had mysteriously disappeared. “Father Dominic is the nicest person I have ever met. All he lives for is to help others. He genuinely believes that human beings are, by nature, good, and that, if treated as such, will respond accordingly.”

“But you,” Paul said, “don’t agree, I take it?”

“I think we both know that Father Dom is living in a dreamworld.” I looked straight ahead as I trudged up the hill, hoping that Paul wouldn’t guess that my staggering heartbeat had nothing to do with the exercise and everything to do with his presence. “But because I don’t want to let the guy down, I’m going to keep my personal opinion about you—that you’re a user and a psychopath—to myself.”

“A psychopath?” Paul seemed delighted to hear himself described this way…further proof that he was, in fact, exactly what I thought him. “I like the sound of that. I’ve been called a lot of things before but never a psychopath.”

“It wasn’t a compliment,” I felt compelled to point out, since he seemed to be taking it that way.

“I know,” he said. “That’s what makes it so particularly amusing. You’re quite a girl, you know that?”

“Whatever,” I said, irritated. I couldn’t even seem to insult the guy successfully. “Just tell me one thing.”

“Name it,” he said.

“That night we ran into each other”—I pointed toward the sky—“you know, up there?”

He nodded. “Yeah. What about it?”