"Hey, you guys." Cee Cee came toward us waving her laptop in the air.

I'd enlisted Cee Cee's help as well as Adam's, only with a project of a different nature. All of my new friends, I'd discovered, had different talents and abilities. Adam's lay primarily in the fact that he owned a car, but Cee Cee's strengths lay in her superlative research skills . . . and what's more, in the fact that she actually liked looking stuff up. I'd asked her to look up what she could on Thaddeus Beaumont Senior, and she'd obliged. She'd been sitting in the car cruising the Net with the help of the remote modem she'd gotten for her birthday – have I mentioned that everyone in Carmel, with the exception of myself, is way rich? – while Adam and I looked for Timothy's cat.

"Hey," Cee Cee said. "Get a load of this." She skimmed something she'd downloaded. "I ran the name Thaddeus Beaumont through a search engine, and came up with dozens of hits. Thaddeus Beaumont is listed as CEO, partner, or investor in over thirty land development projects – most of which, by the way, are commercial ventures, like cineplexes, strip malls, or health clubs – on the Monterey peninsula alone."

"What does that mean?" Adam asked.

"It means that if you add up the number of acres owned by companies who list Thaddeus Beaumont as either an investor or a partner, he becomes roughly the largest land owner in northern California."

"Wow," I said. I was thinking about the prom. I bet a guy who owned that much land could afford to rent his son a stretch limo for the night. Dorky, I know, but I'd always wanted to ride in one.

"But he doesn't really own all that land," Adam pointed out. "The companies do."

"Exactly," Cee Cee said.

"Exactly what do you mean by exactly?"

"Well," Cee Cee said. "Just that it might explain why it is that the guy hasn't been hauled into court for suspicion of murder."

"Murder?" Suddenly, I forgot all about prom. "What about a murder?"

"A murder?" Cee Cee spun her laptop around so that we could see the screen. "We're talking multiple murders. Although technically, the victims have all been listed only as missing."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, after I made a list of all of the companies affiliated with Thaddeus Beaumont, I entered each company name into that same search engine and came up with a couple of pretty disturbing things. Look here." Cee Cee had pulled up a map of the Carmel Valley. She highlighted the areas she was talking about as she mentioned them. "See this property here? Hotel and spa. See how close it is to the water? That was a no-building zone. Too much erosion. But RedCo – that's the name of the corporation that bought the land, RedCo, get it? – used some pull down at city hall and got a permit anyway. Still, this one environmentalist warned RedCo that any building they put up there would not only be dangerously

unstable, but would endanger the seal population that hangs out on the beach below it. Well, check this out."

Cee Cee's fingers flew over her keyboard. A second later, a picture of a weird-looking guy with a

goatee filled the screen, along with what looked like a newspaper story. "The environmentalist who was making such a fuss over the seals disappeared four years ago, and no one has seen him since."

I squinted at the computer screen. It was hard to see in the strong sunlight. "What do you mean,

disappeared?" I asked. "Like he died?"

"Maybe. Nobody knows. His body was never found if he was killed," Cee Cee said. "But check this out." Her fingers did some quick rat-tat-tatting. "Another project, this strip mall here, was endangering the habitat of this rare kind of mouse, found only in this area. And this lady here – " Another photo came up on screen. "She tried to stop it and save the mouse, and poof. She disappeared too."

"Disappeared," I echoed.

"Just disappeared?" "Just disappeared. Problem solved for Mount Beau – that was the name of that project's sponsor. Mount Beau. Beaumont. Get it?"

"We get it," Adam said. "But if all these environmentalists connected with Red Beaumont's companies are disappearing, how come nobody has looked into it?"

"Well, for one thing," Cee Cee said, "Beaumont Industries made one of the biggest campaign donations in the state to our recently elected governor. They also made considerable contributions to the guy who was voted sheriff."

"A cover-up?" Adam made a face. "Come on."

"You're assuming anyone even suspects anything. These people aren't dead, remember. Just gone. Near as I can tell, the attitude seems to be, well, environmentalists are kind of flighty, anyway, so who's to say these folks didn't just take off for some bigger, more menacing disaster? All except this one." Cee Cee hit another button, and a third photo filled the page. "This lady didn't belong to any kooky save the seals group. She owned some land Beaumont Industries had its eye on. They wanted to expand one of their cineplexes. Only she wouldn't sell."

"Don't tell me," I said. "She disappeared."

"Sure did. And seven years later to the day – seven years being the time after which you can legally declare a missing person dead – Beaumont Industries made an offer to her kids, who jumped on it."

"Finks," I said, meaning the lady's kids. I leaned forward so I could get a better look at her picture.

And had quite a little shock: I was looking at a picture of the ghost who'd been paying me those

charming social calls.

Okay, well, maybe she didn't look exactly the same. But she was white and skinny and had the same haircut. There was certainly enough of a resemblance to make me go, "That's her!" and point.

Which was, of course, the worst thing I could have done. Because both Cee Cee and Adam turned to look at me.

"That's her who?" Adam wanted to know.

And Cee Cee said, "Suze, you can't possibly know her. She disappeared over seven years ago, and you

just moved here last month."

I am such a loser.

I couldn't even think of a good excuse, either. I just repeated the one I'd stammered to Tad's father: "Oh, um, I had this dream and she was in it."

What was wrong with me?