Cee Cee whacked him in the gut. Adam pretended it had hurt, and staggered around comically for a while before nearly tripping over the puppet, and then stopping to stare down at it.

"I wonder what caused it," Adam said. Some mall employees were there now, wondering the same thing, with many nervous glances in my direction. If they'd known my mom was a television news journalist, they probably would have been falling all over themselves in an attempt to give me free gift certificates to Casual Corner and stuff.

"I mean, it's kind of weird if you think about it," Adam went on. "The thing was up there for weeks, and then all of a sudden Michael Meducci stands underneath it, and – "

"Bam," Cee Cee said. "Kind of like … I don't know. Someone up there has got it out for him, or something."

Which reminded me. I looked around, thinking I might catch a glimpse of the owner of that giggle I'd heard, just before the puppet had come down on us.

I didn't see anyone, but that didn't matter. I knew who'd been behind it.

And it sure hadn't been any angel.

C H A P T E R

6

"Well," Jesse said when I told him about it later that night. "You know what you have to do, don't you?"

"Yeah," I said sullenly, my chin on my knees. "I have to tell her about that time I found that nudie magazine under the front seat of the Rambler. That oughtta make her change her mind about him real quick."

The scarred eyebrow went up. "Susannah," he said. "What are you talking about?"

"Gina," I said, surprised he didn't know. "And Sleepy."

"No," Jesse said. "I meant about the boy, Susannah."

"What boy?" Then I remembered. "Oh. You mean Michael?"

"Yes," Jesse said. "If what you're telling me is true, he is in a lot of danger, Susannah."

"I know." I leaned back on my elbows. The two of us were sitting out on the roof of the front porch, which happened to stick out beneath my bedroom windows. It was kind of nice out there, actually, under the stars. We were high enough up so that no one could see us – not that anyone but me and Father Dom could see Jesse, anyway – and it smelled good because of the giant pine tree to one side of the porch. It was the only place, these days, that we could sit and talk without fear of being interrupted by people. Well, just one person, actually: my houseguest, Gina.

"So, what are you going to do about it?" In the moonlight, Jesse's white shirt looked blue. So did the highlights in his black hair.

"I have no idea," I said.

"Don't you?"

Jesse looked at me. I hate it when he does that. It makes me feel … I don't know. Like he's mentally comparing me with someone else. And the only someone else I could think of was Maria de Silva, the girl Jesse was on his way to marry when he died. I had seen a portrait of her once. She was one hot babe, for the 1850s. It's no fun, let me tell you, being compared to a chick who died before you were even born.

And always had a hoop skirt to hide the size of her butt under.

"You're going to have to find them," Jesse said. "The Angels. Because if I'm right, that boy will not be safe until they are persuaded to move on."

I sighed. Jesse was right. Jesse was always right. It was just that tracking down a bunch of partying ghosts was so not what I wanted to be doing while Gina was in town.

On the other hand, hanging around with me was not exactly proving to be what Gina wanted to do.

I stood up and walked carefully across the roof tiles, then stooped to peer through the bay windows into my bedroom. The daybed was empty. I picked my way back down to where Jesse was sitting, and slumped down beside him again.

"Jeez," I said. "She's still in there."

Jesse looked down at me, the moonlight playing around the little smile on his face. "You cannot blame her," he said, "for being interested in your brother."

"Stepbrother," I reminded him. "And yes, I can. He's vermin. And he's got her in his lair."

Jesse's smile grew broader. Even his teeth, in the moonlight, looked blue. "They are only playing computer games, Susannah."

"How do you know?" Then I remembered. He was a ghost. He could go anywhere. "Well, sure. The last time you looked, maybe. Who knows what they're doing now?"

Jesse sighed. "Do you want me to look again?"

"No." I was horrified. "I don't care what she does. If she wants to hang around with a big loser like Sleepy, I can't stop her."

"Brad was there, too," Jesse pointed out. "Last time I looked."

"Oh, great. So she's hanging out with two losers."

"I don't understand why you are so unhappy about it," Jesse said. He had stretched out across the tiles, contented as I'd ever seen him. "I like it much better this way."

"What way?" I groused. I couldn't get quite as comfortable. I kept finding prickly pine needles beneath my butt.

"Just the two of us," he said with a shrug. "Like it's always been."

Before I had a chance to reply to what – to me, anyway – seemed an extraordinarily heartfelt and perhaps even romantic admission, headlights flashed in the driveway, and Jesse looked past me.

"Who's that?"

I didn't look. I didn't care. I said, "One of Sleepy's friends, I'm sure. What was that you were saying? About how you like it being just the two of us?"

But Jesse was squinting through the darkness. "This is not a friend of Jake's," he said. "Not bringing with him so much … fear. Could this be the boy, Michael, perhaps?"

"What?"

I swung around and, clinging to the edge of the roof, watched as a minivan pulled up the driveway and parked behind my mother's car.

A second later, Michael Meducci got out from behind the wheel, and with a nervous glance at my front door, began heading toward it, his expression determined.

"Oh, my God," I cried, reeling back from the roof's edge. "You're right! It's him! What do I do?"

Jesse only shook his head at me. "What do you mean, what do you do? You know what to do. You've done this hundreds of times before." When I only continued to stare at him, he leaned forward, until his face was just a couple of inches from mine.