But I didn't say that to Father D. Instead, I asked, "Are you back in town?"

"I'm back. You didn't tell them, did you? Your family, I mean."

"Um," I said, uncertainly.

"Susannah, you must. You really must. They have a right to know. We're dealing with a very serious haunting here. You could be killed, Susannah - "

I refrained from mentioning that I'd actually already come pretty close.

At that moment, the call waiting went off. I said, "Father D, can you hold on a second?" and hit the receiver.

A high-pitched, vaguely familiar voice spoke in my ear, but for the life of me, I could not place it right away.

"Suze? Is that you? Are you all right? Are you sick or something?"

"Um," I said, extremely puzzled. "Yeah. I guess. Sort of. Who is this?"

The voice said, very indignantly, "It's me! Jack!"

Oh, God. Jack. Work. Right.

"Jack," I said. "How did you get my home number?"

"You gave it to Paul," Jack said. "Yesterday. Don't you remember?"

I did not, of course. All I could really remember from yesterday was that Clive Clemmings was dead, Jesse's portrait was missing ...

And that Jesse, of course, was gone. Forever.

Oh, and the whole part where the ghost of Felix Diego tried to split my head open.

"Oh," I said. "Yeah. Okay. Look, Jack, I have someone on the other - "

"Suze," Jack interrupted. "You were supposed to teach me to do underwater somersaults today."

"I know," I said. "I'm really sorry. I just ... I just really couldn't face coming in to work today, bud. I'm sorry. It's nothing against you or anything. I just really need a day off."

"You sound so sad," Jack said, sounding pretty sad himself. "I thought you'd be really happy."

"You did?" I wondered if Father D was still waiting on the other line or if he'd hung up in a huff. I was, I realized, treating him pretty badly. After all, he'd cut his little retreat short for me. "How come?"

"On account of how I - "

That's when I saw it. Just the faintest glow, over by the daybed. Jesse? Again my heart gave one of those lurches. It was really getting pathetic, how much I kept hoping, every time I saw the slightest shimmer, that it would be Jesse.

It wasn't.

It wasn't Maria or Diego either - thank God. Surely not even they would be bold enough to try to take a whack at me in broad daylight....

"Jack," I said, into the phone. "I have to go."

"Wait, Suze, I - "

But I'd hung up. That's because sitting there on my daybed, looking deeply unhappy, was Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D.

Just my luck: Wish for a Jesse. Get a Clive.

"Oh," he said, blinking behind the lenses of his Coke-bottle-bottom glasses. He seemed almost as surprised to see me as I was to see him materialize there in my bedroom. "It's you."

I just shook my head. Sometimes my bedroom feels like Grand Central Station.

"Well, I simply didn't - " Clive Clemmings fiddled with his bow tie. "I mean, when they said I should contact a mediator, I didn't ... I mean, I never expected - "

" - that the mediator would be me," I finished for him. "Yeah. I get that a lot."

"It's only," Clive said, apologetically, "that you're so ... "

I just glared at him. I really wasn't in the mood. Can you blame me? What with the concussion, and all? "That I'm so what?" I demanded. "Female? Is that it? Or are you going to try to convince me you're shocked by my preternatural intelligence?"

"Er," Clive Clemmings said. "Young. I meant that ... it's just that you're so young."

I sank down onto the window seat. Really, what had I ever done to deserve this? I mean, nobody wants to be visited by the specter of a guy like Clive. I'm almost positive nobody ever wanted him to visit when he was alive. So why me?

Oh, yeah. The mediator thing.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, Clive?" I probably should have called him Dr. Clemmings, but I had too much of a headache to be respectful of my elders.

"Well, I hardly know," Clive said. "I mean, suddenly, Mrs. Lampbert - that's my receptionist, don't you know? - she isn't answering when I call her, and when people telephone for me, well, she tells them . . . the most horrible thing, actually. I simply don't know what's come over her." dive cleared his throat. "You see, she's saying that I'm - "

"Dead," I finished for him.

Clive eyes grew perceptibly bigger behind his glasses.

"Why," he said, "that's extraordinary. How could you know that? Well, yes, of course, you are the mediator, after all. They said you'd understand. But really, Miss Ackerman, I've had the most trying few days. I don't feel at all like myself, and I - "

"That," I interrupted him, "is because you're dead."

Ordinarily, I might have been a little nicer about it, but I guess I still felt a little kernel of resentment toward old Clive for his cavalier dismissal of my suggestion that Jesse might have been murdered.

"But that's not possible," Clive said. He tugged on his bow tie. "I mean, look at me. I am clearly here. You are speaking to me - "

"Yeah," I said. "Because I'm a mediator, Clive. That's my job. To help people like you move on after they've . . . you know." Since he clearly did not know, I elaborated: "Croaked."

Clive blinked rapidly several times in succession. "I ... I ... Oh, dear."

"Yeah," I said. "See? Now let's see if we can figure out why you're here and not in happy historian heaven. What's the last thing you remember?"

Clive dropped his hand from his chin. "Pardon?"

"What's the last thing you remember," I repeated, "from before you found yourself . . . well, invisible to Mrs. Lampbert?"

"Oh." Clive reached up to scratch his bald head. "Well, I was sitting at my desk, and I was looking at those letters you brought me. Quite kind of your stepfather to think of us. People so often overlook their community's historical society, when you know, really, without us, the fabric of the local lore would be permanently - "

"Clive," I said. I knew I sounded cranky, but I couldn't help it. "Look, I haven't even had breakfast yet. Can you get a move on, please?"

"Oh." He blinked some more. "Yes. Of course. Well, as I was saying, I was examining the letters you brought me. Ever since you left my office the other day, I've been thinking about what you said ... about Hector de Silva, I mean. It does seem a bit unlikely that a fellow who wrote so lovingly of his family would simply walk out on them without a word. And the fact that you found Maria's letters buried in the yard of what was once a well-known boarding-house . . . Well, I must say, upon further consideration, the whole thing struck me as extremely odd. I'd picked up my dictaphone and was just making a few notes for Mrs. Lampbert to type up later when I suddenly felt . . . well, a chill. As if someone had turned the air-conditioning up very high. Although I can assure you Mrs. Lampbert knows better than that. Some of our artifacts must be kept in highly controlled atmospheric climates, and she would never - "

"It wasn't the air-conditioning," I said flatly.

He stared at me, clearly startled. "No. No, it wasn't. Because a moment later, I caught the faintest whiff of orange blossoms. And you know Maria Diego was quite well-known for wearing orange blossom-scented toilet water. It was so odd. Because a second later, I could swear that for a moment ... " The look in his eyes, behind the thick lenses of those glasses, grew faraway. "Well, for a moment, I could have sworn I saw her. Just out of the corner of my eye. Maria de Silva Diego ... "

The faraway look left his eyes. When his gaze next fastened onto mine, it was laser sharp.

"And then I felt," he told me, in a tightly controlled voice, "a shooting pain, all up and down my arm. I knew what it was, of course. Congenital heart disease runs in my family. It killed my grandfather, you know, shortly after his book was first published. But I, unlike him, have been extremely diligent with my diet and exercise regimen. It could only have been the shock, you know, of seeing - thinking I was seeing anyway - something that wasn't - that couldn't possibly - "

He broke off, then continued, "Well, I reached for the telephone to call 911 at once, but it ... well, the telephone sort of ... leaped off my desk."

I just looked at him. I had to admit, by this time I was feeling sorry for him. I mean, he had been murdered, just like Jesse. And by the same hand, too. Well, more or less.

"I couldn't reach it," Clive said sadly. "The telephone, I mean. And that . . . that's the last thing I remember."

I licked my lips. "Clive," I said. "What were you saying? Into the dictaphone. Right before you saw her. Maria de Silva, I mean."

"What was I saying? Oh, of course. I was saying that though it would bear further investigation, it did seem to me as if what you suggested, and what my grandfather always believed, might possibly have merit...."

I shook my head. I couldn't believe it.

"She killed you," I murmured.

"Oh." Clive was no longer blinking or tugging on his bow tie. He just sat there, looking like a scarecrow somebody had pulled the pole out from under. "Yes. I suppose you could say that. But only in a manner of speaking. I mean, it was the shock, after all. But it's not as if she - "

"To keep you from telling anyone what I said." In spite of my headache, I was getting mad all over again. "And she probably killed your grandfather, too, the same way."

Clive did blink then, questioningly. "My . . . my grandfather? You think so? Well, I must say ... I mean, his death was rather sudden, but there was no sign of - " His expression changed. "Oh. Oh, I see. You think my grandfather was killed by the ghost of Maria de Silva Diego to keep him from writing further about his theory concerning her cousin's disappearance?"