I had, of course. Being a magnet for the souls of the unhappily dead, I'd met people from all walks of life, including an Incan priestess, several witch doctors, and even a Pilgrim who'd been burned at the stake as a witch.

But since it seemed so important to him, I smiled and said, "Not exactly," which was the truth, in a way.

Cee Cee didn't look too thrilled with the fact that one of her family members had managed to provide the boy she - let's face it - had a huge crush on with so much entertainment. She crawled into the backseat and glowered there. Cee Cee was a straight-A student who didn't believe in anything that couldn't be proved scientifically, especially anything to do with the hereafter . . . which made the fact that her parents had stuck her in Catholic school a bit problematic.

More problematic to me, however, than Cee Cee's lack of faith or my newfound ability to summon spirits at will was what I was going to do with this cat. While we'd been inside Aunt Pru's house, he'd managed to chew a hole through one corner of my bag, and now he kept poking one paw through it, swiping blindly with claws fully outstretched at whatever came his way - primarily me, since I was the one holding the bag. Adam, no matter how hard I wheedled, wouldn't take the cat home with him, and Cee Cee just laughed when I asked her. I knew there was no way I was going to talk Father Dominic into taking Spike to live in the rectory: Sister Ernestine would never allow it.

Which left me only one alternative. And I really, really wasn't happy about it. Besides what the cat had done to the inside of my bag - God only knew what he'd do to my room - there was the fact that I was pretty sure felines were verboten in the Ackerman household due to Dopey's delicate sensitivity to their dander.

So I still had the stupid cat, plus a Safeway bag containing a litter box, the litter itself, and about twenty cans of Fancy Feast, when Adam pulled up to my house to drop me off.

"Hey," he said, appreciatively, as I struggled to get out of the car. "Who's visiting you guys? The Pope?"

I looked where he was pointing . . . and then my jaw dropped.

Parked in our driveway was a big, black stretch limo, just like the kind I'd fantasized about going to prom with Tad in!

"Uh," I said, slamming the door to Adam's VW shut. "I'll see you guys."

I hurried up the driveway with Spike, determined not to be forgotten just because he'd been zipped into a book bag, growling and spitting the whole way. As I was coming up the front steps to the porch, I heard the rumble of voices coming from the living room.

And when I stepped through the front door, and I saw who those voices belonged to … well, Spike came pretty close to becoming a kitty pancake, I squeezed that bag so tight to my chest.

Because sitting there chatting amiably with my mother and holding a cup of tea was none other than Thaddeus "Red" Beaumont.

CHAPTER 12

"Oh Suzie," my mom said, turning around as I came into the house. "Hello, honey. Look who stopped by to see you. Mr. Beaumont and his son."

It was only then that I noticed Tad was there, too. He was standing by the wall that had all of our family photos on it - which weren't many since we'd only been a family for a few weeks. Mostly they were just school photos of me and my stepbrothers, and pictures from Andy and my mom's wedding.

Tad grinned at me, then pointed at a photo of me at the age of ten - in which I was missing both my front teeth - and said, "Nice smile."

I managed to give him a reasonable facsimile of that smile, minus the missing teeth. "Hi," I said.

"Tad and Mr. Beaumont were on their way home," my mom said, "and they thought they'd stop by and see if you'd have dinner with them tonight. I told them I didn't think you had any other plans. You don't, do you, Suze?"

My mom, I could tell, was practically frothing at the mouth at the idea of me having dinner with this guy and his kid. My mom would have frothed at the mouth at the idea of me having dinner with Darth Vader and his kid, that's how hot she was to get me a boyfriend. All my mom has ever wanted is for me to be a normal teenage girl.

But if she thought Red Beaumont was prime in-law material, boy, was she barking up the wrong tree.

And speaking of barking, I had suddenly become an object of considerable interest to Max, who had started sniffing around my book bag and whining.

"Um," I said. "Would you mind if I just ran upstairs and, um, dumped my stuff off?"

"Not at all," Mr. Beaumont said. "Not at all. Take your time. I was just telling your mother about your article. The one you're doing for the school paper."

"Yes, Suzie," my mom said, turning around in her seat with this huge smile. "You never told me you were working for the school paper. How exciting!"

I looked at Mr. Beaumont. He smiled blandly back at me.

And suddenly, I had a very bad feeling.

Oh, not that Mr. Beaumont was going to get up, come over, and bite me on the neck. Not that.

But all of a sudden, I got this very bad feeling that he was going to tell my mother the real reason I'd gone to visit him the night before. Not the newspaper article thing, but the thing about my dream.

Which my mom would instantly suspect was you-know-what. If she heard I'd been going around feeding wealthy real estate tycoons lines about psychic dreams, I'd be grounded from here until graduation.

And the worst part of it was, considering how much trouble I used to be in all the time back in New York, I wasn't at all eager to let my mom in on the fact that I was actually up to even more stuff on this side of the country. I mean, she really had no clue. She thought all of it - the fact that I'd constantly missed my curfew, my run-ins with the police, my suspensions, the bad grades - were behind us, over, kaput, the end. We were on a new coast, making a new start.

And my mom was just so happy about it.

So I said, "Oh, yeah, the article I'm doing," and gave Mr. Beaumont a meaningful look. At least, I hoped it would be meaningful. And I hoped what it meant to him was: don't spill the beans, buster, or you'll pay for it big time.

Though I'm not certain how scared a guy like Red Beaumont would actually be of a sixteen-year-old girl.

He wasn't. He sent a look right back at me. A look that said, if I wasn't mistaken: I won't spill the beans, sister, if you play along like a good little girl.

I nodded to let him know I'd gotten the message, whirled around, and hurried up the stairs.

Well, I figured as I went, Max loping at my heels, still trying to get a gander into my bag, at least Tad was with him. Mr. Beaumont certainly wasn't going to be able to bite me on the neck with his own kid in the room. Tad, I was pretty sure, wasn't a vampire. And he didn't seem like the kind of guy who'd just stand by and let his dad kill his date.

And with any luck, that guy Marcus would be there. Marcus certainly wouldn't allow his employer to sink his fangs in me.

I wasn't too surprised when, as we reached the door to my bedroom, Max suddenly turned tail and, with a yelp, ran in the opposite direction. He wasn't too thrilled by Jesse's presence.

Neither, I figured, was Spike going to be. But Spike didn't have any other choice.

I went into my room and took the litter box out of my giant Safeway bag and shoved it under the sink in my bathroom, then filled it with litter. In the center of my room where I'd left my book bag came some pretty unearthly howling. That paw kept shooting out of the hole Spike had chewed, and feeling around for something to claw.

"I'm going as fast as I can," I grumbled as I poured some water into a bowl then opened a can of food and left it on a plate on the floor along with the water.

Then, making sure I unzipped it away from me, I opened the bag.

Spike came tearing out like . . . well, more like the Tasmanian Devil than any cat I'd ever seen. He was completely out of control. He tore around the room three times before he spotted the food, skidded suddenly to a halt, and began to suck it down.

"What," I heard Jesse say, "is that?"

I looked up. I hadn't seen Jesse since our fight the night before. He was leaning against one of my bedposts - my mom had gone whole hog when she'd decorated my room, going for the frilly dressing table, canopy bed, the works - looking down at the cat like it was some kind of alien life form.

"It's a cat," I said. "I didn't have any choice. It's just until I find a home for it."

Jesse eyed Spike dubiously. "Are you sure it's a cat? It doesn't look like any cat I've ever seen. It looks more like . . . what do they call them? Those small horses. Oh yes, a pony."

"I'm sure it's a cat," I said. "Listen, Jesse, I'm kind of in a jam here."

He nodded at Spike. "I can see that."

"Not about the cat," I said, quickly. "It's about Tad."

Jesse's expression, which had been a fairly pleasant, teasing one, suddenly darkened. If I hadn't been sure he didn't give a hang about me aside from as a friend, I'd have sworn he was jealous.

"He's downstairs," I said quickly, before Jesse could start yelling at me again for being too easy on a first date. "With his father. They want me to come over for dinner. And I'm not going to be able to get out of it."

Jesse muttered some stuff in Spanish. Judging from the look on his face, whatever he said hadn't exactly been an expression of regret that he, too, had not been invited.

"The thing is," I went on, "I've found out some things about Mr. Beaumont, things that kind of make me . . . well, nervous. So could you, um, do me a favor?"