"Obviously," he said. The moon had disappeared again, but I could tell from his voice that he was amused. "She doesn't need it anymore. You and Father Dom. You're a couple of real pushovers, you know. Now I've got a question for you. How'd you know what she was blathering about, anyway? I thought you were taking French, not Spanish."

I didn't answer him right away. That's because I was frantically trying to think of a reply that wouldn't include the word I least liked uttering in his presence, the word that, every time I heard it or even thought it, seemed to cause my heart to do somersaults over in my chest, and my veins to hum pleasantly.

Unfortunately, it was a word that didn't exactly engender the same response in Paul.

Before I could think of a lie, however, he figured it out on his own.

"Oh, right," he said, his voice suddenly toneless. "Him. Stupid of me."

Then, before I could think of something to say that would lighten the situation - or at least get his mind off Jesse, the last person in the world I wanted Paul Slater to be thinking about - he said in quite a different tone, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm beat. I'm gonna call it a night. See you around, Simon."

He turned to go. Just like that, he turned to go.

I knew what I had to do, of course. I wasn't looking forward to it . . . in fact, my heart had pretty much slipped up into my throat, and my palms had gone suddenly, inexplicably damp.

But what choice did I have? I couldn't let him walk away with all that money. I'd tried reasoning with him, and it hadn't worked. Jesse wouldn't like it, but the truth was, there was no other alternative. If Paul wouldn't give up the money voluntarily, well, I was just going to have to take it from him.

I told myself I had a pretty good chance at succeeding, too. Paul had the box tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. I'd felt it there when he'd put his arm around me. All I had to do was distract him somehow - a good blow to the solar plexus would probably do the job - then grab the box and chuck it through the closest window. The Gutierrezes would freak, of course, at the sound of the breaking glass, but I highly doubted they'd call the cops . . . not when they found two thousand bucks scattered across the floor.

As plans went, it wasn't one of my best, but it was all I had.

I called his name.

He turned. The moon chose that moment to slip out from behind the thick veil of clouds overhead, and I could see by its pale light that Paul wore an absurdly hopeful expression. The hopefulness increased as I slowly crossed the grass between us. I suppose he thought for a minute that he'd finally broken me down. Found my weakness. Successfully lured me to the dark side.

And all for the low, low price of a thousand bucks.

Not.

The hopeful look left his face, though, the second he noticed my fist. I even thought that, just for a moment, I caught a look of hurt in his blue eyes, pale as the moonlight around us. Then the moon moved back behind the clouds, and we were once again plunged into darkness.

The next thing I knew, Paul, moving more quickly than I would have thought possible, had seized my wrists in a grip that hurt and kicked my feet out from under me. A second later, I was pinned to the wet grass by the weight of his body and his face just inches from mine.

"That was a mistake," he said, way too casually, considering the force with which I could feel his heart hammering against mine. "I'm rescinding my offer."

His breath, unlike my own, wasn't coming out in ragged gasps, though. Still, I tried to hide my fear from him.

"What offer?" I panted.

"To split the money. I'm keeping it all, now. You really hurt my feelings, you know that, Suze?"

"I'm sure," I said as sarcastically as I could. "Now get off me. These are my favorite low-riders, and you're getting grass stains on them."

But Paul wasn't ready to let me go. He also didn't appear to appreciate my feeble attempt to make a joke out of the situation. His voice, hissing down at me, was deadly serious.

"You want me to make your boyfriend disappear," he asked, "the way I did Mrs. Gutierrez?"

His body was warm against mine, so there was no other explanation for why my heart went suddenly cold as ice, except that his words terrified me to the point that my blood seemed to freeze in my veins.

I couldn't, however, let my fear show. Weakness only seems to trigger cruelty, not compassion, from people like Paul.

"We have an agreement," I said, my tongue and lips forming the words with difficulty because they, like my heart, had gone ice cold with dread.

"I promised I wouldn't kill him," Paul said. "I didn't say anything about keeping him from dying in the first place."

I blinked up at him, uncomprehending.

"What . . . what are you talking about?" I stammered.

"You figure it out," he said. He leaned down and kissed me lightly on my frozen lips. "Good night, Suze."

And then he stood up and vanished into the fog.

It took me a minute to realize I was free. Cool air rushed in to all the places where his body had been touching mine. I finally managed to roll over, feeling as if I'd just suffered a head-on collision with a brick wall. Still, I had enough strength left to call out, "Paul! Wait!"

That's when someone inside the Gutierrez household flicked on the lights. The backyard lit up bright as an airport runway. I heard a window open and someone shout, "Hey, you! What are you doing there?"

I didn't stick around to ask whether or not they planned on calling the cops. I peeled myself up from the ground and ran for the wall I'd scaled a half hour ago. I found my mom's car right where I'd left it. I hopped into it and started my long journey home, cursing a certain fellow mediator - and the grass stains on my new jeans - the whole way.

I had no idea that night how bad things were going to get between Paul and me.

But I was about to find out.

Chapter two

He'd done it. Finally. Just like, deep down, I guess I'd always known he would.

You would think, what with everything I'd been through, I'd have seen it coming. I'm not exactly new at this. And it wasn't as if all the warning signs hadn't been there.

Still, the blow, when it came, seemed to strike like a bolt out of the clear blue.

"So where are you going for dinner before the Winter Formal?" Kelly Prescott asked me in fourth period language lab. She didn't even wait to hear what my answer was. Because Kelly didn't care what my answer was. That wasn't the point of her asking me in the first place.

"Paul's taking me to the Cliffside Inn," Kelly went on. "You know the Cliffside Inn, don't you, Suze? In Big Sur?"

"Oh, sure," I said. "I know it."

That's what I said, anyway. Isn't it weird how your brain can slip into autopilot? Like, how you can be saying one thing and thinking something entirely different? Because when Kelly said that - about Paul taking her to the Cliffside Inn - the first thing I thought wasn't Oh, sure, I know it. Not even close. My first thought was more along the lines of What? Kelly Prescott? Paul Slater is taking KELLY PRESCOTT to the Winter Formal?

But that's not what I said out loud, thank God. I mean, considering that Paul himself was sitting just a few study carrels away, futzing with the sound on his tape player. The last thing in the world I wanted was for him to think I was, you know, peeved that he'd asked someone else to the formal. It was bad enough that he noticed I was even looking in his direction, let alone talking about him. He raised his eyebrows all questioningly, as if to say, "May I be of service?"

That's when I saw he still had on his headphones. He hadn't, I realized with relief, heard what Kelly had said. He'd been listening to the scintillating conversation between Dominique and Michel, our little French friends.

"It got five stars," Kelly went on, settling into her carrel. "The Cliffside Inn, I mean."

"Cool," I said, resolutely ripping my gaze from Paul's and pulling out the chair to my own carrel. "I'm sure you two will have a really great time."

"Oh, yeah," Kelly said. She flipped her honey-blonde hair back so she could slip on her headphones. "It'll be so romantic. So where're you going? To eat before the dance, I mean."

She knew, of course. She knew perfectly well.

But she was going to make me say it. Because that's how girls like Kelly are.

"I guess I'm not going to the dance," I said, sitting down at the carrel beside hers and putting on my own headphones.

Kelly looked over the partition between us, her pretty face twisted with sympathy. Fake sympathy, of course. Kelly Prescott doesn't care about me. Or anyone, except herself.

"Not going? Oh, Suze, that's terrible! Nobody asked you?"

I just smiled in response. Smiled and tried not to feel Paul's gaze boring into the back of my head.

"That's too bad," Kelly said. "And it looks like Brad's not going to be able to go, either, what with Debbie being out with mono. Hey, I've got an idea." Kelly giggled. "You and Brad should go to the dance together!"

"Funny," I said, smiling weakly as Kelly tittered at her own joke. Because, you know, there isn't anything quite as pathetic as a girl being taken to the junior-senior Winter Formal by her own stepbrother.

Except, possibly, her not being taken by anyone at all.

I turned on my tape player. Dominique immediately began to complain to Michel about her dormitoire. I'm sure Michel murmured sympathetic replies (he always does), but I didn't hear what they were.