Author's note: Thank you everyone for such lovely reviews. I apologize for the lack of responses my keyboard is slightly broken (thank God for spell check and copy and paste or I will never get this chapter done) which is also partly why this chapter took so long to rite. I have also been incredibly busy with real life – I graduated last week and then been in interview and busy with friends and family. So thank you for your patience. Please enjoy this chapter.

"For the last time, Susannah," Father Dominic said. This time he pounded on the steering wheel for emphasis as he said it. "What you are asking is impossible."

"Wanna bet, she'll find a way?" Jake muttered to his brothers.

"I'm not going to lose another five bucks," Brad scowled.

I rolled my eyes. "Hello? What happened to faith? I thought if you had faith, anything was possible."

"I think there is a limit that even faith could provide," David murmured, "though when I think about it, Suze has a soul, she could be exorcised..."

"But she won't be," Helen declared, "not if she wants to leave the house ever again."

Father D didn't like having his own words tossed back at him. I could tell by the way he was grimacing at the reflection of the cars behind us in his rear-view mirror.

"People rarely do like having their own words thrown back at them," David agreed.

"Then let me say that what you are suggesting has a very unlikely chance of succeeding." Driving in Carmel-by-the-Sea is no joke, since the houses have no numbers, and the tourists can't, for the life of them, figure out where they're going. And the traffic is, of course, ninety-eight percent tourists. Father D was frustrated enough by our efforts to get where we were going. My announcement back in my bedroom that I wanted him to exorcise me wasn't helping his mood much, either.

"Poor Father Dom," Jake said sympathetically.

"Not to mention the fact that it is unethical, immoral, and probably quite dangerous,"

"Forget the unethical and immoral bit!" Andy snapped. "It's the dangerous bit that worries me!"

He concluded, as he waved at a minivan to go ahead and go around us.

"Right," I said. "But it's not impossible."

Helen face palmed wondering if her daughter had any understanding of giving in.

"You seem to be forgetting something," Father D said. "You are not a ghost, nor are you possessed by one."

"Debatable," Brad muttered, "he obviously never seen Suze first thing in the morning."

All the Ackerman men shuddered at that.

"I know. But I have a spirit, right? I mean a soul. So why can't you exorcise it? Then I can go, you know, have a look around, see if I can find him, and if I do, bring him back." I added as an afterthought, "If he wants to come, of course."

"He'll want to," Helen said firmly.

"Susannah." Father Dom was really fed up with me, you could totally tell.

"Suze must be the first person in the world to test Father Dom's patience," Jake shook his head.

It had been all right, back at the house, when I'd been crying and everything. But then I'd gotten this terrific idea.

"There's nothing terrific about her idea," Andy growled.

Only Father Dominic didn't think the idea was so terrific, see. I personally found it brilliant. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it before. I guess my brain had gotten a little squashed, what with the concussion.

"Which you should have checked out as soon as possible!" Helen snarled.

But there was no reason why my plan shouldn't work. No reason at all.

"I can think at least one reason it won't work," Andy muttered.

Except that Father Dominic would have no part of it.

"Good," everyone said firmly.

"No," he said. Which was what he'd been saying ever since I first mentioned it. "What you are suggesting, Susannah has never been done before. There isn't the slightest guarantee it will work. Or that, if it does, you will be able to return to your body."

Helen whimpered while all the males shuddered.

"That," I said calmly, "is where the rope comes in."

"NO!"

"No!" Father Dominic shouted.

He had to slam on the brakes at that very moment because a tour bus came barrelling along from out of nowhere, and, there being no traffic lights in downtown Carmel, there were often differences of opinion over whose turn it was at four-way stops. I heard the holy water, still in its jar in his black bag on the backseat, slosh around.

You wouldn't have thought there'd be any left, what with the dousing Father D had given our house. That stuff had been seriously flying. I hoped he was right about Maria and Felix being too Catholic to dare to cross the threshold of a newly blessed home. Because if he was wrong, I'd pretty much made a big ass out of myself in front of Dopey for no reason.

Brad sniggered at little at that.

Dopey had been all, "Whatcha doing that for, Father D?" when Father Dominic got to his room with the aspergillum, which turned out to be what the dippy thing was called.

David silently despaired.

"Because your sister asked me to," Father Dom replied as he flicked holy water all over Dopey's weight bench - probably the only time that thing had ever come close to being cleaned.

"Not even the holy water got out that demonic smell," Andy said mournfully, "I think we'll never be rid off it."

"Suze asked you to bless my room?" I could hear Dopey's voice all the way down the hall, in my own room. I'm sure neither of them knew I was listening.

"No, but it doesn't surprise me," Brad grumbled. After all he eavesdropped on Suze before with Jesse.

"She asked me to bless the house," Father Dominic said. "She was very disturbed by the discovery of the skeleton in your backyard, as I'm sure you know. I would greatly appreciate it if you would show her a little extra kindness for the next few days, Bradley."

"Did you?" Andy inquired.

"Err..."

"I thought as much."

"Hey! She was asleep for two days straight!"

Bradley! In my room, I started cracking up. Bradley! Who knew?

Brad scowled as his brothers laughed at him. It wasn't that funny.

I don't know what Dopey said in reply to Father Dom's suggestion that he be nicer to me, because I took the opportunity to shower and change into civilized clothing. I figured twelve hours was more than enough to go around in sweats. Any more than that and you are, quite frankly, wallowing in your own sorrow. Jesse would not want my grieving over him to affect my by-now-famous sense of fashion.

"I doubt he'd care," Jake, Brad, and David all mumbled.

Besides, I had a plan.

So it was that, showered, made up, and attired in what I considered to be the height of mediator chic in the form of a slip dress and sandals, I felt prepared to take on not only the minions of Satan but the staff at the Carmel Pine Cone , in front of whose office Father D had promised to drop me. I had not only figured out, you see, a way to get Jesse back: I'd figured out a way to avenge Clive Clemmings's death, not to mention his grandfather's.

Oh, yes. I still had it. But good.

"It is out of the question, Susannah," Father Dominic said. "So put the idea from your head. Wherever he is now, Jesse is in a better place than he was. Let him rest there."

"Fine," I said. We pulled up in front of a low building, heavily shaded by pine trees. The offices of the local rag.

"Fine," Father Dominic said, putting his car into park. "I'll wait out here for you. It would probably be better if I didn't come in, I suppose."

"It would certainly cause questions," Andy agreed.

"Probably," I said. "And there's no need to wait. I'll find my own way home." I undid my seat belt.

Helen narrowed her eyes, she didn't trust Suze to keep her word – not when it involved Jesse.

"Susannah," Father Dominic said.

I lifted my sunglasses and peered at him. "Yes?"

"I'll wait here for you," he said. "We still have a good deal of work to do, you and I."

I screwed up my face. "We do?"

"Maria and Diego," Father D reminded me gently. "You are protected from them at home now, but they are still at large, and will, I think be excessively angry when they realize you are not dead -" I had finally broken down and explained to him what had happened to my head. "We need to make preparations, you and I, to deal with them."

"Thank God, for Father D," Jake muttered. He was pretty sure they would have ended up dead if Father Dominic hadn't come when he did.

"Oh," I said. "That."

I had, of course, forgotten all about it. Not because I did not feel Maria and her husband needed to be dealt with, but because I knew my idea of dealing with them and Father D's idea were not exactly going to gel. I mean, priests aren't really big on beating adversaries into bloody pulps. They're more into gentle reasoning.

The boys snorted at that.

"Sure," I said. "Yeah. We should get right on that."

"And of course -" Father D looked really odd. I realized why when the next words that came out of his mouth were, "We've got to decide what's to be done with Jesse's remains."

"Oh," Helen felt like crying on her daughter's behalf.

"I wondered who paid for the body to be buried," Andy murmured softly.

Jesse's remains. The words hit me like twin punches. Jesse's remains. Oh God.

"I was thinking," Father Dominic said, still choosing his words with elaborate care, "of putting in a formal request with the coroner's office to have the remains transferred to the church for burial in the Mission cemetery. Do you agree with me that that would be appropriate?"

Something hard grew in my throat. I had to swallow it down.

"Oh, Susie," Helen murmured.

"Yes," I said. It came out sounding funny, though. "What about a headstone?"

"Oh Susie!"

Father Dominic said, "Well, that might be difficult, seeing as how I highly doubt the coroner will be able to make a positive identification."

Right. They didn't have dental X-rays back when Jesse'd been alive.

David merely just shook his head.

"Maybe," Father Dominic said, "a simple cross . . ."

"No," I said. "A headstone. I have three thousand dollars." More if I took back all those Jimmy Choos. Good thing I'd saved the receipts. Who needed a fall wardrobe, anyway? "Do you think that would cover it?"

"So that's what happened to her savings," Andy sighed. She shouldn't have to know or need to do this at all. It wasn't fair at all on her.

"Oh," Father Dominic said, looking taken aback. "Susannah, I -"

"You can let me know," I said. Suddenly, I didn't think I could sit there on the street anymore, discussing this with him. I opened the passenger door. "I better go. See you in a few."

And I started to get out of the car.

But not soon enough. Father D called my name again.

"Father D," I began impatiently, but he held up a hand.

"Just hear me out, Susannah," he said. "It isn't that I don't wish there was something we could do to bring Jesse back. I, too, wish that he could, as you said, have found his own way to wherever it was he was supposed to have gone after death. I do. I truly do. I just don't think that going to the extreme you're suggesting is ... well, necessary. And I certainly don't think it's what he would have wanted, your risking your life for his sake."

"No, he wouldn't," Helen agreed.

I thought about that. I really did. Father D was absolutely right, of course. Jesse would not have wanted me to risk my life for him, not ever. Especially considering the fact that he doesn't even have one anymore. A life, I mean.

"Exactly! So drop the crazy idea!"

But let's face it, Jesse's from a slightly different era. Back when he was born, girls spent all their time at quilting bees. They didn't exactly go around routinely kicking butt the way we do now.

"And? It doesn't give you permission to get rid of your soul!"

And even though Jesse's seen me kick butt a million times, it still makes him nervous, you can totally tell. You would think he'd be used to it by now, but no. I mean, he was even surprised when he heard about Maria and her knife. I guess that's kind of understandable. Come on, little Miss Hoop Skirt, poppin' a blade?

"I find it believable," David muttered, "after all many women were expected to be able to protect themselves to some extent in many different cultures and time periods for example-"

"Not now, David," Andy interrupted his son kindly.

Still, even after a century and a half of knowing she was the one who had ordered the hit on him, that completely blew his mind. I mean, that sexism thing, they drive that stuff down deep. It hasn't been easy, curing him of it.

"I can't see Jesse being that sexist," Jake muttered rolling his eyes.

Anyway, all I'm saying is, Father D's right: Jesse definitely would not want me to risk my life for him.

But we don't always get what we want, do we?

"No or my daughter would have a nice long and safe life," Helen grumbled.

"Fine," I said again. You would have thought that Father D would notice how accommodating I'd become all of a sudden. I mean, didn't he realize that he wasn't the only person in town who could help me? I had an ace up my sleeve, and he didn't even know it.

"Oh she better not use that little boy or I swear to God, I will ground her in the afterlife as well!"

"I just can't believe Father Dominic fell for it," Andy muttered.

"Be back in a flash," I said with a full-on, hundred-watt smile.

Then I turned and went into the offices of the Carmel Pine Cone like I was just going in there to place a personal ad or something.

What I was doing, of course, was something way more insidious.

David rolled his eyes, "It wasn't insidious at all."

"Is Cee Cee Wells here?" I asked the pimply kid at the reception desk.

He looked up, startled. I don't know what freaked him out more, my slip dress or the fact that I'd asked to see Cee Cee.

"Probably the slip dress," Jake muttered.

"Naw," Brad mumbled back, "it'll be both."

"Over there," he said, pointing. His voice wobbled all over the place.

"Poor bloke," Andy grinned. "Doesn't know where to look."

"Thanks," I said, and started down a long and quite messy corridor, passing a lot of industrious journalists who were eagerly tapping out their stories on the recent spate of wind chime thefts off people's front porches, and the more alarming problem of parking in front of the post office.

"We have more news, than that," Andy rolled his eyes.

Cee Cee was in a cubicle in the back. It appeared to be the photocopier cubicle, because that was what she was doing: photocopying.

"Oh my God," she said, when she saw me. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't say it in an unhappy way, though.

"She probably missed Suze," Helen said with a smile.

"Slumming," I said, and settled myself into an office chair beside the fax machine.

"I can see that," Cee Cee said. She was taking her role as girl reporter very seriously. Her long, stick-straight white hair was coiled up on top of her hair with a Number 2 pencil, and there was a smudge of toner on one pink cheek. "Why aren't you at the resort?"

"Mental health day," I said. "On account of the dead body they found in our backyard yesterday."

"Yes, just say it like that," Helen rolled her eyes. "That won't scare people or make them jump."

Cee Cee dropped a ream of paper.

"Oh my God!" she gushed. "That was you? I mean, there's a mention of a coroner's call up to the hills in the Police Beat section, but somebody said it must have been a Native American burial site or something..."

"I can assure you what I dug up wasn't a Native American burial site," Andy snorted.

"Oh, no," I said. "Not unless the Native Americans around here wore spurs."

"Spurs?" Cee Cee reached for a notepad that was resting on top of the copier, then pulled the pencil from the knot on top of her head, causing her long hair to fall down around her shoulders. Because she is an albino, Cee Cee keeps the vast majority of her skin protected from the sun at all times, even when she's working inside an office. Today was no exception. In spite of the heat outside, she was wearing jeans and a brown button-up sweater.

Helen grimaced, to wear that in this heat was unbearable, her heart went out to her daughter's friend.

On the other hand, the air-conditioning in the place had to be on high. It was like an icebox in there.

Okay, that made it better.

"Spill," Cee Cee said, perching on the edge of the table that supported the fax machine.

I did. I spilled it all. Everything, from the letters Dopey had found to my trip to Clive's office to his untimely death the day before. I mentioned Clive's grandfather's book and Jesse and the historically significant role my house had played in his murder. I told her about Maria and Diego and their no-account kids, the fact that Jesse's portrait was now missing from the historical society, and my suspicions that the skeleton found in my backyard belonged to him.

When I was through, Cee Cee raised her gaze from the notepad and went, "Geez, Simon. This could be a movie of the week."

"We're not selling the story!" Andy barked knowing the looks his eldest two sons were exchanging.

"Oh, c'mon Dad!"

"It isn't fair to Jesse."

"Lifetime channel," I agreed.

Cee Cee pointed at me with the pencil. "Tiffani-Amber Thiessen could play Maria!"

"So," I said. "Are you going to print it?"

"Heck, yeah," Cee Cee said. "I mean, it's got everything. Romance and murder and intrigue and local interest. Too bad almost everybody involved has been dead a hundred years, or more. Still, if I can get confirmation from the coroner that your skeleton belonged to a male in his twenties . . . Any idea how they did it? Killed him, I mean?"

I thought about Dopey and his shovel. "Well," I said, "if they shot him - you know, in the head - I doubt the coroner will be able to tell, thanks to Brad's ham-fisted digging technique."

Brad turned an interesting shade of red. He won't be able to look at Jesse in the eye again for a very long time.

Cee Cee looked at me. "You want to borrow my sweater?"

Surprised, I shook my head. "Why?"

"You're shivering."

"Oh, Susie!"

I was, but not because I was cold.

"I'm okay," I said. "Look, Cee Cee, it's really important you get them to run this story. And they have to do it soon. Like tomorrow."

She said, not looking up again from her notepad, "Oh, I know. And I think it'd go great alongside Dr. Clemmings's obituary, you know? The project he was working on when he died. That kind of thing."

"So," I said, "it'll run tomorrow? Do you think it'll run tomorrow?"

Cee Cee shrugged. "They won't want to run it until they get the coroner's report on the body. And that could take weeks."

Weeks? I didn't have weeks. And though Cee Cee didn't know it, she didn't have weeks either.

"Oh no!"

"She'll be fine," Andy said soothingly, "Suze will protect her."

I was shaking uncontrollably now. Because I had realized, of course, what I'd just done: put Cee Cee in the same kind of jeopardy I'd put Clive Clemmings in. Clive had been just fine until Maria had overheard him telling his Dictaphone what I'd said about Jesse. Then faster than you could say The Haunting, he was suffering from a massive, paranormally induced coronary. Had I just sentenced Cee Cee to the same gruesome end? While I highly doubted Maria was going to ransack the offices of the Carmel Pine Cone the way she had the Carmel historical society, there was still a chance she might find out what I had done.

I needed that story to run right away. The sooner people found out the truth about Maria and Felix Diego, the better my chances of them not killing me - or the people I cared about.

"It's got to run tomorrow," I said. "Please, Cee Cee. Can't you call the coroner and get some kind of unofficial statement?"

Cee Cee did look up from her notebook then. She looked up and said, "Suze. What is the rush? These people have been dead for like forever. What does it matter?"

"Because their ghosts can come back and kill you," Brad muttered. He didn't like Cee Cee – he thought she was evil incarnated alongside with Suze – but he didn't want her to die either.

"It matters," I said. My teeth were starting to chatter. "It just really matters, okay, Cee Cee? Please, please see what you can do to put a rush on it. And promise you won't talk about it. The story, I mean. Outside these offices. It's really important that you keep it to yourself."

Cee Cee reached out and laid a hand on my bare shoulder. Her fingers were very warm and soft. "Suze," she said, peering down at me sort of intently. "What did you do to your head? Where'd that giant bruise under your bangs come from?"

I pushed self-consciously at my hair.

"Oh," I said. "I tripped. I fell into a hole. The hole they found the body in, isn't that funny?"

"No," Andy, Helen, Jake and David said.

"Yes – if she had actually fallen," Brad cackled.

Cee Cee didn't seem to think it was funny at all. She went, "Have you had a doctor look at that? Because it looks pretty bad. You might have a concussion, or something."

"Listen to your best friend!" Helen shouted at the book.

"I'm fine," I said, standing up. "Really. It's nothing. Look, I better go. Remember what I said, will you? About the story, I mean. It's really important that you don't mention it to anyone. And that you get them to run it as soon as possible. I need a lot of people to see it. A lot of people. They need to see the truth. You know. About the Diegos."

Cee Cee stared at me. "Suze," she said. "Are you sure you're all right? I mean, since when do you care about the local gentry?"

"Since they started killing people she cares about," Jake muttered.

I stammered, as I backed out of the cubicle, "Well, since meeting Dr. Clemmings, I guess. I mean, it's a real tragedy that people so often overlook their community's historical society, when you know, really, without it, the fabric of the- "

"Cee Cee won't believe that," Helen rolled her eyes, "she's far too smart for that."

"You," Cee Cee interrupted, "need to go home and take an Advil."

"Listen to your best friend," Helen encouraged the book.

"You're right," I said, picking up my purse. It matched my slip dress, pink, with little flowers embroidered on it. I was overcompensating for all the days I'd had to wear those khaki shorts.

"Overcompensating is definitely the word," Jake agreed.

"I'll go. See you later."

Then I got the hell out of there before my head exploded in front of everybody.

"That would be so awesome in a horror movie," Brad said dreamily.

"That's it! No more graphic violence!"

"But Daaaaaaaaaaad-"

"I said no! If you're picturing you sister's head exploding then it's already affected your mind!"

But on my way back to Father Dominic's car I realized that the reason I'd been shivering back in the photocopying cubicle hadn't been due to the excessive air-conditioning, the fact that Jesse was gone, or even the fact that two homicidal ghosts were actively trying to kill me.

"Oh?"

No, I was shivering because of what I knew I was about to do.

"Susannah! Don't you dare, young lady!"

When I got to Father Dom's car, I bent down and said through the open passenger window, "Hey."

Father Dominic started and hurled something out the driver's side window.

"Father Dominic!"

But it was too late. I'd already seen what he'd been up to. Plus I could smell it.

"Father Dominic!"

"Hey," I said again. "Give me one of those."

"Susannah!"

"Susannah." Father Dominic looked stern. "Don't be ridiculous. Smoking is an awful habit. Believe me; you do not want to pick it up. How did things go with Miss Wells?"

"Hypocrite," Brad muttered.

"Um," I said. "Fine." I'm pretty sure it's a sin to tell a lie to a priest, even a white lie that can't possibly hurt him. But what was I supposed to do? I know him, see. And I know he's going to be completely rigid on the whole exorcism thing.

So what else could I do?

"Listen to Father Dominic and Cee Cee," Helen said.

"She wants me to stick around, actually," I said, "and help her write it. The story, I mean."

"I don't believe you!" Brad cried out. "Cee Cee said no such thing!"

"Of course not," Jake rolled his eyes, "it's a lie."

"A terrible one," Andy pointed out, "anyone who knows Suze and Cee Cee, would never have believed it.*

Father Dominic's white eyebrows met over his silver frames. "Susannah," he said. "We have a great deal to do this afternoon, you and I -"

"Yeah," I said. "I know. But this is pretty important. How about I meet you back at your office at the Mission at five?"

"Say no, say no, say no, say no, say no, say no," Helen prayed quietly to the book.

Father Dominic hesitated. I could tell he thought I was up to something.

"She is!"

Don't ask me how. I mean, I can be quite the angelic type, when I put my mind to it.

Everyone snorted at that. Suze, angelic? Yeah right.

"Five o'clock," he said, finally. "And not a minute later or, Susannah, I'm telling you right now, I will telephone your parents and tell them everything."

"Forget that! Just phone us no and tell us everything!" Helen shrieked.

"Five o'clock," I said. "Promise."

I waved as he drove away, and then, just in case he was looking in his rear-view mirror, made as if to go back into the newspaper building.

But instead I slipped around the back of it, then headed toward the Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort.

"Susannah!"

I had some unfinished business there

"That's it! Definitely grounded until the day she dies!"