I dashed away tears as I ran up the main stairs, glad all the lights were on. The door to the bedroom at the end of the hall was closed, but I doubted Joe was in there. I doubted he was still in the house at all.

He hated me now, and so did Kelly.

More tears threatened as I stood in the hallway, wavering. Kelly I could handle, somehow. I was pretty sure I'd be able convince her that Psycho Barbie had said those horrible things, not me. But if I somehow managed to make Joe believe I hadn't said or done the things he thought I had, I'd piss off the Devil himself, and he'd go after Kelly.

Plus, I'd be breaking Kelly's heart.

Which I'd apparently been breaking for some time now.

But even if I didn't care about breaking Kelly's heart-she'd thrown Joe away first, after all-I'd be putting her in danger by pissing off Sammy, who wanted me to choose him.

Choose him, save her. Choose her, lose him.

Life sucked.

Then the door at the end of the hallway opened.

Without thinking, I ducked into my room, not wanting anyone to see a crybaby idiot standing in the middle of the hall.

"You don't have to take orders from Nicki," Joe was saying to Kelly. "You're a grown woman. You can do what you want."

Shamelessly, I stopped to listen, door still half open.

"Just because Nicki knows how to work it doesn't mean she knows everything."

How to "work it"?

"She's hot, she's wild, she's enough to turn any guy's head. But Nicki's high maintenance. You've got depth of character, Kelly, real substance."

High maintenance?

"Don't underestimate yourself. Nicki's the kind of girl most guys just have fun with, but you're the kind of girl they marry."

The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach made me wish I could turn back time to earlier that evening, when I naively thought Joe liked me just the way I was.

I couldn't believe he was talking about me like this.

How could I have been so stupid?

I threw open the door, letting it hit the wall with a bang. "The kind of girl you have fun with?" My anger flared, white-hot. I'd been agonizing over them while they chatted over my lack of marriageable qualities?

My gaze flicked scornfully past them to the open door of Joe's room. That was twice now I'd caught him and Kelly behind closed doors. An ugly suspicion made me say things even uglier. "Now I see why you were so quick to believe I'd cheated on you with Spider. Breaking up with me clears the way for you to get back with Kelly, doesn't it?"

Joe's face reddened, and Kelly had the nerve to look shocked.

"Funny you should mention Spider," Joe said. He was glaring at me, ignoring my question and its implication. "Kelly and I were just discussing him, and how she'd like to get to know him better."

"That's not what I heard," I said sarcastically. "Maybe we 'high maintenance' types are hard of hearing."

"You are high maintenance," Joe ground out.

"And you're a liar," I shouted. "Fuck you, Joe!"

And in the time-honored way of pissed-off women everywhere, I marched into my room and slammed the door as hard as I could, putting the seal on my relationship with Joe.

It was better this way. Wasn't it?

I heard footsteps, loud and heavy, go past my door. A few moments later another door slammed somewhere downstairs. The front door, maybe.

I was so worked up that it took a moment to realize I wasn't alone.

Sitting on my bed, ankles primly crossed, gloved hands in her lap, was my dead grandmother, Bijou Boudreaux.

"Now you show up?" I swiped at my cheeks, angry at the tears, angry at the world, angry at the weirdness that was my life. "Now is not a good time."

Bijou gave me a regretful smile. "There will never be a better one, dear. I'm truly sorry to visit while you're upset, but it's time for you to learn the truth." The ostrich plume on her black hat bobbed as she tilted her head.

It was on the tip of my tongue to say something extremely disrespectful of my elders and totally unsuitable for little old ladies to hear. My head hurt, my heart was broken, and I knew my face was a wreck.

But I looked at Bijou's expectant expression and thought about her waiting here, alone in this house, for God knows how long until her story was told.

So I sagged back and let my shoulders hit the wall, sliding down until my butt hit the floor. "Let's hear it."

"Thank you, dear." Bijou acknowledged my exquisite manners with a gracious wave of an ostrich plume. She was wearing a black cocktail dress, just as she had at the funeral, a study in formal mourning right down to her black silk gloves. A big jet pin, black and silver, pinned her scarf to one shoulder.

I let my head fall back, staring at the ceiling while I blinked back tears, trying not to think about what had just happened. The ceiling had a faint crack, like a spiderweb, near the light fixture.

Bijou patted the bed with a black-gloved hand, inviting me to sit next to her.

I knew I was being bitchy, but I couldn't seem to help myself. "I'm fine right here, thanks."

Bijou actually smiled, the first one I'd seen yet. "You remind me so much of your mama. Nobody could tell her what to do either."

"My mother's name was Emily Styx," I said. "And she was a sweetheart, thank you very much."

The old woman's smile faded. "Were you happy, Nicki? Did Emily Styx hug you and tell you how special you were? Did she tuck you in at night and bake cookies with you and take care of you when you were sick?"

A lump rose in my throat. She'd done that, and more.

"Did she love you even when you did things you shouldn't have done, and did she forgive you when you said things you shouldn't have said?"

Memories of my teenage years came flooding back. All that angst I tried to disguise under layers of black clothing and black eyeliner, all that youthful arrogance, all that gloomy "coolness." I was so goth I used to dot my i's with frowny faces.

I don't know how either of my parents put up with it.

"Did she stick by you in bad times, and laugh with you when times were good?"

I swiped angrily at a tear that slid down my cheek. "Of course she did. What's that got to do with anything?"

Bijou shifted her ample behind on the bed, refolding her hands in her lap. "You were the lucky one, Nicki. Kelly didn't have any of that."

Bitterness rose in my throat. "So what if I had a happy childhood and Kelly didn't? Is that my fault?"

I was tired of feeling guilty for things I had nothing to do with.

"Poor Kelly," I said mockingly. "Poor little foster child. Nobody loved her, nobody hugged her... blah blah blah." My head was pounding, my heart torn in two, and nobody seemed to care about that, now did they? "I've tried to be a good sister to her, but she's got her own agenda."

Bijou said nothing, and somehow that was worse than if she had. The expression on her face was one of pity, but it wasn't for Kelly, it was for me.

I so did not need anyone's pity.

"How about we just cut to the chase, hm? Why don't you just tell me what Kelly and I are doing here, and why?" I crossed my legs, Indian style, and leaned forward, elbows on my knees. "What's with the cat and mouse? What the hell is going on!"

Bijou opened her mouth, then closed it again. I waited, impatient, certain that if she started out with "once upon a time..." I'd scream.

"I had to see for myself which one of you girls was the strongest," Bijou said. "I had to see how you were with each other, and how you were with this house. I had to see how well you could resist temptation, and what was in your hearts."

I stared at her. It was amazing how the dead could seem so alive... so real in the physical sense. Face powder had caked in the wrinkles around Bijou's eyes. "Why?" was the obvious question.

"Because the house belongs to you now."

Huh?

"The house was to go to Peaches, and now it belongs to her daughters. I drew up my will that way. But I couldn't let you and Kelly have the house until I knew."

My brain was having a hard time making sense of Bijou's words. "Knew what?"

"Whether you were up to the task." The old woman paused, looked away. "Whether you truly had the knack."

The knack. The gift I never wanted. It was days like this that made me wish I'd never been sent back from the Light... I'd had enough of "doing unto others as I'd have them do unto me." Why couldn't somebody else "do" for a change?

"You put us in your will after only meeting us once?"

Bijou shook her head, smiling sadly. "I put you in the will when you were born, Nicki. It's the only way Peaches would agree to give you up, by knowing someday you'd have a reason to come back."

I stared at the old woman, numb. "You made her give us up."

Bijou didn't flinch. "Yes, I did. It was for the best."

Best for who? I pondered that question while my feelings stayed on hold. Considering what I'd seen in the room beneath the stairs, my mother had been dabbling in the black arts, and her best buddy was Satan. Maybe giving us up for adoption hadn't been such a bad idea.

"Something happened a few months ago," Bijou said. "I don't know what, but Peaches became convinced that both you and Kelly were in danger. She insisted on searching for you, and finally got access to one set of adoption records. That's how she found Kelly." The old woman's lower lip trembled, then steadied. "I think she knew something she wasn't telling me, and I think she died because of it."

"It was a car accident. It was nobody's fault she died."

Bijou dabbed delicately at her eyes with the black hankie. "Some people believe that there are no such things as accidents, that everything happens according to divine plan."

I had a mental flashback to the moment I'd had a few months ago... when I died. That brief flash of understanding about how all things are connected.

Bijou drew in a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. "I believe your mother died trying to protect you girls," she said calmly. "And now she's gone." Her voice changed, became the no-nonsense tone of a lecturing grandma. "You have to help Kelly. She's going to stay here, and she's going to need someone to look after her."

"How do you know she's going to stay?"

Bijou gave me a withering look.

"Oh." The family curse... the knack... whatever.

"She thinks she's strong, but she's not. She can't handle this house on her own."

My jaw dropped. "I'm not staying here."

"You don't have to." Bijou cut me off with a raised hand. The ostrich plume gave a delicate wave. "But you can still be her sister, her confidante, her-"

"Bosom companion?" I couldn't resist the snark, remembering Leonard's earlier description of Bijou and Odessa's friendship. This afternoon seemed so far away.

"Yes," Bijou replied, drawing herself up. "Her bosom companion. Someone she can talk with about her life, and the world of spirits, who won't think she's a total..." Here, Bijou teared up.

I'd made an old lady cry. Could the day get any worse?

"... a total freak." The black hankie was in use again. "The way the world treated your mother. If Peaches had only had someone her own age to confide in, to rely on, things might have been different." She turned her head, displaying a carefully coiffed helmet of gray hair, the beauty parlor standard of little old ladies everywhere.

I sighed, scrubbing my hands over my face. There were smears of mascara on my fingers afterward, but whatever.

"That's how the Devil will win with Kelly, you know," the black hankie was waving in the air, "he'll isolate her. He culls his victims from the herd like a wolf among the sheep." The ostrich plume was bobbing. Bijou was getting pretty worked up. "You've seen him, haven't you? I know you have."

Reluctantly, I nodded.

"But you were too strong for him, so he'll go for the weak one. You have to help Kelly grow strong enough to resist him."

I closed my eyes, utterly exhausted. Since when had I become the "strong" one? After a sleepless night of ghost-busting, betrayal, and redemption, I felt like the leftover potato salad at a church picnic.

"You and Kelly are stronger together," Bijou insisted. "Look what happened with Sarah and Johnny-it took the two of you, together, to put those poor children to rest. Don't you see? The war between good and evil has begun... don't let your mother's death be in vain. Don't let the Devil win."

"No disrespect intended, but if you know so much," I opened my eyes, "then how do I get rid of him?"

Bijou shook her head, jet earrings flashing. "The Devil can't be gotten rid of, dear." She leaned forward, straining the buttons on her black silk dress. "He can only be overcome, time and again, by what's in your heart."

"My heart's defective," I mumbled.

Why did these things always happen to me?

CHAPTER 20.