Not quite willing to let it go, I said, "You dissed my outfit."

She flared again. "You came in here all glammed up the day after you find out your mother just died!" She looked away, staring resentfully at the crappy curtains. "It was inappropriate."

I didn't believe for one second that my clothes were at the heart of Kelly's hostility. "Well, excuse me, Mother Teresa."

"Ladies, is there a problem in here?" A black nurse, easily two hundred pounds of no-nonsense, came into the room. "This is a hospital, not the little girls' room at the high school prom." By the look on her face I knew I was in danger of being told to leave.

I wasn't ready to leave. Kelly and I had things to talk about.

"Sorry." I spoke first. "We'll keep it down."

I expected Kelly to say something different, but after a brief pause, she added, "Sorry, nurse."

A final glare of warning, and the nurse left. I waited a few seconds, then closed the door behind her and leaned against it.

I wanted to get back to the subject of Joe, but there was something else that needed to be addressed. "I don't mean to sound heartless," I said quietly, "but Lila Boudreaux was not my mother. She was a total stranger, and I don't usually go around dressed in mourning for total strangers." I had a brief flashback to my goth days, when that might've been the case, but that was a long time ago, before I learned that death was nothing to flirt with.

Tears filled Kelly's eyes and she swiped them angrily away. "Peaches had things to tell us, Nicki, things about our past that now we'll never know. I just can't believe that after all these years, when we finally meet, you don't seem to care that she's dead."

"I care," I just didn't feel the same way about death as I used to-not now, when I knew death wasn't the end of everything. "We can't change what's happened. I'm sure she's in a good place." The Light was as good as it gets. Peaches had seemed like a nice woman, and I would bet she was doing just fine in the afterlife, but I didn't know how to communicate that to Kelly without sounding like a lunatic. I settled by being as honest as I could. "I can't miss someone I never knew."

Kelly broke down, covering her face with her hands. Her upper body shook with sobs, bandages pinning her legs to the pillows.

I felt like a big meanie. Was I supposed to pat her shoulder or something? I missed Evan-he'd know what to do.

In the end, I picked up a box of tissues from beside the bed and held them out. She snatched the box from my hand and helped herself to several, continuing to cry.

I sat down awkwardly on the foot of the bed, and after a minute or two the crying jag eased. Kelly wiped at her face with the wadded tissues and lay her head back against the pillows.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I survive a major car accident and find my long-lost sister, and instead of being grateful to be alive, I'm mad at the world. I've made a mess of everything, just like always."

I liked her much better this way, but I was still wary.

"You seem to have a lot of friends around here," she went on, "and I'm in the middle of feeling pretty sorry for myself. Maybe I'm a little jealous."

At this point, honesty surprised me, but it was so much easier to deal with. Jealousy was something I could understand.

"Maybe I'm a little jealous, too." I went with the flow. "After all, you were Joe's first love, and you're still married. Little things like that can make a girl nervous."

She sighed, giving me a watery look. "You've got nothing to be worried about. He's obviously crazy about you."

Silence for a moment. He was, wasn't he?

"Truce?" she offered.

Relieved that particular issue had been dealt with, at least temporarily, I took a deep breath. "Truce."

Kelly gave a final sniff, reaching for another Kleenex. "By the way, your friend Albert came by to see me early this morning."

For a moment the name didn't even compute.

"Albert?" I repeated it, in case I'd heard her wrong.

"Older black man? Very thin, dressed in a suit?" Kelly could read the confusion on my face.

I nodded, not certain where this was going. What was Albert doing here?

"He said he had a message for you"-the hair on the back of my neck began to prickle-"from somebody named Granny Julep. He said to tell you 'you did good' and 'thank you.'"

Why would Albert come here, and how could he have a message from Granny Julep?

Granny Julep was dead.

Uh-oh. The little chill I always associated with the phrase "someone just walked over my grave" went up my spine.

Maybe Albert hadn't come to the hospital just to visit Kelly.

"I gotta go," I blurted, rising from the foot of the bed.

Kelly frowned, dabbing at her nose. "He is a friend of yours, isn't he? Seemed like a nice old man."

"I really have to go," I said again.

Her eyebrows shot up but she didn't argue.

"Are you coming back?" Kelly's voice had a note of something that sounded suspiciously like hope. I wasn't ready to analyze whether it was hope that I would or hope that I wouldn't.

"I'll be back. But right now I gotta go." And I left it at that.

As soon as I was outside in the corridor, I started walking toward Joe's office. If there was an elderly black man named Albert Johnson somewhere in this hospital, Joe would be the one who could help me find him.

Even if my suspicions were correct, and Albert was in the morgue.

"Fascinating." Ivy looked elegant today in beige silk. A chunky amber necklace and earrings in shades of honey, gold, and green were the perfect accents. I'd already decided this would be my last therapy session, even though I'd grown to really like Ivy over the last few weeks.

"So you think your twin sister has the ability to speak with spirits, just like you do?" Ivy slipped her chic little reading glasses off the tip of her nose and held them in her hand. "That would imply the trait is genetic, yet you've always maintained it was the result of your near death experience. Does this change your thinking at all?"

"I don't know." Did it matter? "But Albert Johnson did indeed pass away yesterday morning at five-thirty A.M., in Columbia Hospital. I've seen his death certifi-cate." I hadn't found it in my heart to be sad for Albert. I knew he'd rather be with Granny Julep than anywhere else. "Maybe something happened to Kelly when she got hit on the head. Or maybe she had a near death experience, too, but just isn't talking about it." If so, she was smarter than I was. I wouldn't be sitting in a shrink's office right now if I'd kept my mouth shut.

"Why don't you ask her?"

Ivy had such a way of reducing the complicated down to the simple.

"We don't seem to communicate very well. Either she's crying or she's accusing me of being an overdressed whore. Puts a kink in the whole sisterly bonding thing."

"And how are you to her?"

I shifted in my seat. "I've tried to be nice."

"Hmmm."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. I'm just listening." Ivy spread her hands, and I noticed the amber ring she was wearing on her index finger. Very cool.

"Okay, so maybe I'm not really ready to give her a chance either," I said. "But I didn't go looking for a fight."

"Didn't you?" Ivy was more direct this time.

"No, I didn't," I snapped. "I didn't go looking for anything. She started it."

"Now you sound like sisters." Ivy smiled, and put her glasses back on her nose. "I think there are deeper issues at work here, Nicki."

No shit.

Ivy flipped through her notes, going back to the first few pages. "You were very clear about something that happened during your near death experience. Ah, here it is." She read, "'I saw the fabled "grand design" stretched out before me like an infinite spider web." Ivy looked at me over the edge of her glasses. "That means you believe there is a grand design. Given everything that's happened to you since, isn't it possible that meeting your sister is part of it?"

She didn't wait for my answer, flipping another page and continuing to refer to her notes. "You said the voice told you to 'do unto others as you'd have them do to you.'" She smiled to herself, then pinned me with an innocent look. "Interesting that you'd meet your sister while she's injured and vulnerable, isn't it? How would you want to be treated in that situation?"

"Now wait just a minute." I didn't like where this was going. "I'm the vulnerable one here. She rides in on her broom and tries to play on everybody's sympathies, and before I know it she steals Joe right from under me. I've watched enough Lifetime movies to know how this works."

Ivy laughed out loud. "You're a funny girl, Nicki."

"Lotta good that'll do me when I'm throwing rice at Joe and Kelly's second wedding," I said glumly. "She'll probably ask me to be her maid of honor just to make me suffer." I could see it all now; me dressed in acres of lavender taffeta with a big bow on the butt, Kelly radiant in white with Joe at her side.

Ivy cocked her head, a sure sign I wasn't going to like what she had to say.

"Have you ever heard of a 'self-fulfilling prophecy'?"

"What am I now, an oracle?" Visions of crystal balls and black velvet reared their ugly heads.

Ivy shook her head, still smiling. "That's not what I meant. A self-fulfilling prophecy is an outcome that happens because you believe it's going to happen. The theory is that a person becomes so invested in the outcome itself that they behave in subconscious ways that actually make the outcome occur." She gave me a bland look. "You're a smart girl. You figure it out."

Damn, damn, and double damn.

Ivy was good.

"So you're saying that if I let Kelly piss me off to the point that I come off as a bitch, I could drive Joe right into her arms." Ivy's mild expression had probably come at the cost of thousands of hours of training, and thousands of dollars of somebody's money.

Worked for me. Maybe I'd keep coming to her for another week or two.

"Let's analyze the situation with an eye toward the future," she said. "Kelly's injuries will heal, though the ankles will be a problem for a while. I imagine she'll be discharged soon. She's been in the Peace Corps?"

"Yes." I knew this was leading to something.

"No permanent home? No significant others?"

I ignored a stab of guilt. It wasn't my fault Peaches died. "I haven't heard of any, except the guy she left Joe for. She said she's not with him anymore."

"Where will she go? What will she do?" Ivy's curiosity seemed genuine.

I shrugged. "I haven't asked her. Like I said, we have a communication problem."

"So I guess that means you haven't told her that your friend Albert Johnson was a ghost." Ivy's look was as direct as her comment. "What if she sees more spirits? What if they start popping up in her life the way they pop up in yours? For people who have a communication problem, you two might have a lot in common."

I didn't answer.

"You have to decide if you want a relationship with your sister, Nicki. Whether you do or you don't is entirely up to you. I'm not here to sit in judgment, merely to help you think it through." Ivy recrossed her legs. Her crocodile heels were gorgeous. "Feelings are fluid... they change. And I'm not going to lie to you. If there comes a time that you do want to get to know your sister, you're going to have to work at it. There isn't going to be an easy solution, because this isn't an easy situation."

Nothing was easy anymore.

What I wouldn't give for the good old days, when I laughed and flirted and drank a bit too much, not a care in the world except getting my business off the ground. Evan and the store were all I cared about.

Well, that, plus fashion and Chinese food.

"Doing unto others" was hard work.

--- I headed straight home from my session with Ivy, having told Evan I'd be back at the store later in the afternoon. Business had been slow that morning, and he could handle things alone for a while.

Traffic was a little heavy on Paces Ferry Road, but I didn't mind. Sitting through stoplights gave me time to think. The quiet was nice, until a voice from the backseat nearly gave me a heart attack.

"She's a smart woman. You should listen to her."

"Shit!" Heart pounding, I took a quick glance over my right shoulder, glad the car wasn't moving. "You scared the crap outta me!"

Lila Boudreaux's form was vague, not as solid as she'd been the other day. I could see right through her, straight to the upholstery, which was kinda creepy. She was in shades of gray, all color muted from her face and clothes.

"I don't have a lot of time, so you need to listen very carefully," she said hurriedly.

"What's going on?"

What was Lila doing here? I'd been certain she'd passed into the Light.

"He's coming," she said. "He's coming for you both, but you mustn't let him in."

"Who's coming?" The hair rose on my arms, tingling into goose bumps. The flow of traffic moved, then stopped. I tried to keep one eye on the rearview mirror and one eye on my driving.

"He's a liar. Don't listen to anything he says." Lila sounded rushed, worried. "He'll strike where you're weakest... he'll go after Kelly first. Promise me you won't listen to him."

The car in front of me flashed its taillights. I had to slam on my brakes to keep from rear-ending it. "What are you talking about? Who are you talking about? What's going on?"

At a full stop, I twisted around, but there was no one in the backseat.

Lila was gone.

"Great," I muttered, turning back to my driving.

"Show up and get all cryptic on me, then disappear. Just what I need."