"Is something wrong?" I asked her on the way. She's always quiet in the morning, but not this quiet.

"No."

There are few species on the planet less communicative than nine-year-old girls still coming off divorces. Especially before school. I regrouped. "Maybe it's something I can help with."

"You wouldn't want to," Melissa said as we pulled up to the John F. Kennedy Elementary School. I could see her friend Wendy waiting on the sidewalk. Melissa ran over to her without so much as a backward glance, and the two of them hugged as if they hadn't seen each other in months.

I smiled ruefully, thinking about how, when Melissa was three, she'd refuse to let go of me whenever I dropped her off at day care. I used to call her "the Velcro baby" because she couldn't be pried off my leg.

You pay a price for such sentimental reminiscences, and today was no exception. Before I could drive away, a woman with a superior-seeming smile leaned into my open window. I fought the impulse to hit the gas.

Kerin Murphy (seriously, can't anyone be named Karen anymore?), whose daughter Marlee was in Melissa's class (Liss said Marlee was "stuck-up"), was the head of every parent-involved committee at the school, and still somehow had time to work out diligently, chauffeur her three children to Everything lessons after school, and hold down a job at the local hospital as a birthing coordinator, when not volunteering at a soup kitchen or raising money to fight drought (how do you pay clouds to rain?) in Africa.

"Alison!" Kerin always spoke in exclamation points. "Have you donated to the PTSO's SafeOWeen program yet?" PTSO is the twenty-first-century PTA, and stands for "Parent-Teacher-Student Organization." I'm sure they would have added the custodial staff into the acronym, too, if they could've.

"SafeOWeen?"

"Sure! It's a way for the kids to go trick-or-treating without having to go door to door!"

I must have raised my eyebrows. "Isn't going door to door the whole point of trick-or-treating?"

Kerin's look indicated she thought I was speaking Klingon. "We set up stands in the school's playground, and each one gives out a different kind of healthy snack. So the kids can come here, all see each other, and get lots of wholesome treats without any danger."

Now, I should have known from past experience that it was futile to argue with Kerin or the PTSO, but if I'd actually ever learned from my past experiences, I'd be back in college now getting an accounting degree instead of trying to restore a ghost-infested house.

"I understand the intention," I told her, "but that doesn't sound at all like fun for the kids."

"It's tons of fun!" Kerin countered. "We'll have music playing, and bring in some cars with their headlights on to light it up. The kids will love it!"

There were at least six different arguments I could have used, not the least of which was questioning the entertainment value of all the vehicles that would need jumpstarts afterward, but instead I took the coward's way out and just gave Kerin five dollars. Sometimes, there's just no point.

Once again, I should have just put the car into drive and hit the road, but a very attractive man walked over and stood next to my window, and that doesn't happen every day, so I stopped again.

"Are you Melissa Kerby's mom?" he asked.

It's always nice to be recognized as a person in your own right. "Yes," I admitted.

"I'm her history teacher, Mr. Barnes," he said, and he had such nice eyes I really didn't care that he seemed to have no first name. "I missed you at Back-to-School Night."

Mostly, he'd missed me because I hadn't been there: Back-to-School Night had occurred on an evening when I'd really needed to sweat some copper pipe in the upstairs bathroom. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it," I said, and at this moment, I actually was sorry. If I'd realized then that Mr. Barnes was a good-looking guy under sixty, I might have made more of an effort. "Is there a problem with Melissa?"

"Oh no!" Mr. Barnes seemed astonished at the very idea. "She's a terrific student. I actually wanted to ask about your house."

A regular man magnet, that place was. "My house?"

"Yes. Melissa says it's over a hundred years old, and I'm very interested in the area's history. I'm wondering if I might come by sometime to see it."

That was a new one, all right. "It's not a historical landmark, or anything," I said. "It's just a house."

Barnes looked disappointed. "I understand," he said. "It was a little forward of me, I guess."

I felt like I'd just told him he couldn't have a puppy for Christmas. "No, it's fine," I said, smiling. "Come by anytime. But I have to warn you, the place is under construction to restore it, and there's a lot of dust."

His face brightened. "That's great," he said. "I can't wait to see it."

"The dust?"

"No, the house." Okay, so I couldn't be my usual hilarious self with him. "Oh, I see what you mean." He chuckled.

"We'll work out a time," I said. "Send a note home with Melissa."

Barnes nodded, shook my hand like a business associate, and started back toward the school.

Had I just made a date? It was hard to tell. I put the car in gear and took off before anyone else could stop me.

When I got back to the house, the ghosts were still there. Paul (in different clothing, which was interesting-when, how and especially why does a ghost change clothes?) was pacing in front of the picture window in the living room, and I could hear Maxie, somewhere out of sight singing an Elvis Costello song.

Paul's head snapped to attention, and his body (or the image of it) followed suit when he saw me. "Alison!" he shouted. "Thank God you're back!"

"Of course I'm back, you figment of my imagination," I answered. "I own the place."

"Have you reconsidered?" He looked positively stricken. "Will you help me find out who killed us?"

"Not a chance, dead boy." I started unpacking tools from the box. Today would be devoted to the kitchen cabinets. I'd taken them down, but I wasn't replacing them: It would be more economical-and tons more work-to strip the cabinets and refinish them, something closer to the oak shade they had once been. Then I'd add new wooden doors and hang them at a less beanstalk-like height.

"Alison." Paul's voice dropped to a seductive tone that I'm sure must've worked nicely with the ladies when he was, you know, breathing. "I would do this myself if it were possible. But I can't leave these grounds, and no one else can see or hear us. You're the only one who can help."

I had to sound unmoved. "I have cabinets to strip."

"You're letting a murderer go free," Paul tried.

I turned to face him. "Okay, let's say you were murdered. If I find out who killed you, will you come back to life?"

He probably would have blushed if he were solid. "Of course not."

"The person-or persons-who you think killed you would probably be of a violent nature, yes?"

"I can only assume." Paul's eyes narrowed as he saw the trap beginning to ensnare him.

"Then I don't see the point to getting violent people mad at me when it's not going to do you any good in the long run. Sorry, Paul. I'd like to help, but I really think it's a lousy idea. Besides, as I believe I've pointed out, I'm trying very hard not to believe you're real, and you're not helping." I put on the mask to work with paint stripper. You don't want to smell that stuff full-on, and it can damage your lungs. Use the mask. You should wear goggles, too, and rubber gloves are an absolute must. The last thing you need is paint stripper on your hands.

Paul started a few sentences, but didn't finish any of them. I began spreading the stripper on the first cabinet, on an inside door, to test. If any real damage was done, it wouldn't be visible after the work was completed.

Maxie must have been getting closer, because I finally recognized the song she was singing, in a clear, but definitely creepy, alto.

"A-li-son, I know this world is killing you."

The paint stripper was doing its job without damaging the wood, which was good news. I wiped it down with a rag from one of the mountains of them I had in the house. You shouldn't ever be without rags, in my opinion. I concentrated on the work.

Well, I tried to concentrate on the work. Maxie, who appeared in the doorway from the main hall, continued to slowly croon the chorus of the song, the part with my name and a veiled threat in it. Over and over.

"What's your problem?" I asked her. Then it hit me. "Did you put up these cabinets?"

She just kept singing.

"I can't help it if they were too damn high. And ugly."

On went the chant. I gave up trying.

It went on like that for a while. I had gotten two whole cabinets stripped down to bare wood and drying in a corner on the floor, and Maxie continued with her chant, which was becoming more intolerable with every repetition. I found myself clutching the paint scraper so tightly in my hand that I expected to find that I'd made indentations in the handle where my fingers gripped it. I'd have gotten very upset if there were any, though, because the scraper had been a gift from Dad, handed down to him from my grandfather, a housepainter.

By the time I'd gotten the door on the third cabinet free of paint, Maxie's singing had brought me to the breaking point. On her thirty-fourth chorus, she caught me glaring in her direction, and smiled beatifically.

Just when I was looking at the scraper and considering using it on myself, there was a knock on the back door. I hadn't even heard a car in the driveway.

The singing went on and on. It was maddening.

I flung open the back door and threw my arms open. "Mom!" I shouted. "Am I glad to see you!"

My mother smiled at the welcome, and accepted my embrace, but looked confused. At least she did until I got my arms around her and held on like I hadn't since she'd tried to put me on the bus for the first day of kindergarten. Family lore has it that she'd finally ended up driving me to school and sitting in the back of the room all day. But only for the first week.

"Alison," she said now. "Are you all right?" She dropped her backpack (Mom carries a backpack, as if she were in the ninth grade) and held on. I didn't let her go for a while.

I made her stay in the kitchen for the rest of the day until Melissa got home.

When I got up the next morning, the cabinets had all been painted a shocking pink.

Nine.

It went on like that for the next ten days. Every morning I'd go downstairs to work on the house and find that some new vandalism had taken place overnight. Paul would spend his time moping in one corner, mooning at me, and Maxie would glare daggers at me and do something-anything-guaranteed to drive me insane.

When I turned up my iPod to drown out her singing, Maxie would throw my tools and supplies into the garbage. When I put them in a locked tool case, she would pick up whatever I had been using from the floor and do damage with it. The day she got hold of a screwdriver and started taking down all the interior doors in the house was an especially jolly one, I can tell you.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to believe that none of this was happening, and I was considering a visit to Dr. Walker-because if this wasn't happening, there was something very wrong with me.

Meanwhile, Melissa was absolutely livid with me for, as she put it, "hitting on" her favorite teacher. I tried to explain that Mr. Barnes had asked me about seeing the house, but she wouldn't hear of it. Strangely, however, no note came home about a visit, and I started to wonder if I would have found small bits of torn paper at the bottom of her backpack if I'd bothered to look.

But I didn't have time to worry about that. I was still under siege by the two spirits, who appeared to be real and were growing more insistent with each day. Paul emerged from his dark corner to make another impassioned plea while I was steaming wallpaper off the walls of Melissa's bedroom. "I'm a detective," he said. "How will it look if my own death goes unsolved?"

"I honestly don't think it'll hurt your business that much," I told him. "It's possible your reputation isn't a huge issue anymore."

"You don't understand," Paul told me for what had to be the six-thousandth time. Yet, I was fairly sure I understood perfectly. "I can't spend eternity wondering what happened to us. I'm not asking you to do anything dangerous. All you have to do is a little legwork, a little research, so I can figure out what it all means."

"No sale," I answered. "I have a nine-year-old daughter to think about. I don't want to get involved with people who might be inclined to make her an orphan."

"She has a father." Maxie, standing in the doorway, puffed up her lips. "I'll bet he's hot, too, because the kid's a lot better-looking than you are."

"He's a swine," I said. "But if you want to look him up, he's in California. I can give you an address. Tell him I said hi. Spend a couple of months."

In response, Maxie started to sing the Beatles' upbeat ditty about a serial killer, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," but changed the name to match her own.

"Nobody's going to hurt you," Paul went on, ignoring her. "I'll be watching the whole time."

"Yeah, *the whole time' in this house or its yard," I answered. "I'm not feeling tremendously confident."

This had the capacity to go on quite literally forever, but I had to have the house ready for business by April at the latest, and Maxie's hilarious "pranks" were setting back my timetable considerably.

"Enough," I said. "You've made your point."

"So you'll help?" Paul asked, eyes wide.

"No. But you've made your point. Now, leave me alone while I check my e-mail." I set down the steamer, unplugged it, and reached into my canvas bag for the ancient laptop I keep there. The wireless connection had finally been activated in the house, so I could communicate with the outside world, particularly with Melissa's school when necessary.

By the time the elderly iBook was powered up (it has a "Little Engine That Could" quality that would be really endearing if it could stay powered for more than ten minutes at a time), Maxie had changed her tune, literally. She was on to "Baby Let's Play House," a Buddy Holly tune whose last line she kept repeating.

"I'd rather see you dead, little girl."

Then she vanished downstairs, just lowering through the floor. I turned on my e-mail program and checked the grand total of three messages that had come in to me since the night before-I'm remarkably popular.

One was an ad for a weight-loss program guaranteed to make me stop looking like I had "saddlebags." I deleted that. Another was for Viagra. I deleted that, too.

But the third e-mail, whose sender was listed as 78.394.051, was something else entirely. Normally, I wouldn't even open such a thing, but my spam filter had cleared it, the subject line read "Alison," and I was stupidly intrigued.

Big mistake.

The message read: "Get out of the house or you'll be dead in a month."

I chewed my lip for a moment, and I must have blanched. Paul looked over at me and seemed genuinely concerned.

"Is something wrong, Alison?" he asked.

My voice sounded scratchy. "Tell me again what you want me to do," I said.

Ten.

It took a few moments for my heart to stop pounding, but when it did, Paul was already talking. He didn't leave me any time to be terrified. It was the first nice thing Paul had done for me.