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finally, and I entered some shade afforded by the giant pine trees on either side of the road. My relief at finally being out of the heat was palpable. I only wished I could rid myself of Paul as easily. “So all my life, people have been telling me I’m one thing, and all of a sudden you come along, and you say I’m something else, and I’m just supposed to believe you?”
    “Yes,” Paul said.
    “Because you’re such a trustworthy person,” I quipped, sounding a lot more self-assured than I actually felt.
    “Because I’m all you’ve got,” he corrected me.
    “Well, that’s not a real whole lot, is it?” I glared at him. “Or do I need to point out that the last time I saw you, you left me stranded in hell?”
    “It wasn’t hell,” Paul said, with another one of his trademark eyerolls. “And you’d have found your way out eventually.”
    “What about Jesse?” I demanded. My heart was beating more loudly than ever, because this, of course, was what really mattered—not what he’d done, or tried to do to me—but what he’d done to Jesse…what I was terrified he’d try to do again.
    “I said I was sorry about that.” Paul sounded irritated. “Besides, it all turned out okay in the end, didn’t it? It’s like I told you, Suze. You’re much more powerful than you know. You just need someone to show you your true potential. You need a mentor—a real one, not a sixty-yearold priest who thinks Father Junipero Whoever is the be-all and end-all of the universe.”
    “Right,” I said. “And I suppose you think you’re just the guy to play Mr. Miyagi to my Karate Kid.”
    “Something like that.”
    We were rounding the corner to 99 Pine Crest Drive, perched on a hill overlooking Carmel Valley. My room, at the front of the house, had an ocean view. At night, fog blew in from the sea, and you could almost see it falling in misty tendrils over the sills if I left my windows open. It was a nice house, one of the oldest in Carmel, a former boardinghouse, circa 1850. It didn’t even have a reputation for being haunted.
    “What do you say, Suze?” Paul had one arm flung casually across the back of the empty passenger seat beside him. “Dinner tonight? My treat? I’ll tell you things about yourself—about what you are—that no one else on this planet knows.”
    “Thanks,” I said, stepping off the road and into my pine-needle-strewn yard, feeling insanely relieved. Well, and why not? I had survived an encounter with Paul Slater without being hurled into another plane of existence. That was quite an accomplishment. “But no thanks. See you in school tomorrow.”
    Then I waded through the heavy carpet of pine needles to my driveway, while behind me, I heard Paul calling, “Suze! Suze, wait!”
    Only I didn’t wait. I went straight up the driveway to the front porch, climbed the steps, then opened the front door and went inside.
    I did not look back. I did not look back even once.
    “I’m home,” I called, in case there was anybody downstairs who particularly cared. There was. I found myself being interrogated by my stepfather, who was cooking dinner and seemed anxious to know all about “my day.” After telling him, then seizing sustenance from the kitchen in the form of an apple and a diet soda, I climbed the steps to the second floor, and flung open the door to my room.
    There was a ghost sitting there on the windowsill. He looked up when I walked in.
    “Hello,” Jesse said.

chapter

four
     
     

    I didn’t tell Jesse about Paul.
    I probably should have. There were a lot of things I probably should have told Jesse, but hadn’t exactly gotten around to yet.
    Except I knew what would happen if I did: Jesse would want to rush into some big confrontation with the guy, and all that would result in was somebody getting exorcised again…that somebody being Jesse. And I really didn’t think I could take it. Not that. Not again.
    So I kept Paul’s sudden matriculation at the Mission