She tapped the photo hard again, her finger on the faces of the screaming girls. "See this woman? That's my Aunt Lillian. And the one trying to climb up on the stage?" She moved the photo so it was directly under one of the bright ceiling lights and pointed. "That's my mother."

"Are you sure?" I tried not to laugh and failed.

Suzette tossed her dreads, offended. "What, you think I don't know my own mother when I see her?"

"OK, so it's your mother. Why does that upset you?"

"Dammit, you're not looking!"

"Jeez, just tell me already." I drew back a little. "And then let me know if my head's still there or did you bite the whole thing off."

"Sorry," she said and managed to look it for all of a second. "But that's not my mother back in the day. That's her now."

"Oh?" I picked the photo up and angled it under the light. None of the people with her were very young. They were really cutting loose and that made them seem youthful but they hadn't been girls for some time.

"Or rather, it's how she would look now," she added.

I frowned, not understanding.

"She died when I was sixteen."

"Oh," I said. "Well, then, it can't be her."

"It is."

"OK, have it your way. It's her. Photoshopped. Do you know when your boss met your aunt? And did you know they were such tasteless practical jokers?"

Suzette grimaced impatiently. "I tried calling my Aunt Lillian. Some guy answered, said he's her house-sitter while she's on vacation. She's been gone two weeks and he's not sure exactly when she's coming back."

"Did he say where she went?"

Suzette's dark eyes seem to get even darker. "Where this picture was taken." Tap-tap-tap with her finger again. " Madagascar."

(I know what I said. Don't interrupt.)

Now, this next part is kind of a blur. It's not that I don't remember what happened, it's that I don't have a reasonable explanation for it.

It certainly seemed reasonable at the time-well, after listening to Suzette for a while-to go downstairs, toss my apron in The GDT's face, and walk out the front door with her.

First stop after I went home to pack a bag and grab my passport was Suzette's aunt's house in Chicago, to meet this alleged house-sitter and see, as Suzette put it, just what his shit was made of. That was an eight-hour drive in my ancient Geo, a subcompact car which a lot of my friends have described as being only just too large to hang on a charm bracelet. Taller people grumbled, then stopped when they found out what kind of gas mileage I could still get out of it. I'd have bought a hybrid a long time ago except that being virtuously green has always been the domain of the extremely wealthy, who probably weren't so virtuous while they were getting that way. Suzette and I discussed that on the road; by the time we hit the Loop, we had an airtight argument for why all the hideously rich had to help all the rest of us get virtuously green by buying us hybrids and solar panels and shit. If I ever remember it, there'll be one hell of a revolution.

Suzette's aunt's place was a condo halfway up a high-rise with a nice view of Lake Michigan. I was surprised but no more than Suzette was herself.

"You've never been here?" I asked as we got into the elevator.

"She moved here last year. Or maybe the year before, I can't remember."

"Haven't seen her for a while?"

"She's always busy," she said, sounding defensive. "You want to see her, you gotta make an appointment."

I started to tell her that I hadn't meant anything by that question but we were already at the right floor and heading down the hall, which smelled like a mix of potpourri and carpet shampoo. Suzette stopped at a door decorated with a wreath of artfully woven twigs and pussy willows, hesitated, then rapped on it hard, squarely in the middle of the wreath.

The guy who answered was better-looking than anyone calling himself a house-sitter had any right to be, tall, bearded and golden-skinned. We'd have stared even if he hadn't been wearing a turban.

"Ah, Suzette," he said. "I recognize you from your pictures." He stood back to let us in, giving me a polite little nod as if to say that I was welcome, too, even though there were no pictures to recognize me from.

His name was Jamail, he told us over coffee, and he was a student at Northwestern. One of his professors lived down the hall and when Suzette's aunt was looking for a house-sitter, he had introduced them. "I'm what you call a mature student," he said. "I believe learning is for life. Your aunt feels the same, obviously."

"How do you figure?" Suzette asked.

"I chose to go to university, she to Madagascar." He lowered his voice ever so slightly on the last word.

"Is that where you're from?" Suzette stared pointedly at his turban.

"No. I'm from Scottsdale."

" Scottsdale?" Suzette was openly skeptical.

He shrugged. "My grandparents were from India. I'm a Sikh." The only contact information he had for Suzette's aunt was an email address on Google Mail; there was no hotel or cell phone that he knew of, or so he claimed. Both Suzette and I found that hard to believe. Jamail took our suspicion graciously. He was really quite a sweet guy; I found myself wondering if Sikhs ever dated outside the church, so to speak.

Finally, he played the I-really-must-study-now card and started clearing away the coffee cups. As he turned toward the kitchen with his hands full, Suzette stopped him. "Thanks for letting me know my aunt's in Madagascar."

He smiled faintly. "Don't mention it."

"Did she take her wheelchair?"

Wheelchair? I looked around. Nothing suggested a wheelchair user had ever lived here.

"I'm sure she took everything she needed. Now, if you'll exc-"

Suzette shoved the photograph in his face. "And she never said anything about this?"

He dropped everything with a godawful crash. "Where did you get that?" He reached for the photo.

Suzette whipped it behind her back. "A friend."

"I see." Jamail hesitated, then went into the kitchen and came back with a small business card. "If anyone asks, you just found this somewhere," he told Suzette firmly, looking unhappy as he handed it over.

"OK. Thanks," Suzette replied.

I started to bend down. "Here, let me help y-"

"Don't." He didn't snap or even raise his voice but the command was so forceful that we backed off immediately, and kept backing off, out the door and down the hall to the elevator.

"'Miles 2 Go,'" Suzette read from the card as the elevator descended. "'We'll Get You On Your Way. Jinx Gottmunsdottir, Senior Agent.'"

"Hey, does your aunt really use a wheelchair, or was that a trick question?" I asked.

She flicked a glance at me. "She's been in a wheelchair for ten years. I told you. What kind of a name is that?"

"No, you didn't and it's Icelandic, like Björk." I was only half listening. The elevator we'd gone up in had not had mirrored panels.

"I mean 'Jinx.'" Suzette was impatient again. "A travel agent named Jinx? Seriously? There's pushing your luck, there's tempting fate, and then there's teasing fate unmercifully till it bites you in the ass and gives you rabies."

"Is it rabies if this isn't the same elevator?" My reflections and I watched each other with wary solemnity on infinite repeat.

"What are you talking about?" Suzette glanced around quickly, then made a face. "So it's a different elevator. There're two. We went up in one and now we're coming down in the other." She studied the card again. "Address and phone number but no website. What kind of business doesn't have a website?"

I was busy trying not to feel spooked at my endless duplication. "This is not the same elevator. And when there are two, they're usually identical."