Unlike her office and living room, the bedroom had furniture she’d be giving away to a local charity: good, uninspired pieces except for the bed. In the back of her mind she acknowledged that she’d always expected to have antique furnishings that her parents kept in storage or from Aunt Sandra. That was a little creepy.

When she had to close the back door because the sun slanted in, she took another shower, donned another sundress, and moved the search inside. After a while, she had a list of names and called Mrs. Flinton.

“Hello, Clare, dear. How are you doing, and how is dear Enzo?”

Just that easily the zone she’d been in when focused on the ledgers shattered and she was flung back into the new odd land she inhabited. She cleared her throat and headed to the refrigerator for another glass of lemonade. “I’m fine, Mrs. Flinton.” Clare poured more liquid into a tall glass. “Uh, everything went well, and I am, uh, adjusting to my new, uh, circumstances.” Stop those “uhs”!

“I’m actually calling about your case. Did Zach tell you I’d be looking at your guardians’ books?”

“Yes, I authorized you with Tony Rickman.”

“Ah, good.” Clare had forgotten Zach’s new boss’s name. “Um, yes. I’ve examined one of the ledgers and found a couple of names . . . leads . . . and I’d like your permission to check those names with an online genealogical program I’m, uh, using.”

“Oh! That sounds wonderful! Now why have I never considered tracing my own gift?”

Once again, Clare’s mind was wiped clean of figures and headed over into family trees. “Ah, I did want to ask if you have done research into your family and if you might have a family tree.”

“I do, of course,” the woman said. “Somewhere, and copies, too, I believe. But I’ve always considered living in the present and with an eye on the future the best balance for one with psychic talent, especially a ghost seer, don’t you?”

Clare’s palm went sweaty around her phone, her mouth dry. She looked with longing at the glass of lemonade, but she didn’t want any sound of swigging to go over the phone, so unprofessional. “Absolutely, concentrate on the future,” she agreed.

“And I’ve heard those computer programs are so clever!” Mrs. Flinton enthused. “Maybe we can get together some time . . .”

“Sounds excellent,” Clare said. “But I truly wish to follow this thread while my discovery is fresh, though I do have thorough notes, of course.”

“Naturally, Clare.” Mrs. Flinton sounded disappointed. “But I’ll let you go. I believe you will find my family tree on the major genealogical website under Flinton-Patterson-Wembly, and it’s public.” She spelled out the hyphenated names.

“Thank you,” Clare said. “I should, ah, hand off this report to Zach today.”

“Oh! Such progress. And you must come to tea again, soon.”

“Soon,” Clare promised. “Thank you, good-bye!” She clicked off, feeling sweaty again. Putting her phone down on the kitchen table—which she was giving away—she drank half the tumbler of lemonade.

Still hot, she took a paper towel, dampened it, and wiped her face and neck.

You did not say “hello” from me, Enzo accused, sitting next to her, pouting.

Clare jolted. “Sorry.” This dichotomy of having her new life impinge on her old seemed to be discombobulating her brain.

She accessed the online genealogical program, found the names of the people who’d “bought” the furnishings of Mrs. Flinton’s childhood home. Several of those lines had grayed-out “living offspring,” but Clare could give the names of the parents, and grandparents, to Zach and he could do the rest. Meanwhile, she leaned back in her chair with a sense of contentment at a job well done.

She chuckled. Rather a new way of thinking of “forensic accounting.”

 • • •

That evening she sat on her front stoop. Most of her personal property was in boxes, ready to move.

Tomorrow she’d have a new view if she happened to want to sit outside on the front porch in the evening. Across a wide street she’d see the beautifully landscaped lawn and garden of a lovely house in the Spanish-influenced style. Not as beautiful as her new home, but nice.

And if she wanted to sit outside in the back, there was the bricked patio, the gazebo, or the lawn. With the twelve-foot-tall redbrick walls, she could make one corner of the yard a small secret garden. That might appeal.

She could have a pet. She slid her eyes toward Enzo, who lay, more transparent than ever, with his paws curled over his belly on the lawn going yellow from her lack of attention over the last week.

She’d like a cat.

A shiny black Mercedes pulled up in front of her house. The passenger door opened and a woman shot out toward Clare. “Ms. Cermak?”

Clare blinked. “Yes?”

Two seconds later the plump middle-aged weeping woman stood shaking in front of Clare, waving a photograph at her. “Please, please, Ms. Cermak, contact my Mary and tell me how she is.”

“What?”

“I’m Jennifer Creedy. Our . . . my . . . our daughter Mary. She passed on last month. Please. I need to know—”

TWENTY-SIX

CLARE’S JAW DROPPED. This couldn’t be happening. She looked around wildly, but who else could the woman be talking to?

“I heard you were a medium. I’ve tried everyone else, heard you were new to town.”

Standing, Clare sidled away from the distraught woman.

“Please, please, I need to know,” the woman pressed.

Know what? Her daughter was dead. From the glance Clare got from the picture, the child looked in poor health but happy. Why would her ghost hang around? Clare didn’t know all the rules yet, but she was certain that her gift didn’t deal with contemporary ghosts. “I can’t help you,” she said.

The soft thud of the other car door sounded and a man in an expensive dark suit, also middle-aged and portly, came up to them. He put his arm around the woman’s waist. “Jennifer, you’re babbling; lay it out for Ms. Cermak.”

“Oh. Oh!” More tears, sobs, and wailing. Clare felt her eyes widen in horror.

“I can’t help you.” She tried to back away, but her heels hit the stoop step.

“Shh.” Mrs. Creedy’s husband squeezed her, helped her lower herself to Clare’s concrete stoop. “Just calm down a little.” He pulled a large handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “You said we’d take this slowly, and you jump out of the car when it’s still nearly running.”

“Oh, Bill!”

“I’ll talk with Ms. Cermak, why don’t I?”

Face muffled in the handkerchief, Mrs. Creedy said, “All right, Bill. Sorry.”

He patted his wife’s shoulder. “It’s tough.”

But his face hardened when he glanced up at Clare, jerked his chin to have her move with him a few feet away. He looked through the open door as he did so and his lip curled. “I don’t approve of you people. You leeches. But my wife needs reassurance. So I’ll give you a grand to tell her what she wants to know. Just do it, you fraud.”

“I’m not!” Clare’s voice rose. “I don’t see ghosts.”

Another black look. “You fucking lie.”

Fisting her hands, she fought for control, jutted her own chin up, willing back tears and staring at Mr. Creedy with hot eyes. “I cannot help you. I cannot help your wife. And I don’t need your money.”

“Look, woman—” Creedy grabbed her arm.

“You’ll want to let Clare go,” Zach said in a softly dangerous voice.

Creedy stiffened, dropped his hand, and swung around.

Clare hadn’t noticed Zach drive up.

Mr. Creedy flushed and raised his hands. “Fine, fine.” He appraised Zach and dismissed him. That informed Clare the man wasn’t as nearly as intelligent as he thought he was.