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house.
    The front door opened, and a woman appeared on the threshold. I couldn’t make out her features, but her voice was nice.
    â€œThere you are, Pepper,” she called. “Come on inside now. Time for supper.”
    She obviously didn’t see Justin, but he slipped past her, with Pepper, before she shut the door.
    A lump formed in my throat.
    The living-room drapes parted, and Justin’s mother looked out at me.
    Strange car in the neighborhood.
    Not a good thing.
    I shoved the car into gear and drove away.
    Gillian, meanwhile, had moved to the front seat.
    â€œI’m sorry, but I’m not getting a dog,” I told her in a rush of words, careful to turn my face in her direction. “I live in my sister’s guesthouse. She’d have a fit.”
    In that moment I was filled with a sudden and fierce yearning for my apartment. All right, I’d almost been murdered there. But it was my place, just the same. I could have a dog if I wanted. I could eat tamale pie for three days without feeling guilty—though stealing it would be trickier.
    Did I mention that I never deliberately cook?
    We made a detour, Gillian and I, and I zipped into a megabookstore to look for a Damn Fool’s Guide to Sign Language. Sure enough, there was one, complete with the hand alphabet and lots of illustrations. Inspired, I grabbed a second volume from the series, this one on popularity.
    I was only a little embarrassed to buy a book that had probably been written for grossly overweight computer nerds and aspiring middle-school cheerleaders, but, hell, there wasn’t anything else for the socially challenged.
    Back at Greer’s place, I led Gillian to the guesthouse, and she immediately plunked down on the couch. No orange velour here—Greer’s furniture was all decorator approved. True to my word, I brought the TV down out of the ceiling and cruised the channels until I found a cartoon.
    Gillian was instantly engrossed.
    I studied her ballerina outfit. If I bought her some clothes at Wal-Mart in the morning, I wondered, would she be able to wear them?
    Nick, my ex-husband, had always shown up in the suit he was buried in. I had a feeling ghosts didn’t have extensive wardrobes. Still, it was worth a try.
    Gillian’s leotard, tights and tutu were bedraggled, and she was still wearing just the one slipper. It haunted me, that missing slipper.
    I wanted to cry every time I looked at her.
    Which wasn’t about the outfit, I know, but I needed to do something.
    While Gillian watched TV, I brewed a pot of tea and sat down at my kitchen table to study The Damn Fool’s Guide to Sign Language.
    After two hours I knew how to say, “The cow is brown” and ask for directions to the nearest restroom.
    Not very impressive, I know. But it was a start.
    When I finally went to bed Gillian was still sitting on the couch, staring blindly at the TV screen.

CHAPTER THREE
    G ILLIAN WAS GONE when I got up the next morning, and the TV was still on. Closed-captioned dialogue streamed across the screen.
    I sighed. Picked up the remote and switched to a news channel, clicking off the subtitle feature.
    This was an act of courage. Because of my last excellent adventure, I’d been all over the media for days. That’s what happens, I guess, when you suddenly remember who killed your parents when you were five years old, and the guilty parties try to shut you up before you can spill the proverbial beans.
    That was last week, I told myself, but it wasn’t much consolation.
    The talking heads were prattling about obesity in children, and I regarded that as a positive sign. Nothing bombed, nothing hijacked. A slow news day is a good news day.
    Trying to decide whether I ought to go to Wal-Mart for ghost clothes or run down another lead on Greer’s cheating husband, I padded into the kitchen to start a pot of java. Greer’s coffeemaker was state of the art, unlike mine, and I had my