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she had just witnessed for the suddenness of Fate’s appearance to upset her.
    “Oh, no. If she were in heaven, she would be together with him because she loves him. They’re both in separate hells.” Fate spoke the words in a mater-of-fact tone as she used the toe of her high-heeled boot to kick a few pebbles off the pathway.
    “What?” Karen blurted. It didn’t make sense. She stopped crying as she turned to look Fate in the eye. “Why are they both in hell? What about happy endings? What about the lovers being reunited in death?” She felt her face flush and the warmth spread over her entire body as she clenched her fists.
    “They were never lovers. She loved him, but he never really loved her. He used her, but he didn’t love her. Eventually she lost her worth to him and disrupted his life. That’s why he killed her.”
    “But he obviously felt regret. He killed himself!”
    “That was years later. It was regret, but unrelated to her death,” Fate explained. “He was pathetic, really. Couldn’t you see that about him? It was obvious, and you’re normally so intuitive.” Fate puckered her lips and scrunched her face up tightly and then released it back into her normal expression.
    Karen held herself up. This wasn’t part of the deal. She was supposed to help people cross their bridges so that they could find peace. She was a good person. She didn’t want to cause anyone pain.
    “Oh,” Fate said in a mocking tone as she read Karen’s expression, “did you think that you were an angel helping all these souls go to heaven? It never crossed your mind that some were going to other places. The reason Jonathan killed Betsy is because Betsy murdered his wife. But in all your amateur detective work, you forgot to ask those questions.” Fate paused to brush a bit of dirt from her slacks. “No matter. You still did your job, and quite efficiently, too.”
    “You tricked me.” It was all Karen could say without exploding, but she held her tongue from saying more, because at this point she realized what she should have always known: that Fate could not be trusted.

     
     
     
     
     
    Episode Three
    The Wheels of Fortune
     
     
    The ghost pushed his wheelchair up the crest of the bridge and let it roll at top speed down the other side. This particular bridge was one of those extremely tall, vaulted pieces of architecture that spanned about a quarter of a mile across the river. If there had been snow it would resemble a cement ski slope with a slightly fishy smell, but it was much too warm for that. Karen felt the thick moisture in the air as she breathed in the scent of the river. It was late evening and already getting dark, so she heard more than she could see. While she loved the sound of the waves breaking on the banks, she’d never been fond of the rotting smell. She swatted at her nose a few times, but the scent was everywhere and couldn’t be waved away.
    The man in the wheelchair appeared to be about thirty years old, but his happy expression was child-like. He lifted his arms as high as he could, which was slightly above his shoulders. The chair had picked up speed almost immediately, and it was now racing along. He alternated between screaming with excitement and smiling with his teeth exposed to the rushing wind. The chair jerked from side to side as it continued to increase in velocity. If the gentleman hadn’t already been dead, Karen would have been concerned about the impending crash at the bottom of the bridge. The impact could kill a living person, or at least cripple someone. However, both points were moot in this situation, she thought.
    “What’s his name?” Karen asked Fate, her eyes still trained on the man zooming down the hill.
    “Scott.”
    The wheelchair reached the bottom of the bridge and smashed into a guardrail, throwing the ghost from the chair and crumpling his form into a spineless, transparent blob. Karen felt herself cringing, even though she knew that the man