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front of us. And that I knew one of them.
    “Brian?” I turned for a better look. The last time I’d seen him, Brian was decked out in one of those vests fishermen wear, the kind with about a hundred little pockets al over them. But then, he’d needed the flashlights, batteries, notebooks, and such he’d brought along because we were on a ghost hunt. I was trying to solve the forty-year-old murder of a rock star, and Brian and his merry little band of buttinsky ghost hunters had been invited along by Dan Cal ahan,
    a
    paranormal
    investigator
    friend/boyfriend/almost lover of mine. “Brian, it’s me, Pepper. We met—”
    “Of course. I thought you looked familiar.” Brian stuck out his hand, I introduced him to Quinn, and he told us the guys who’d been on camera with him were John, the round guy in the flannel pants, and Gregory, tal er, thinner, and decked out in just as much Indians gear. There was a fourth man in the group, too, a quiet guy by the name of Arnie. Done with the introductions, Brian got right to the meat of the discussion.
    “Maybe you can do something, Pepper. You know, about the curse. You work at that cemetery and…”
    I might not want to admit my unemployment on the nightly news, but I knew I had to come clean with these guys. It was that, or they’d bug me forever about getting them into Goodshot’s mausoleum.
    I told them the bad news—no job, no influence, no corn ceremony—and watched their expressions fal .
    “We’re doomed.” Arnie shook his head. “If we can’t lift this curse, the team is never going to get any better.”
    Quinn sized them al up in his usual eagle-eyed way. “You’re real y serious fans.”
    “You got that right.” John stuck out his left arm, back-side up. His wrist was tattooed in red and blue.

    the tribe wil rise again, it said in thick, block letters right above 1948.
    “We’ve al got them,” Brian said, and he and Gregory and Arnie showed off their matching tattoos.
    “We figured it was the least we could do to show our solidarity with the team.”
    “Yeah, the team.” John’s shoulders drooped.
    The light changed. We crossed the street and said good-bye to the guys outside the bar where they went to drown their basebal -induced sorrows.
    Quinn drove me home, relatively silent. At least about what mattered.
    He talked about the game. And about Brian and the guys and how refreshing it was to stil find fans who were committed to the team. He talked about going to rehab the next day and hinted that he could leave from my apartment—if I’d let him stay the night.
    Two could play the same game, and besides, I wasn’t ready to hop back into bed with the man who’d smashed my heart into a mil ion pieces with his skepticism. We had a long way to go, Quinn and I, before we were back to where we’d once been.
    When we pul ed up to my apartment building, I gave him one last chance to make a move. No, not that kind of move. A move in the right direction. “If you want to come in and talk about what happened to you outside that warehouse a couple months ago…”
    My offer dangled in the air between us for a few seconds. “I think you’re right,” Quinn said and my spirits rose. He was final y going to open up about what it was like to be dead and how lousy he felt to have ever doubted me. “It’s getting late and I’d better get home.” He gave me a quick peck on the cheek.
    “I’l cal you.”
    “Sure.” My smile was brittle, but honestly, I got out of the car and he drove away so fast, I doubt Quinn noticed.
    Grumbling, I unlocked the door and went into the building. What I needed was a little therapy in the way of Ben and Jerry’s Crème Brûlée.
    That, and something that would distract me from the sad realities of unemployment, basebal , curses, and a TV appearance that would do nothing for my reputation—not to mention my image.

    E
    xactly one week to the day later, I got a kick-in-the-pants reminder about that ol’