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opportunity for a Pepper and Dan hookup passed us by.
    By that time, he’d figured out that it was actual y true—that I could communicate with the dead and that I had been in regular contact with Madeline—
    and Dan was thril ed. It proved a theory he’d always believed: that there is life after death and that those on This Side and those on the Other are connected.
    But things are never that simple. Not when it comes to living with the dead. Once the whole ugly truth came out about what a liar Madeline real y was, and how she’d played Dan for a sucker, and how I almost got poofed into permanent oblivion thanks to her, the way he handled things said a lot about Dan.
    He didn’t try to pick my brain. Or use me as some sort of psychic guinea pig. In fact, he didn’t ask any questions or try to delve into the mystery of my Gift at al .
    He left town.
    To give me some space, he said.
    And himself some time to recover from the trauma of it al .
    Not bad, huh? I mean, in a knight-in-shining-armor sort of way.
    See, Dan is one of the good guys. Even if he does have lousy taste in wives. And soon—I checked the postmark again; the card had been mailed four days earlier—soon, I’d have a chance to see him again.
    Jazzed at the prospect, I opened and read Mom’s card (there was a kitten on it, designed to cheer me up), and finished with that, I turned my attention to the brown-paper-wrapped box.
    I hadn’t ordered anything online, so I wasn’t waiting for a delivery, and since there was no return address on the box, I used my detective skil s to narrow the field as to where the package might have come from. The postmark was smudged and unreadable. I shook the box and was rewarded by a dul thud. Something inside, and not something big.
    But then, the box was only the size of those rectangular ones that new checks come in.
    I am not a big believer in premonitions and weird stuff like that. Sure, I talk to ghosts, but that has more to do with the bad luck of the draw than it does with ESP. Stil , a shiver like the touch of a dead hand crawled up my back.
    “Dumb,” I told myself, and ripped the brown paper off the box.
    Three cheers for me in the deduction department; it was a box from old checks. I lifted the lid. There was a folded piece of paper inside.
    Another chil on the back of my neck.
    Another reminder to myself that if I could deal with the dead but not departed, I could certainly handle a letter.
    I unfolded the paper and saw the blocks of words, cut out of a newspaper and glued to the page:
    If U Want 2 C Dan Callahan alive, follow instructions exactly
    Bring Chester Goodshot Gomez (the name was written with a Sharpie, but then, I don’t suppose they’re common words in a newspaper) 2 Tres Piedras, New Mexico. Instructions @ gas station U have 7 days
    It was a joke.
    It had to be.
    Only I wasn’t laughing.

    Especial y when I realized there was something under the tissue paper wadded at the bottom of the box. I plucked it out, and found myself staring at a watch with a silver band.
    Yeah, that one. A band engraved with mysterious-looking symbols and studded with teardrop-shaped bits of turquoise.
    T
    he moment I walked into her office, El a’s face lit up with a grin as bright as the sparkly yel ow beads she was wearing with her orange dress. She was so obviously pleased to see me, I almost felt guilty for being there.
    Almost.
    I braced myself for what I knew what was coming, and managed one deep breath before she leaped from her chair and wrapped me in a hug that made the air whoosh out of my lungs. When she stepped back to look up and take a gander at me, there were tears in El a’s eyes.
    “It’s so good to see you,” she crooned and sniffed. “I was afraid we’d never see you here at Garden View again, that you’d never want to come back. I mean, after the way we treated you.”
    “ You didn’t treat me any way. You were only doing your job. The cemetery had to cut staff. No hard