"He molested her?"

"Tried to," he said. "He cornered her at a family party, drunk and stupid and made a move. He"s an idiot for trying that with her. She"s a fighter if anything and she let him have it. From what she told me, he immediately repented, but also made a confession."

I felt sick to my stomach. "What kind of confession?"

"He told her he had done this before with another girl. He knew he was sick and begged her not to tell. Charlotte, being Charlotte, took that information and used it against him for the next four years. She had him. Not only did he leave her alone, but she threatened to tell the police, the community and her family if he made one wrong move."

"She should have told the police."

He made a face. "Of course she should have, but as you"ve seen, Charlotte is not the sanest person or bound to any clear moral conscious. She"s manipulative. She used his guilt to get whatever she wanted from him, like clothes and money, but I guess her behavior got so out of hand she ended up in the hospital anyway."

I hear a sound from the back of the house and suspected Ava"s brother was getting ready for work. "What do you think? Did she kill herself or something else?"

"I think Charlotte may be too vain to actually take her own life, but then again, she liked to cause drama. I"m really not sure."

"I guess I"ll have to ask her myself."

"No. I don"t want you talking to her."

"Connor, I doubt I have much choice, but at least now I have some leverage."

He shook his head. "That sounds like her. Using information to gain the upper hand."

I leaned forward and rested a hand on his chest. "Just leveling the playing field. If we"re going to survive this, I can"t underestimate her."

With both hands, he pulled me to his chest so we were nose to nose. He kissed me, short and sweet, for the first time in days. I kissed him back, sliding my hands behind his back. The blood burning between our lips proved that even if we wavered in our trust, we had this between us. I curled into his side and laid my ear over his heart, listening to the pounding in his chest. I felt his chin rest on the top of my head and he said, "Just be careful."

"Always," I promised and, lying on Ava"s couch, wrapped in one another, we both pretended I wasn"t lying.

From the top step, I watched Connor"s car rumble down the road. That piece of junk probably woke up half the neighborhood. It was barely eight and I was beyond exhausted. I wondered briefly if I could catch a nap before camp started at 10. I slid my key into the door and felt a light tug on the back of my dress. Panicked, I spun around, bracing myself for the worst.

"Oh, Tonya, you scared me," I said, seeing the little girl behind me on the porch.

"Sorry."

I glanced at Ms. Frances" house and saw the curtain fall in the side window. Was this another set up? Regardless, Tonya waited in her dress with the smocking and tie in the back. The toes of her Mary Janes were scuffed and one braid had lost the tie at the end. I hesitated because I was unsure what to say, she was so young and had already suffered for several lifetimes. "I wanna show you something," she said, offering her hand.

Exhausted, all I wanted was to go to bed. But she had been waiting for me. I held out my hand and let her slip her small, cool one into mine. She directed me down the stairs. I expected her to turn toward her house, but we walked down the front path to the sidewalk. "This way," she said, pointing down the road. "Mama left me at home all the time with Darius, but he was bad at watching me. He spent all his time with his friend Parker, playing baseball."

"They didn"t let you play?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "They let me chase b.a.l.l.s but that was boring."

We walked down the sidewalk hand in hand and I asked, "What did you do instead?"

"Explored. Sometimes I climbed that tree over there," she pointed to a huge magnolia across the street. "Or I snuck down to the grocery. Mr. Johnson gave me candy. Just one and I promised not to tell my mama."

"He sounds nice."

"He was nice." She stops at the corner, but instead of crossing she cuts to the left down a side street with a b.u.mpy, gravel road. "That day, I came down to get my candy and that strange man followed me out of the store. Mama told me he wasn"t right in the head so I ran, cutting down this path to run down the alley back to the house."

We turned down the alley and Tonya clenched my hand. My heart began to pound, dreading the story she had to tell me. She turned again, ducking around the corner of a crumbling brick garage. "This runs behind our house?"

"Yeah, you got that big fence. You can"t see it."

I nodded and stepped over a tire someone dumped in the middle of the dirt road. "I was running so fast. He wasn"t as fast as me so I ducked into that pipe over there." She pointed to a big, open, rusted metal sewer pipe jutting out of the ground. "I heard him coming but he walked past. I didn"t come out until I heard my name. I thought it was Darius coming to find me, but it was Parker."

I looked around, confused. Had she escaped him after all?

"My knees were dirty when I climbed out of the pipe. Parker brushed them off and asked if I wanted a lollipop." Birds cried over us as we stood in front of the metal pipe. Tonya tugged my hand and I looked down. A heavy frown tugged at the edge of her mouth. "He said I could only have it if I gave him a kiss."

My stomach dropped. "Oh the cheek?" I dared.

She shook her head.

"Oh, Tonya." I knelt before the girl.

"I fought him. I squirmed and kicked and bit him on the arm, just like mama told me to do if I ever got in trouble. He got mad, though. So mad." She pointed to her neck. "He grabbed me right here, so tight and squeezed, trying to make me still."

I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat. "And..."

"And I woke up on the tire swing. Mama was sad, crying and couldn"t see me anymore. I tried to get Darius to play with me, but he wouldn"t. Eventually, he left home and never came back."

I wanted to stroke her hair, but I couldn"t. This touching thing was still one-sided. I just clung to the hand she gave me. "And Parker?"

"I don"t know. Mama thinks that man did it. I heard her talking about it. It wasn"t him, but I couldn"t ever tell anyone." Tonya looked at me and said, "Until you."

I started crying. Tonya leaned over and gave me a hug. "Don"t cry. It"s okay."

I brushed the tears off my cheeks and looked into her dark brown eyes. "It"s not okay. But thank you for telling me."

"I"ve never told anyone that before."

"That"s what I"m here for." I stood and wiped the dirt off my knees. A feeling of calm and determination came over me as we walked back out on the main road. I looked down at Tonya in her 30-year-old dress, tired and ready to go home, and said, "Now I have a better idea of what I need to do."

Tonya clutched my hand when I knocked on the door. "Why can you see me and she can"t?" she asked.

"I don"t know. I"m not sure how this thing works or why. I know my great-aunt, the one in the hospital, can see ghosts, too. I know my boyfriend can, but other than that I"m not sure. Your mother knows about you, though."

"I know she does. She talks to me sometimes. Out in the garden or sweeping the steps. She sings me songs or tells me stories."

"She"s a good mother," I said and squeezed her hand.

I heard the locks turn from inside the house and Ms. Frances appeared behind the screen. "Good morning, Jane. Everything okay?"

"Can we talk for a minute?" I glanced down, "Inside?"

She unlatched the door and said, "Sure."

I bent over and said to Tonya, "I need to talk to your mother for a minute. Will you be okay?"

"Yep," she said, and with a fast shimmer her form disappeared.

"That my baby girl?" the old lady asked, looking into the empty s.p.a.ce next to me.

"Was, she"s gone now. I need to talk to you about some things without her around."

"Come on in."

I pulled open the screen door and stepped into the living room. Again, the warm, stale air trapped in the house hit me hard. Ms. Frances pointed to the faded couch while she eased into a rocking chair near the fireplace.

"Tonya just told me her story." I looked down at my hands. "She showed me where it happened and how."

Ms. Frances rocked slowly in her chair, causing a groan with each pa.s.s, and said, "Go on."

"She told me the man you all thought killed her didn"t. He didn"t do it. He wasn"t the one."

The old woman stopped rocking and frowned. "He confessed."

"What did he confess to?"

"Following her out of the store and into the alley. They found him next to her..." she cut off and choked back a sob.

"Who found him?"

"Darius and Parker."

"Ms. Frances, where is Darius now?"

"Darius is gone. I lost him after Tonya. He left home and never came back. I don"t know if he"s dead or alive."

"And Parker?"

"Parker is still a good boy. He comes to see me on holidays. Sends me cards. His parents were special people." She heaved herself out of her chair and shuffled over to a cabinet built into the wall. She reached in and pulled out a frame. "When we moved here, all the white people left. "White flight" they called it. That name was a good one because you could almost see a dust cloud coming off the back of them when they scrambled to get away. Parker"s family didn"t leave. His mama and daddy stuck in that house until they died. Parker still owns it. It"s a rental. He and Darius became fast friends, which was unusual. Back then, the blacks and whites didn"t intermingle often. Too much tension."

She walked back to the rocker and sat down, holding the frame in her hands. "He was devastated when Tonya died. We all were." She wiped the gla.s.s in the frame with the hem of her dress and pa.s.sed the heavy wood frame over to me. "Those are my boys."

The boys stood in matching baseball uniforms with Bates Middle st.i.tched across their chests. Darius smiled a c.o.c.ky grin, holding his bat like he was ready to swing. The other boy had one hand in a glove and a ball in the other. "This is Parker?" I asked, hoping maybe she"d say no. The photo was faded but clear enough that I spotted the similarities right away. I vaguely heard Ms. Frances confirm that Parker was the other boy. I couldn"t hear her over the rush of blood to my ears. That picture linked the final cord between Charlotte and Tonya"s lives and the link that connected them both.

I had no idea how to do this.

"Charlotte," I called. "Come out, come out wherever you are..."

Nothing seemed to work.

I suspected she could hear me, but this wasn"t on her terms. Maybe she knew I had the upper hand for once.

"Guess you"re ready to hand Connor over then?" I said to the empty room. Usually, the ghosts just appeared when I"d rather them not. Now that I finally had the information to help her pa.s.s over, she could be free of this life and Connor and I would be free of her torment. I figured my house should be as good a place as any since I"d officially bailed on work and no one else was home. I went to my room though, just in case someone came home unexpectedly. No need for anyone to walk in while I rid the house of a volatile spirit.

"Charlotte," I called again. Annoyed and tired, I sat on my bed and waited. "I need to talk to you." The room remained quiet while I waited. I wasn"t sure what to expect from her. She may not even cooperate.

"You summoned, your highness?"

She materialized in the middle of the room with a snarky expression and mean eyes. I ignored the att.i.tude. I went straight to the punch. "I know what happened. I understand now why you"re here."

"Do you?" she said. "Enlighten me."

"I know about your uncle and what he tried to do, and what he did do."

She snorted. "I knew he couldn"t keep a secret. Connor"s always been weak. It"s why he"s so easily manipulated."

"He told me some of it, but I figured out the rest from someone else. I think the reason you"re still here is to help her."

Her eyes narrowed for a second, but then her face smoothed. "Help who?"

"Tonya, the dead 11-year-old next door. She"s been waiting 30 years for someone to find out the truth."

"And lucky for her Jane The Girl Who Talks With Ghosts moved in next door and figured it out."

I shrugged, irritated at her suspicion. "Well, yeah. Your uncle killed her."

"Huh," she said and crossed her arms over her chest. Not exactly the reaction I expected.

"Are you ready to tell me what happened?"

"G.o.d, you people are so nosey." She rolled her eyes but sat on the end of the bed, crossing one leg over the other. "Whatever. It"s not like you haven"t figured it out. Parker had always been my favorite uncle. At least before that night. He"s funny and smart. He talked to me like I was an adult. When I was a kid, he slipped me candy, later booze."

"Sounds healthy," I said.

"Not everyone comes from the perfect family, Jane," she snapped. I fought a moment of guilt but she had already moved on. "We were at a typical family dinner. Typical means everyone was wasted by dessert. Parker spent half the night talking to me and playing games. I was stupid though, I led him right to my room, dying to show him my new video game. I showed him how to play it, both of us messing around on my bed. Something we had done a million times before. He was my uncle for Christ"s sake. I"m not sure when everything changed. I thought he was just being silly when he climbed under the covers and pulled me with him. I stopped thinking that when he reached under my dress." She turned her face away and said, "Too bad for him I wasn"t willing to be a pa.s.sive victim. I fought back and he was sloppy drunk so it wasn"t that hard to get away from him." Her voice sounded hard and bitter. I didn"t blame her.

"That sounds horrible," I said. I"ve had enough of this type of story today. "Connor said he confessed to doing something like this before?"

"Yeah, he started crying and begging my forgiveness. I refused and he sobbed some story about another girl, and how he loved her so much. Then he got creepy quiet and said that he did something wrong and hurt her and how he promised himself he would never do it again."

"Anything else?"

"Nope. While he was on his knees in my room crying like a baby, I ran."

Her aloofness surprised me, even though I supposed it shouldn"t. I decided to be direct. "He killed that other girl."

She raised an eyebrow. "How?"