"Did something happen? Something else?"

"He"s asleep. He had a really bad night and I gave him some sleeping pills prescribed by the doctor."

"I figured he wasn"t sleeping well. He looks exhausted."

"Things have been pretty bad since he was released. He barely speaks to us and, when he does, his words, or rants rather, make no sense. I caught him talking to himself more than once." She paused. "It"s so similar to the last time this happened. But last night he was inconsolable."

"He came over last night. He seemed lucid, but he was definitely upset."

"He came over?"

"Yeah, he showed up a little while after we got home."

I could see the worry lines at the edge of her eyes. It"s possible she may have aged since I"d last seen her. "He must have snuck out of his room. He"s not allowed to leave the house alone, not in his current condition. Did he scare you?"

I thought about the way he tightened his grip on my arm and the crazed look in his eyes. "No, he didn"t scare me, not exactly, but he wasn"t acting normal. I asked him to leave."

"Good. He cares for you so much. I know he"d never want to hurt you."

I found the courage to tell her what I should have a week ago. "He"s off his meds. I found out before the beach, I should have told you."

"Oh, honey, this is not your responsibility. I went through his things while he was in detention and found the full bottles. He"s back on them or supposed to be. Taking his medication is part of his release."

"Are you sure he"s taking them?" I tried to control the panic in my voice. Now that I knew why he"d stopped, I was afraid he would fight any attempt for him to start again.

"We"re watching him. If he doesn"t take them here, then he"ll be admitted to the hospital again where they will enforce it. I know he doesn"t want to go back."

"No, I don"t think he does." Then he wouldn"t be able to see Charlotte, which seems to be his ultimate goal at the moment.

"He was doing so well. Until that friend of his died," she said. "Do you know anything about that? Why this is bothering him so much?"

"No," I lied. "I don"t really know anything." I lied for him, which was wrong, but I was also lying for myself. No one could know we were still seeing the ghosts. That would get us both in trouble.

"When he wakes up, let him know I came by."

"I will, dear. And you"re welcome by anytime. Just keep your visits here so we can supervise."

"Sure," I said, and walked way.

"THANKS FOR COMING with me."

"Of course," Ava said. "I"m always up for an adventure."

Little did she know that this adventure may just break my heart.

"Turn left up here," I said, reading the directions off my phone. "That building over there, with the green awning. The realtor"s office." She pulled into a deserted parking lot. "There it is."

"It was Connor"s latest masterpiece. The one that sent him to detention. I craned my neck to see it through the window. "Holy c.r.a.p, it"s huge."

"Ma.s.sive," Ava agreed. The mural spread across the entire side of the building and what I saw shot straight through my veins like ice water.

"Wow. Legal or not, Connor is pretty talented," Ava said after we were both out of the car. "What is that?"

"An angel, I think."

I didn"t just think this, I knew. It was similar to the one on his wall, but this one had a face. One I knew well enough from when we met in my room last week.

"She"s beautiful but super creepy. She looks mean."

I nodded. "She does."

"I wonder who it is?"

I swallowed back the truth and said nothing. Instead, I took out my phone and snapped a couple of pictures.

"Well, whoever this scary girl is, Connor sure did a good job of capturing her."

That, was exactly what made me feel sick to my stomach. The portrait showed Charlotte in all her glory. Even the malicious side I"d met in my room. Strangely, I got a better idea about what he meant by not having control over coming here. Charlotte controlled this. She wanted this version of herself for the world to see. Vindictive and harsh. "Okay, I just wanted to see it, we can go now."

Ava hadn"t moved and I was about to drag her away when a car pulled up and parked next to her SUV. We both eyed the shiny, new Lexus. Too nice for this part of town, I thought, as a man about my dad"s age opened the door and walked over to us. He was wearing a tie and dress pants. It seemed too hot for this type of clothing.

"Looking at my uncommissioned mural?" he asked. He spotted my camera. "Get your pictures now. I"m having this painted over tomorrow."

Ava smiled. "Not your type of artwork?" She"s so much better with adults than I am.

"As much as I don"t want this on the side of my building, even I can admit it"s pretty amazing. Poor kid, he"s obviously talented. Too bad he"s such a mess."

I opened my mouth to defend my non-defendable boyfriend, but Ava placed a hand on my arm. "Do you know who did it?"

Beads of sweat had already developed on his forehead from the heat, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand. "Yeah, a local boy, around your age."

Ava frowned, continuing with her detective act. "Oh, so, he"s going to jail then, right?"

The man pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. "Not this time. I just got back from the police station. I"m dropping charges. I don"t need the ha.s.sle, to be honest. Plus, he"s coming out here to repair and paint the wall."

"That"s very nice of you."

He grimaced. "I think so. Well, ladies, I have some houses to sell. Hopefully, the next time you come by this will be a nice, clean wall again."

He walked past the two of us and unlocked the front door of this office, leaving us out in the heat.

"Well, that"s good to know. At least Connor isn"t going to jail," Ava said after we were back in the car. She turned the air on full blast.

"I guess," I replied.

"You seriously think jail would be better?"

"No. It"s just..."

She cut me off. "I know, things are complicated."

"Ava, I"m sorry it"s just not my stuff to tell." This was a lie. I could tell my part and then she would go running and tell everyone and no one would speak to me again.

She pulled out of the parking lot and that"s when I saw her. Charlotte stood by the edge of the building, under her portrait. Luckily, Ava didn"t notice my silence because she was in a full-on rant at me about being a bad friend. "You know, maybe if you opened up a little I could help you. Cutting me off like this isn"t helping the situation. I"m pretty open-minded, you know."

Out the window Charlotte smirked at the two of us as we drove away. I wished Ava was right and that I could tell her everything she wanted to know without losing her in the process.

After Ava and I had an awkward goodbye, I was met by two surprises. The first was Tonya from next door playing hopscotch on a flat dirt area in her backyard. I considered going over to her, but stopped because the second surprise stood on my back porch calling my name.

"Jeannie!"

My aunt stood on the top step watching me with a wide grin on her face. I looked over my shoulder and the girl had disappeared, the rock she was using as a marker abandoned on the ground. I looked back at my aunt and she eyed me suspiciously.

"You"re early. I thought you were coming in tomorrow."

"Changed my flight. How are you? You look great."

Jeannie was lying of course. I looked like I hadn"t slept all week and I had a boyfriend on state-mandated lockdown and we were on the verge of a break-up. I chose not to say this, and instead went with a standard, "Thanks. You, too." I helped her with her luggage by carrying one of the two large bags in the back door. My mom had made up the downstairs office for her to sleep on the pull-out couch while she was here to manage hospital issues for Ruth, her mother.

"Have you gone to the hospital yet?"

"No, I think I"ll head down in the morning. I have an appointment at 9 a.m."

"What"s going on? Is Aunt Ruth okay?

She dropped her bags on the sofa and nodded. "She"s fine. You know she"s been in residential care for many years. For the longest time, it was her mind slipping but now her body seems to have given up. I need to help get her transferred from one section of the facility to the other. Right now she"s in an able-bodied unit. She needs to be in a nursing home."

"Is that why you moved her up here from Macon?"

"Yes, the facilities are better, plus it"s closer to family."

"Oh, I"m sorry. I didn"t realize things were so bad." The realization of my self-absorption over the last couple of months. .h.i.t home.

"It happened fast. It"s been too much for Bebe to handle on her own." She ran her hands through her hair.

"Enough about that. How are you? How is your handsome man?"

The question alone brought tears to my eyes. "Do you really want to know?"

She pushed her luggage aside and pulled me down on the couch next to her. "Tell me everything."

"What do you think?" Jeannie asked. She drank a gla.s.s of iced tea while stirring a boiling pot of pasta. Making dinner was her idea. I would have waited for my parents to come home. "Is this ghostie good or bad?"

"I wasn"t even aware they could be bad."

"Sweetheart, everything can be bad. Life, energy, auras, fortunes, psychic abilities, people, ghosts, spirits. Some things are even murky and hiding in the shadows. We don"t know what they are until they appear."

"You think Charlotte is evil or something?

"You said she threatened you."

"No, I just felt threatened. She didn"t really do anything." I busied myself, setting the table.

"You can"t ignore your feelings, Jane. You communicate with the other side. The rules are different. I don"t just see auras I feel them too."

I gave her a skeptical look. She continued, "Like earlier, when we were on the back porch. There was someone in the other yard. What did you see?"

"Yeah, my neighbor"s granddaughter or something. I"m not sure yet. What did you get from her?"

"The standard black for death, but with a little blue and white. She"s here for a reason a good one."

"I can"t get her alone long enough to find out what she needs. She"s skittish."

"Sounds like she may have been here for awhile," she said. "What are you going to do? How are you going to handle this? Obviously, you can"t just give up on Connor."

This doesn"t seem so obvious to me, but I know she"s right. Even if he"s given up himself, that doesn"t mean I don"t still have a job to do. "I need to figure out what Charlotte is here for and how to help her move on. Once she"s gone, I can probably help him. She"s contacting him somehow, but unless he"s lying to me, he doesn"t seem fully aware of what"s going on."

"I agree. Seems like the right direction. Help these ghosts move on. Let the living live and the dead pa.s.s over."

"I"m just not sure how."

She shook her head at me. "Of course you do. You"re just letting your emotions get in the way, something I suspect a clever girl like Charlotte is exploiting."

"She"s dead. She wants Connor. I"m not really sure how to go about giving her what she wants," my voice shook.

She put her gla.s.s down on the counter and turned off the pot on the stove. "Come on, I have an idea."

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere I can get a better read on things."

"THIS WAY," I said, tromping through the overgrown path. Now mid-summer, the vines, weeds and kudzu grew so fast it was almost impossible to find the trail.

"You should"ve told me to wear sneakers," Jeannie grumbled.

"The thought of you and sneakers never crossed my mind." I looked down at the brown leather sandals that wrapped around her feet and ankles. "Sorry."

"I"m blaming you if I get poison ivy," she laughed, as I told her to follow me deeper into the woods, away from the main running trail.

Jeannie asked me to show her Connor"s art so she could get a better feel. The ruins seemed like the best place since I didn"t want to be seen at the realtor"s office twice in one day.

"Connor"s behavior changed right after Charlotte killed herself," I explained.

"Do you think they had a..." she scrunched up her nose like she smelled something bad. "Do you think they dated?"