No Humans Involved

She ran over and threw her arms around me and I swear, for the briefest second, I felt them. Then her hands passed through me. Eve came up behind her and knelt, putting her hands on the girl's shoulders as if to reassure her that she could still touch someone.

Behind Eve, another girl had appeared. A couple of years younger than Rachel, with cornrows and glittering earrings that caught the light as she looked around, uncertain, as if she didn't quite recognize the world from this side of the veil. I walked over to her and bent down.

'Hello, there. I'm Jaime. And who would you be?'

Maybe not the right question to ask a traumatized child, but she met my gaze and smiled, as if finding something she did recognize.

' 'Lizbeth,' she lisped.

I looked up at the older boy.

'Manny,' he said before I could ask. 'Manuel Garcia.'

'Todd,' said a voice behind me.

'Chloe Margaret Fisher,' said another.

I turned to see a boy about eleven, chubby with wild red hair. Behind him stood a pretty brunette around the same age.

'Pleased to meet you, Todd and Chloe. I'm Jaime. This is Eve.'

As Eve approached, holding Rachel's hand, I glanced up to introduce Jeremy, but he'd stepped back, out of sight. I nodded. Explaining to the children why he couldn't see them-that they were ghosts-wasn't something they needed yet.

I looked around the group. 'Five. I thought-' I glanced at Eve. 'There are supposed to be six.'

'Number six coming up,' Kristof's voice floated from somewhere in the garden. He rounded a bush. In his arms was a small boy, his face buried against Kristof's chest. 'This is Charles. He's shy.'

I greeted the boy and he nodded, his face still against Kristof.

'We should go,' Eve whispered to me. 'Before they-'

'What are we doing here?' Chloe asked. 'Where's my mom?'

Eve took her hand. 'We're going to take you to someone who'll answer all your questions. Then we're going to throw you a big welcome-back party, with all the ice cream you can eat. Vanilla, right? That's your favorite, isn't it?'

The girl nodded, temporarily distracted. Eve started down the path, holding Chloe and Rachel's hand, so Kristof shifted Charles to one arm and reached down. Elizabeth took his free hand. He waved for the boys to follow Eve, then fell into line behind them.

'Never heard of a girl who likes vanilla best,' Eve said as they walked. 'You must be pretty special. Do you know what my favorite is?'

'Chocolate?' Rachel said.

Eve grinned. 'Smart girl. Double-fudge chocolate with brownies. Does anyone else like chocolate?'

Their figures and their voices started to fade as Eve passed them gradually over to the other side of the veil.

'My favorite flavor?' Kristof was saying. 'Bubble gum.'

'No way,' scoffed one of the boys.

Eve said something I couldn't make out, and they all laughed. And that was the last thing I heard. The children laughing.

THE WRAP-UP

IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT TRAGIC EVENTS on the Death of Innocence set in Brentwood, spiritualist Jaime Vegas has reevaluated her career and decided to end her regular television engagements on The Keni Bales Show, as well as her semiregular spots-' I paused and nibbled the end of my pen. 'Does 'spots' sound too informal for a media release?'

Eve looked up from the floor, where she was doing sit-ups. I was also lying down… in an extravagant king-size bed, room-service champagne in a bucket on the night table, a chocolate in my free hand, a half-empty box propped on a pillow. If I was leaving television, I didn't need to worry about those three extra pounds. And since Jeremy had given me the chocolates, he obviously wasn't worried about them either.

'Don't you have a publicist for this kind of thing?' Eve asked.

'I want to do it myself. What's a synonym for spot?'

'Blot. Stain. Blemish.'

I threw a pillow at her. It landed in her stomach, tassels sticking up from her chest. She shot me a glare. I sighed, got up, walked over and moved it for her. As I bent, I admired my new tattoo. Small and tasteful, as the girl at the parlor promised. Jeremy acted embarrassed by it, repeatedly telling me he didn't think the symbol meant anything, but when it was finished I knew he was pleased.

I'm still convinced the rune is supernatural and suspect it has something to do with Jeremy's mother. When I'd shown it to Eve, she'd said it sparked a vague memory, and she'd promised to dig deeper for me from the other side.

As she continued her sit-ups, I returned to my writing.

The Death of Innocence special was dead. No pun intended… though that wasn't stopping the tabloids and trade papers from making them. They had dead children, ritual sacrifice, restless ghosts and a murdered young spiritualist. Against that, raising Marilyn was almost anticlimactic. Instead the network was keeping the footage for a new special: Death of Innocence: Satanism in Brentwood. Todd Simon hoped to get Geraldo Rivera to host.

The Satanism angle was still only a theory. There was no suggestion that the police would ever trace the murders back to May and her group. As for the remaining members of that group, Paige had called a council meeting for this weekend to plan a course of action.

I stroked a line from my media release and checked the clock. Jeremy's plane should be landing soon. He'd planned to stay in L.A. longer, but then he got a jubilant call from Elena announcing that Logan had taken his first steps, and Kate seemed determined to follow. Although Jeremy had brushed it off, saying he'd see them walk when he got home, I'd packed his bag. I wasn't going to start this relationship by letting him miss his grandchildren's milestones. I'd see him on the weekend, at the council meeting.

We'd have to get used to these brief and sporadic interludes anyway. We had separate lives, but as long as they collided regularly, I'd be happy. Even if it was only a weekend a month, I suspected those weekends would be intense enough to keep us going the rest of the time.

I wondered whether Hope would be at that council meeting. I hadn't heard from her. Was she holding her breath, waiting for me to spill her secret? I'd have to talk to her about that. I believed her motives were as pure as anyone's on the council. Maybe part of her reason for helping was to have an excuse to find chaos, but there were a lot worse ways she could do that.

Balance. I'd learned a lot about that this past week.

I'd failed with Angelique. I was paying for that with memories and regrets. I'd go to that revival in Nebraska, in her honor, the pro-ceeds going to her family. Someday I'd contact her, try to make amends, but I wasn't ready to face her yet.

I was ready to do more for other ghosts. Maybe I couldn't help every one, and maybe I wasn't obliged to help any. But if this case taught me anything it was that I wanted to help, that it hurt more to say no than it did to say 'I'll try' and to fail. Whether opening myself up to more ghosts would keep me sane or, as I'd always feared, drive me mad was a possibility I had to deal with. Starting now.

'Eve?'

She stopped in mid-sit-up, then fell back to the floor. 'Hmm?'

'That thing you did with the girl's ghost. Reading her mind or whatever. That's part of being an angel, isn't it? A new power?'