Besides, it wasn't like it was going to happen. Paul going back through time, I mean. Because he didn't have that anchor thing his grandpa had been talking about. The thing to anchor him to the night Jesse died.

Or that's what I was telling myself - reassuring myself - right up until Andy held up the silver belt buckle Brad had found while he'd been cleaning out the attic. When he'd found it - wedged between the floorboards beneath the attic window - it had been this tarnished, crusty old thing I'd barely glanced at twice. Andy had thrown it into the box marked MISSION AUCTION, and I hadn't really thought about it again.

When he held it up now, I saw it winking in the afternoon sunlight. Someone had washed and polished it. And now Andy was going on about how it was an artifact from when our house had been the area's only hotel - a fancy way of saying what it had really been a boardinghouse - and that the Carmel Historical Society had put its age at close to 150 years.

About as long, actually, as my boyfriend had been dead.

"What'll I get for this sterling silver buckle?" Andy wanted to know. "A real piece of old-fashioned craftsmanship. Look at the detail in the ornate D carved into it."

Shannon, sitting beside me, suddenly went, "Does your brother ever talk about me? Dave, I mean."

I was idly watching my stepfather. The sun was beating down on us kind of hard, and it was difficult to think about anything except how much I wished I were at the beach.

"I don't know," I said. I could understand Shannon's pain, of course. She had a crush on a guy. All she wanted to know was whether or not she was wasting her time.

As the sister of the object of her affections, however, all I could think was . . . ew. Also, that David is way too young to have a girlfriend.

"One of the members of the historical society - don't think I don't see you there, Bob," Andy went on laughingly, "even ventured that this belt buckle might have belonged to someone in the Diego clan, a very old, very respected family that settled in this area nearly two hundred years ago."

Respected, my butt. The Diegos - or at least, the ghost of the one member of the family I had had the misfortune to meet - had all been thieves and murderers.

"I believe that for that reason and not just because of its intricate beauty," Andy continued, "this piece is going to be highly sought after by collectors someday . . . and, who knows, maybe even today!"

"David doesn't really talk about girls at home all that much," I said to Shannon. "At least, not to me."

"Oh." Shannon looked dejected. "But do you think . . . well, do you think if Dave did like a girl, it'd be, you know, someone like me?"

"Let's start the bidding for this fine piece of authentic period jewelry at a hundred dollars," Andy said. "A hundred dollars. Okay, we have a hundred. How about a hundred and twenty-five? Does anybody bid a hundred and twenty-five?"

I thought about what Shannon had asked me. David, a girlfriend? The youngest of my stepbrothers, I could no more picture David with a girlfriend than I could picture him behind the wheel of a car or even playing soccer. He just isn't that kind of guy.

"Three fifty," I heard Andy say. "Do I hear three fifty?"

But I supposed that one day David would drive a car. I mean, I could drive now, and there'd been a time when my whole family had despaired of that ever happening. It made sense that someday David would be sixteen and do all the same things that his older brothers Jake and Brad and I were doing. . . . You know, drive. Take trig. Make out with members of the opposite sex.

"My goodness, Bob," Andy said into the microphone. "You weren't kidding when you mentioned how important you thought this piece was going to be to our auction today, were you? I have seven hundred dollars. Does anyone - Okay, seven fifty. Do I hear eight?"

"Sure," I said to Shannon. "I mean, why wouldn't David like you? I mean, if he liked anyone better than anybody else. Which I'm not saying he does. That I know of."

"Really?" Shannon looked worried. "Because Dave's really smart. And I think he'd probably only like smart girls. But I'm not doing all that well in math."

"I'm sure David wouldn't care about something like that," I said even though I wasn't sure of it at all. "So long as, you know, you're a nice person, and all."

"Really?" Shannon flushed prettily. "Do you really think so?"

My God, what had I said?

Fortunately at that moment, Andy brought his auctioneer's hammer down hard, and distracted Shannon by shouting, "Sold for eleven hundred dollars!"

"Wow," Shannon said. "That's a lot of money."

She wasn't the only one in shock. There was an astonished hum through the crowd. Eleven hundred dollars was the most any item on the block had brought in so far. I craned my neck to see what kind of fool had that much money to burn on a piece of junk, and was a little startled to see that Andy was still holding up the belt buckle Jake had found in the attic . . .

. . and that Paul Slater, of all people, was striding up through the crowd to claim it.

I watched as Paul, looking pleased, shook Andy's hand, took the belt buckle, then whipped out his checkbook. What a loser, I thought. I mean, I had known Paul was a weirdo for a long time. But to throw away his hard-earned money - well, not so hard-earned, actually, because I was pretty sure he was paying for the belt buckle with funds stolen from the Gutierrezes - on a piece of junk like that. . . . Well, that was just insane.

It didn't make any sense. Why would Paul Slater spend 1,100 bucks on a banged-up old belt buckle . . . even if it had been polished and its linage could be traced back to its original owner, someone in the Diego clan?

And then, as if someone had brought Andy's auctioneer's hammer down on my head, finally banging some sense into me, it all became clear.

And I began to feel as if I might throw up all those baked goods we'd secretly been scarfing down behind Sister Ernestine's back. I guess it must have shown on my face, since Shannon suddenly sucked in her breath and went, "Are you all right?"

"Bad lemon bar," I said. "I'll be right back." I got up and hurried away from the bake sale table, around the back of the rows of folding chairs, and then up the aisle, toward the dais where Paul was standing, collecting his bounty.

But before I could get anywhere close to him, someone grabbed me by the arm.

My heart was beating so fast on account of the whole Paul-trying-to-keep-my-boyfriend-from-dying thing, that I almost jumped a mile in the air, I was so startled.

But it turned out it was only my mother.

"Susie, honey," she said, smiling beatifically up at Andy, behind his podium. "Isn't this fun? Isn't Andy doing great?"

"Uh," I said, "yeah, Mom."

"He's a real natural, isn't he?" She's so in love with this guy. It's totally gross. In, like, a nice way, I guess. But still gross.

"Yeah," I said. "Look, I have to - "

But I shouldn't have worried. Because Paul found me.

"Suze," he said, coming down the steps from the dais. I was too late. The transaction had been completed. In his hand was the belt buckle. "Fancy meeting you here."

"I need to talk to you," I said more intensely than I'd meant to, because both my mother and Sister Ernestine, who was standing nearby with Paul's check still hot in her hands, turned to look at me.

"Susie, honey," my mom said. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," I said quickly. Could they tell? Could they tell my heart was hammering a mile a minute and that my mouth was as dry as sand? "I just need to talk to Paul really fast."

"And who is minding the bake sale table?" Sister Ernestine wanted to know.

"Shannon's got it under control," I said, reaching out and taking Paul's arm. He was watching us - my mom, Sister Ernestine, and me - with a slightly sardonic smile, as if everything we were saying was amusing him very much.

"Well, don't leave her alone too long," Sister Ernestine said severely. I could tell that wasn't what she'd wanted to say, but just as far as she was willing to go in front of my mom.

"I won't, Sister," I said.

And then I dragged Paul away from the dais and folding chairs, and over behind one of the display tables holding the rest of the stuff that was to be auctioned.

"What do you think you're doing?" I hissed at him the moment we were out of earshot.

"Well, hey, Suze," he said, looking as if he were still finding plenty about the situation to amuse him. "Nice to see you, too."

"Don't give me that," I said. It was kind of hard to talk with my mouth feeling so dry and all, but I wasn't about to give up. "What did you buy that belt buckle for?"

"This?" Paul opened his fist and I saw silver flash in the bright sun for a second before his fingers closed over it again. "Oh, I don't know. I just thought it was pretty."

"Eleven hundred dollars' worth of pretty?" I glared at him, hoping he couldn't see how badly I was shaking. Come on, Paul, I'm not stupid. I know why you bought that thing."

"Really?" Paul's grin was more infuriating than ever. "Enlighten me."

"Only it's not going to work." My heart was slamming into my ribs now, but I knew there was no going back. "Jesse's last name is de Silva. That's an S, not a D. That isn't his buckle."

I'd expected this news to wipe the insufferable smile right off Paul's face.

Only it didn't. The corners of his mouth didn't even waver.

"I know it isn't Jesse's buckle," he said evenly. "Anything else, Suze? Or can I go now?"

I stared at him. I could feel my pulse slowing down, and the roaring sound that had filled my ears since I'd realized he was the buckle's new owner suddenly disappeared. For the first time in several minutes, I was able to take a deep breath. Before, I'd only been able to manage shallow ones.

"Then . . . then you know," I said, feeling ridiculously relieved, "you know you won't be able to use that to go . . . to go back through time to save Jesse."

"Of course," Paul said, his smile growing broader than ever. "Because I'm going to use it to go back through time to stop Jesse's murderer. See you, Suze."

Chapter ten

Diego. Felix Diego, the man who'd killed Jesse, because Jesse's fiancée, the heinous Maria, asked him to. She had wanted to marry Diego, a slave-runner and mercenary, rather than the man her father had picked out tor her to marry, her cousin (ew) Jesse.

But Jesse never made it to the wedding. That's because he was killed on his way there. Killed by Felix Diego, though no one at the time knew that. His body was never found. People - Jesse's own family, even - assumed that he'd chosen to run away rather than marry a girl he didn't love and who didn't love him. Maria had gone on to marry Felix, and they'd produced a whole bunch of kids who later grew up to be murderers and thieves themselves.

And, not too long ago, the pair of them had paid a little visit to me, at Paul's behest. He'd met Diego's ghost. In fact, Paul was the one who'd summoned him.

Now Paul was going to stop Diego from killing Jesse . . . probably by killing Diego himself. It's easy for shifters to kill people. All we have to do is remove their souls from their bodies, escort them to that spiritual way station where their fate - whatever it was, heaven, hell, next life - was decided, and boom: back on earth, another unexplained death, another body in the morgue.

Or, in Diego's case, the icehouse, because they didn't have morgues in California circa 1850.

Except that it wasn't going to happen like that. I wasn't going to let Paul do it. Oh sure, Diego deserved to die. He was the scum of the earth. He'd killed my boyfriend, after all.

But if Diego died, that meant Jesse wouldn't.

And then I'd never meet him.

I knew, of course, that I couldn't stop Paul on my own - short of killing him myself. I needed backup.

Fortunately, I knew just where to find it. As soon as the auction was over, and Sister Ernestine dismissed Shannon and me with a curt, "You may go now," I booked for my mom's car, which she'd graciously allowed me to borrow for the day, in light of my "volunteering" to help out at the Mission. Paul had left the second after he'd dropped his little bomb about stopping Felix Diego. I had no way of knowing, really, where he'd disappeared to.

But I had a pretty good idea who might know.