Excerpt

Chapter 1

New York City
One Year Later

It was one thing to believe in ghosts, another to actually see them. Sweeney had discovered, though, that the kicker was whether or not she knew the ghost. In the small village of Clayton, New York, where she had lived until almost a year ago, she'd had at least a nodding acquaintance with most of the inhabitants, including the dead ones. In New York City, she didn't know any of them, so she could look past the translucent faces in the crowd and pretend not to see them. Back in Clayton, after she had seen the ghost of Sam Beresford, she had never known when another ghost would stop and speak, and she had never been sharp enough to play it cool and pretend nothing had happened. No, she'd just had to react, and before long people were giving her those looks that said they suspected she was losing her marbles. She had packed up and moved before they began pointing at her on the street.

Yeah, the city was better. Warmer, too. About the time she began seeing the ghosts, her internal heat regulator seemed to go on the fritz, too. She always felt chilled these days, had for the past year. Maybe the cold had started even before she saw little Sam Beresford; she couldn't remember, because who paid attention to things like that? It wasn't exactly something anyone would mark on their calendars: August 29: Felt cold. Yeah, sure.

Sweeney didn't know what had brought the ghosts to mind this bright September morning, but they were the first things she thought of when she woke. That, and the cold, which seemed worse. She got out of bed, hurriedly changed her pajamas for sweats, and went into the kitchen to get that first cup of