CHAPTER ONE

I used to be one of those weirdos who liked funerals; you believe that? People always wear their best shoes to funerals. Not weddings. They’ll scope their closet, they’ll think about the bride or the groom, and they’ll go, “yeah, I can wear these, I don’t need to go to the mall”, and they think nothing of wearing last season’s pumps.

But if it’s a funeral, they’ll think, “aw, jeez, I was so mean to Aunt Ginny that time and now she’s dead”, and out come the new Guccis.

Me, I was so lucky. So lucky. I was so lucky I didn’t know how lucky I was; I’d think, “jeez, Aunt Ginny was such a jerk to Cousin Brian, I wonder what he’s gonna wear to her funeral?”. I never had to go to the funeral of anybody I really really loved. Well, except for my dad’s. But I spent most of that funeral in a state of high piss-off, so my focus was elsewhere. (It turned out an evil librarian was out to get me, and not—for a change—owed from all the overdue charges from late returns. And there was a cursed engagement ring involved. Nightmare. The whole thing. Just awful.)

My focus was often elsewhere and, too often, my focus was often in the exact place it should not be. Case in point: my dead friend Marc. (Also: the future, but I can’t think about that right now. One soul-shriveling crisis at a time, please.)

Once, a long time ago (in my head, I mean...in real life, it hasn’t even been five years), I talked a man out of committing suicide. Two weeks ago, he killed himself. I’m ashamed because I didn’t see it coming. How’s that for the Lex Luthor level of lame? Who doesn’t see someone they know to have suicidal tendencies committing suicide? He practically wrote it on his forehead in red Sharpie.

I wasn’t at his funeral, by the way. Nobody was. He’d strictly forbidden one in a number of letters he’d left for me; he also left his diary. Words, words, they were all over the place. He was nagging me more in death than he had in life, which was a pretty good trick given that, nag-wise, he trailed only behind my friend Jessica. Okay, and maybe my mom.

I couldn’t stand to read too much of his stuff at a time. I’d cry, and then look ugly, and cry harder, and make my husband sad, and then we’d sad-fuck. Which is great, but sad. (Thus the name.)

Still.

The stuff I’ve read. It’s like he knew he was going to die within a few years of meeting me. But he doesn’t say how he knew. It’s all over his diary, it’s all over his suicide letters. Who writers suicide letters? He wrote me a suicide manuscript, the heartless bastard...he knows if it’s not Gone with the Wind or Pat Conroy I’ve got zero interest. He knew he was doomed, he had a plan, but what he never said was why.

I found that kind of curious.

I never find anything curious. So I figure it’s a time-travel issue, or a me issue. Now, I’m not pulling a Mary Sue thing here, but I am the Vampire Queen. One of my best friends killed himself so that Evil Me From The Future (EMFEF, pronounced “emfef”) wouldn’t turn him into a horrid nasty Marc Thing.

So, yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s not all about me, but it’s definitely a lot about me.

So. Time to get to work.

Don’t get too comfy being dead, Marc.

I’m coming.

“—doing in here?”

I blinked at the woman across from me. She was not pleased, not even a teeny tiny bit. Her hair, which was once probably a lovely brunette pageboy, now looked as though the woman had been combing it with a wire whisk. Her face was red and shiny. Her clothes were a mess—a run in her pantyhose, her blouse un-tucked, one shoe missing—and she was standing ankle-deep in a drift of snow. Her brown eyes were really, really starey.

“I didn’t miss Christmas, right?” I asked. This wasn’t an idle question. The last thing I remembered was December, but hardly any snow—it had been a weirdly green winter.

“Didn’t you hear me?” the woman croaked. Her voice was hoarse, either because she was ill or she’d been screaming. Probably at me, poor thing. “The cops are on the way! This is...it’s...it’s destruction of property!”

Well, that certainly sounded bad. I nodded encouragement (“yes, my, sounds terrible”) but it didn’t calm her down, not even a little.

I tried to figure out where I was. There were no newspapers around, so I had no idea what city I was in or what the date was. No TVs running with a CNN stream. Windows, sure, but too high for me to see billboards or the Golden Arches or any sort of landmark. (Mmmmm. Arches! Suddenly I wanted a Filet O’ Fish, or five.) Nothing indicating the name of the building the poor thing and I were in. Just barking.

Lots of barking from, I would deduce (being a trained investigator for the FBI, I could do that; I could deduce all over the place) lots of dogs.

Dogs.

Ah.

I looked down and observed that the “snow” I was standing in was actually mounds and mounds of poodle fur.

“Uh-oh.”

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

“Um...oh, crumbs?” (Profanity was for the unimaginative.) “And...I’m sorry?” An apology seemed like the right move. When I woke up in a strange place with enraged strangers who were wearing only one shoe while standing in poodle fluff, it was almost always the right move.

“And there they are!” she shrilled, pointing with a flourish at the approach of two police officers. “You boys! You come over here and...and get her.”

“Get me?” I asked, appalled. “But you don’t even know me.”

“Don’t say that like we haven’t spent ten horrible minutes together.”

Well. We hadn’t. She and I, is what I meant. She had spent time with my body, but not with me. Don’t worry: it’s not as depraved as it sounds.

“She committed felony assault on all my show poodles!”

Scratch that. It was at least as depraved as it sounds.

“Ohhhhh, that sounds bad,” I said as the officers hurried up. They were St. Paul police, I noted as I nodded politely and tried to look the opposite of dangerous. Both cops were big and blonde and puffy, one with blue eyes and one with brown.

“You called in the assault, ma’am?” Blue Eyes asked.

“I think, yes, officers,” I said, well into helpful mode.

“You shut up! I did,” she agreed, blowing a hank of hair off her forehead with a gusty, egg-scented puff. “She committed assault all over everything and I’ll lose now and months—months! Down the drain! We've been working toward this dog show for months!”

“You should probably arrest me,” I agreed. I went to set down my milkshake, then realized my hands were empty. No wonder I was thirsty. “I’ll come along quietly.”

And I did.