It had been a nose-to-the-grindstone winter. She'd left a secure corporate job to go out on her own early last year, just before Ike had bowed out of her life as abruptly as he'd barged in. Sometimes she wondered if he'd infected her-not romantically, but in creating a sense of urgency in her, so that the "someday" she'd go out on her own became something she had to do now. She'd been doing work for his Beacon Historic Project on the side, and before she knew it, she was hanging out her shingle. She'd worked out of her apartment for the first six months. Then, last fall, she and Susanna Galway decided to rent an office together in a late-nineteenth-century building on Beacon Street, a prestigious address. They had one room on the fourth floor, overlooking the city's most famous cemetery.

Tess turned from the window and looked at her friend. Susanna was tall and willowy, as dark as Tess was fair, with porcelain skin and eyes as green as the springtime grass down in Old Granary. She was also a financial planner, and Tess had only just told her about the carriage house. Susanna was at her desk, Tess's tax bill laid out on her keyboard. Occasionally she'd emit a sigh that conveyed the utmost distress.

"This is why you're an artist," she said finally. "Damn, Tess. You always get paid in cash. It's Rule One. If I'd been around to advise the Indians, do you think I'd have let them take beads for Manhattan? Hell, no."

"I can sell it."

"Who would buy it? It's run-down. It's on the flipping historic register. It's on a minuscule lot. And, I might add-" She swiveled around in her expensive ergonomic chair, zeroing in on her office mate and friend with those piercing green eyes. "I might add that the place is haunted."

"That's just a rumor."

"And not haunted by Casper the Friendly Ghost. Your ghost is a convicted murderer."