Finn believed in God. His mother would have nailed his hide to the back shed if he hadn't. In his family, faith was never a question. What was faith in God if not the belief that the soul existed beyond this life, which his family knew with certainty to be true?

There were those who thought such powers came from the devil. His family dismissed that nonsense the way philosophers scoffed at those who saw an eclipse as a sign the world was being devoured by dragons. God granted some people the skills to become doctors to help the living. God had given their family the power to help the dead. It wasn't always conducive to a peaceful life, but no worse than a family doctor, called out on an emergency at 3 a.m.

Since moving to Los Angeles, though, Finn had stopped attending church. He didn't much see the point. Where he came from, the church was the heart of the community. Here, if there was a community, he hadn't found it. Not one he fit into, anyway.

And, Finn had to admit, his faith wasn't what it used to be – he'd seen too much here, spent too many nights sitting up alone wondering what he was doing so far from home, whether it was making any difference, why he'd given himself over to this empty life if he wasn't sure it did make a difference…

And when he had been questioning that faith, Damon showed up. The first ghost who'd ever come back, let alone stuck around. And he needed Finn's help. Maybe it was coincidence, but Finn couldn't bring himself to tell Damon to get lost. And when he had a way to test him – demand to know the name of his wife's friend – he couldn't bring himself to do that either. Trust didn't come from forcing a man's hand. Damon had to earn it and, if he didn't, Finn had to let him go.

Two hours later, Finn was outside Peltier's apartment door. The super was supposed to follow him up, but had been waylaid by a tenant.

"What are you hoping to find?" Damon kept his voice neutral, but Finn could tell it was a struggle. He wanted to tell Finn he was wasting his time, that he should be looking for real suspects.

"I need to find her," Finn said. "That's the easiest way to clear her – "

A door clicked down the hall. A woman stepped out. Noticing Finn, she glanced behind him, as if trying to see who he'd been talking to. Finn returned his cell phone to his pocket. She nodded and smiled as she passed.

"Smart move," Damon said. "You're getting better at this."

The elevator doors opened and off stepped the super, with an irate tenant in tow.

"That drain isn't going to fix itself," the bearded man bellowed.

"I will fix it. But first I need to let this policeman into an apartment."

The tenant peered at Finn, nose wrinkling as if he'd caught a whiff of sulfur water. He wheeled on the super, who was unlocking the door. "You'd better not be letting anyone into our apartments without a warrant – "

Finn held up the warrant. The man snatched it.

"An investigation into the death of that Portia Kane?" he said, voice rising. "She was murdered, wasn't she?" He jabbed a bony finger at the super. "If there's been a murder, you'd damned well better tell us."

Finn plucked the warrant from his fingers, pushed open the door and sidestepped through. The super's hand shot up, telling Finn to wait.

"I know my way around." Finn pushed past the super's outstretched hand. "You take care of this."

He slid in before the super could stop him. Damon walked to the win dow and looked out. Finn started to search. The voices in the hall faded, presumably as the super gave in and went to check the drain.

"I don't know where she is," Damon said after a minute, still looking out the window. "I know that's what you're wondering and I wish I did know, because you're right. She needs to come forward and get this cleared up."

Finn nodded and resumed searching. When he went into the bedroom, he knew something had changed. The closet door was open – it had been closed when he'd been here – every door and drawer shut, bed made, not an item out of place. He checked it out, but couldn't see anything.

He returned to the living room and found Damon still standing at the window.

Finn cleared his throat. "This morning you were going to tell me your story. How you came back."

"I never left." Damon turned around. "After I died, I was standing on the road, looking down at my body, thinking 'Ah, shit, so much for being home in an hour.' That's what you think, you know. Not 'Holy crap, my life is over.' Anyway, there I am, thinking of her, and then there's this…"

"Light?"

"Sorry. No light. Just a… pull. Like when you're deep asleep on a Monday morning and the alarm goes off and you can just barely hear it. I guess I wasn't ready. So I hit the cosmic snooze button."

"So that's it? You want to stay, you stay?"

"It's a little more complicated. I dug in my heels, though. I needed to stay a little while, make sure Bobby was okay."

"Bobby?"

"Robyn. That's what I called her, because – " He shook his head. "Anyway, I stayed to make sure she was okay, only she wasn't."

Damon was quiet a moment before continuing. "The thing about Robyn? She's always in control. Day before our wedding, the bakery calls to say they're overbooked. So what's she do? First she demands a refund and negotiates a free cake for my parents' thirtieth anniversary. Then she calmly reschedules her manicure so she'll have time to bake our wedding cake." His smile faded as fast as it came. "Point is, whatever you throw at her, she can handle it. But this? This was too much. Too sudden. Too senseless. When she couldn't make sense of it, she just… shut down."

"So you've been following her. What did you see that night? At Bane?"

"I haven't seen Bobby since she got to L.A. It sounded like a great plan, sticking around, making sure she was okay, but it didn't take long to see some serious flaws in the logic. What if she's not okay? What the hell can I do about it? I can't talk to her, can't touch her. I can only watch her suffer."

He addressed the window again. "Whatever grand power let me stay also ran out of patience. When Bobby came to L.A., I lost her. Eventually I found out she'd taken a job with Portia Kane and, when I got over the shock of that, I figured finding Bobby would be simple – Portia Kane isn't exactly a recluse. But whenever I get close to her, something blocks me. If they can't make me cross over, they're going to take away my reason for staying."

"That doesn't seem to be working out too well."

A flash of white teeth. "Yeah, I'm stubborn. I know Bobby will get better; I just need to see it. So I – "

The super hurried in, breathing hard. "So sorry. He is always complaining. Not like Miz Peltier."

"I think I'm done here. Just one question. The bedroom closet door. It wasn't open when I came through here last night."

"Oh, yes, that was the girl. Miz Kane's cousin."

"Cousin?"

The super explained that Portia Kane's cousin had come by earlier to pick up a shirt Peltier had dry-cleaned for Kane.

"She talked to the other officers. They said it was okay."

The officers hadn't mentioned it to Finn when he'd stopped by their car. An oversight? He doubted it.

"So what did she take?"

"A blouse. A very nice blouse."

"From this closet?"

The super nodded.

"Was it in a wrapper from the cleaners?"

"No. Miz Peltier must have taken it off."

Finn could believe Portia Kane would make her PR rep pick up her dry cleaning. And he could believe Kane's family would send someone to retrieve it after her death, worried their daughter's employee might "forget" to return a valuable item. But for Peltier to put it into her closet with her own clothing after removing the dry-cleaning wrapper?

Finn took out his notebook. "Could I get a description of Ms. Kane's cousin?"