BOBBY PULLED up in front of the Jovingos’ two-story house, parking beside Carly’s Aveo and wondering what in the world could have happened since she left him less than an hour ago.

Was this how life would be now that he was the Servant? One crisis after another after another without end?

His heart banged against his ribs as he hurried up the flower-lined walk onto the porch.

He rapped on the door and waited.

And waited.

“Carly?” he asked in a loud voice, hoping she’d hear him through the walls. “Open up.”

No response came, and the storm cloud of dread hanging over him darkened. He felt a stirring within him. Just go in.

He sucked in a breath that didn’t sufficiently fill his lungs. Here we go.

The house exuded an eerie stillness when he stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him. Directly before him lay a kitchen with a table in the center of the open space, on which sat Carly’s purse, a napkin holder, and a candle in a jar. A crockpot had been set out on the counter, and empty packages of frozen vegetables sat beside it.

Bobby treaded lightly as he moved into the kitchen. He almost expected to find Carly passed out on the floor (or worse), but his fear proved to be unfounded since Carly wasn’t there.

His mind jumped backward into last week when he, Randy, and Phil had arrived at Lupe’s apartment to protect her when they’d learned that Graham was on the loose. Randy had unlocked the apartment and they’d all gone inside to find it vacant, though Lupe’s purse had been left behind on her coffee table.

Could Carly, like Lupe, have been abducted? Bobby wouldn’t put it past Jack to do something else to get even with him, but if Carly had been forcibly removed from her home, how in the world had she been able to call him from there?

A faint sniffling from up above met his ears, flooding him with both fear and relief. He returned to the entryway, eyed a carpeted flight of stairs, and ascended them to an upper hallway running perpendicular to the stairs.

He hung a right and halted in the open doorway of a bedroom, his pulse breaking into full gallop once more.

Carly sat cross-legged on a braided rug in the center of the room, rocking back and forth with her eyes scrunched closed. The landline phone she’d used to call him sat in its cradle beside her on the floor.

Not having the faintest idea of what to say or do, Bobby flipped on the light. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “What do you see?” she asked, keeping her eyes firmly closed.

“Is this a trick question?”

“I’m not laughing, Bobby. Go on. Tell me what you see in here.”

“I see you sitting on the floor.”

A grim smirk tugged at her mouth. “At least I know I’m still here, then. What else?”

Bobby made a quick appraisal of the room. Neatly-made bed with a cerulean bedspread and fuzzy, sky-blue pillows. A dresser. A desk and chair. Photos and knickknacks and stuffed animals. “I see a bedroom?”

Carly’s eyes opened. They were more bloodshot than Bobby had ever seen them. “Bobby, I have to step down as counselor.”

This was just about the last thing he expected to come out of her mouth. “What? Why? I thought you liked doing that.”

“Why?” She gave a hollow laugh. “Because I’m losing my mind. Heck, I even thought I was holding a gun, but I guess I wasn’t or you’d have mentioned it.”

For the first time Bobby noticed the red plastic ladle lying across her lap. “I don’t get it,” he said, the sight of the utensil deepening his unease.

“It’s not that hard to understand. I can’t counsel anyone if there’s something wrong with me.”

“Okay.” Bobby swallowed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Are you blind?”

Despite his concern, irritation rose within him. “Look. You call me upset, I come here and see you sitting like this, and you expect me to figure out what’s the matter without you telling me? I’m not a psychic.”

At first he thought she’d go off on him like she had on the day they’d met, but instead she said, “I need help. For three years I’ve helped people work through their problems, and I can’t even work through my own.”

“Why do you think you’re losing your mind?”

She mustered a few ounces of resolve. “A man was in the kitchen.”

“I didn’t see anyone.”

“He isn’t here now.”

“Where did he go?”

“Heck if I know.” She shivered.

Bobby licked dry lips. “He…he didn’t try to hurt you, did he?”

“Not physically.”

Bobby couldn’t see how a prowler would make Carly question her sanity. “Do you know who he was?”

“No, but yesterday I saw him peeking over the privacy fence when I was eating lunch outside, and when I went to tell him off for spying, he disappeared. When I went to go back to the bench, he was behind it like he dematerialized and reappeared yards away in just a few seconds.”

“And then he reappeared today in the kitchen?”

“Right. And he said awful things to me. Things he had no way of knowing.” She drew in a deep breath, and Bobby had the sense that a number of unspoken thoughts rested on the tip of her tongue but she was too afraid to say them.

While he waited for Carly to work up the courage to share the rest of her ordeal, Bobby’s attention drifted over to her dresser, on which sat a framed photograph of a much-younger Carly and another girl he didn’t know. The other girl had a stockier build and darker hair than Carly, though he could tell they were related. The girls sat side by side behind a cake that had orange icing and a bunch of lit candles stabbed into the top.

A new chill snaked its way into Bobby’s veins.

Carly followed his line of sight. “Her name was Jackie,” she said, her voice thick with tears.

Carly hadn’t mentioned a Jackie before. “She’s your sister?”

She nodded. “You didn’t think I was an only child, did you?”

“It sort of crossed my mind. Um, what happened to her?”

A shudder passed through her body, and in his mind Bobby saw himself sitting down and putting his arm around her to give her a boost of strength, but instead he just stood immobile like some dummy in a shop window. “It was the day after our thirteenth birthday,” she said.

“You were twins?”

“Fraternal twins. She was bigger-boned than me, like our dad, and I got the petite genes from Mom. People always thought she was the older sister.” She closed her eyes and took slow breaths. “Jackie was always the mild one. She wasn’t nearly as hotheaded, as, well, you know. She loved to help people.”

“So do you.”

“Not then, I didn’t. Back then I was way more concerned with other things. Looking pretty. Fitting in. Your typical adolescent woes.” Carly glanced down at the ladle in her lap and gave a start as if she’d only just noticed it was there. Face flushing, she set it aside on the rug. “The day after our birthday, we went to the Family Fun Zone. It’s closed now—I think they turned it into a hardware store—but it’s where you could play arcade games and skee ball and things and win tickets you could trade in for crappy prizes. We went every year and thought it was the best thing in the world.” She paused, her face lined with pain. “There was this woman who’d just lost custody of her kids because she was mentally unstable. Her ex-husband took them to the Family Fun Zone the same day we were there. Cassandra—their mother—showed up to kill her ex-husband, but Jackie saw what was about to happen and jumped in front of the guy a split second before Cassandra pulled the trigger.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I am.”

“What kid just jumps in front of a gun?” Bobby would have scampered if he’d been in Jackie’s place. He’d still scamper, to be honest.

“Here’s something you have to understand,” Carly said. “Dad raised us to be fearless. Even when we were little he’d pound it into our heads that we couldn’t be afraid of everything like Mom is. He’d read us stories about martyrs and praise their bravery in the face of death. Well, I guess Jackie was braver than I am. You don’t see me taking bullets for people.”

Her words left a hollow feeling in Bobby’s gut, and he felt the weight of her grief pressing down on him. He wanted to say something—he needed to say something—but what in the world could he possibly say that would make her feel better, especially when it seemed to him that Frankie had tried to brainwash his own kids?

Nothing. That’s what. So he kept his lips sealed and waited for her to go on.

“Cassandra was just let out of prison,” she continued. “I saw her in the store the other day and she smiled at me. She must be one of those people who remembers faces.”

“Why’d they let her out?”

“Good behavior, I guess. It’s not like she meant to kill Jackie, but she never showed an ounce of remorse for what she did.”

“I think I kind of understand why you were upset the other night.”

Her lips formed a faint smile. “The thing is, I thought I was over all of this. But now this man I saw…it’s like I’ve flipped my lid. Him going on about how I really want to kill Cassandra to get back at her for killing Jackie. But there’s no man in here. It was all in my head.”

The image of Thane sitting in Bobby’s kitchen flashed through his mind. “Wait a minute. What did he look like?”

Carly’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Did he have sort of reddish-brown hair?”

“Yeah, and he smiled too much.” She looked up in alarm. “Where have you seen him?”

“In my house and car.”

“What the heck? Did you tell anyone about this?”

Bobby’s face flushed. “Just you. I thought he was an angel.”

“What in the world would make you think that?”

“Because he was trying to help me.” Wasn’t he?

“Bobby, this is bad. You should have known that’s not what he is.”

“Well, what is he, then? A ghost?”

“A ghost. Very funny.”

It hit Bobby like a kick in the stomach. “You’re saying Thane is a demon?”

“Oh, so he has a name? Nice.”

Her snide tone struck a nerve. “He didn’t try to hurt me, okay? For all I know, he’s an angel and whatever you saw in here was a demon who looked just like him. I mean, don’t demons try to sow confusion? Your dad said something like that in our meeting the other day.”

Carly nodded. “And confusion sows discord.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t summon the thing here.”

Something about this situation still didn’t sit right with Bobby. “There wasn’t an aura,” he said. “Shadowy or black.”

“So? You’d only see that in someone who’s possessed.”

“Are you sure? Because I’d think that if a demon appeared like a human, I’d at least pick up some kind of signal telling me what it really is.”

“A demon is the only thing it could be.”

“Or we could both be having hallucinations.”

“Yes, and pigs now have wings and can fly. Is the Spirit saying anything to you about this?”

Bobby paused and listened. Any advice?

In response, the image of Randy sitting at the desk in the church office flitted into his mind.

It wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but it would have to do. “We need to talk to Randy.”

“Now?”

Bobby nodded. Randy had been the Servant for six years. Surely that was enough time for him to have seen and heard just about everything, so he would know what to do.