I greeted this news with a cheated roar: "Nobody tells me anything!"

"We thought you knew. You, uh, knew in the old timeline. So she's alive in-"

"Ick, no, they're both dead and I'm BabyJon's legal guardian."

"My poor boy," my dead stepmother mourned.

"You shut up from your corner of the damned. I just-I mean, I saw her there and . . ." It was too embarrassing to confess. No one could understand my unique shame.

"After you freaked out about Garrett being alive in front of the whole house," Jessica the Annoying speculated, "you assumed the Ant was alive and didn't want to make a total jackass of yourself again."

"How much do I hate thee?" I asked aloud. "Let me count the ways." Friends: the ultimate mixed blessing.

"Well, she is. And drives you crazier, if possible, in death than in life. She's saying something racist right now, isn't she?"

"She should wear prints so when she cleans houses, the dirt won't show up so badly."

"She says you've never looked prettier," I replied.

"Tell her I think she's a useless whore."

"She can see you. She doesn't need a translator. So she and my dad . . ."

"Oh, yeah."

"In a car vs. garbage truck accident?"

Jessica bit her lip so as not to smirk, and nodded. She had always been polite to the Ant, even in death.

"My life passed before my eyes," the Ant fretted, "and you were in a horrible amount of it."

"Are you Satan's receptionist in this timeline, too?" I demanded. "Because I need to talk to your treacherous kid, pronto. And maybe her mom. Her other mom."

"You leave her alone," the Ant warned. "You've got plenty enough to worry about without bothering my boss or my little girl."

"What's that supposed to-dammit!"

"She's vanished in an evil puff of Aqua Net, hasn't she?"

"The bad guys only stay around long enough to be unhelpful," I bitched. It was true! They randomly popped in and out of my life like Girl Scouts during cookie season. Except you could usually predict when Girl Scouts will show up hawking Thin Mints. "Then, poof."

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