We walked to my car. We got in. I started it up. We sat for a minute, waiting for the heater to kick in. (We weren't too worried about the Driveway Killer.) We pulled out. We watched the Ant shut her front door. (She must have frozen her treadmilled ass right off, watching us leave.)

I couldn't stand it half a second longer and blurted, "I can't believe she knew. I can't believe she knew! She probably knew the minute she laid eyes on you, since you apparently look like her dead alcoholic mother. And she just... just let us come over and baby-sit! All those times! And you were at the baby shower! You brought her a fucking present from Tiffany's!"

"She is... a strong woman," Laura said faintly.

"She is a YAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGG-GGHHHHHHHH!"

"What? What?" Laura was twisting around in her seat, her hand on an invisible sword hilt. There was a sword there, but it only came out when Laura wanted it. And only she could touch it.

I looked at Laura, looked back up at my rearview mirror at the sallow blonde who was sitting in my backseat, and looked back at Laura. "Yuh-uh-I saw a squirrel."

Laura was looking straight into the backseat, on the floor, around the car. "For goodness's sake, where? Behind your brake?"

The blonde stared at me, and I tried to pull my attention back to

France Avenue

. "It just... scared the hell out of me. Popping up like that." I glared into the mirror. "Without warning."

"Sorry," the blonde said.

"Well, don't scare me like that!" Laura snapped. "It's been a stressful enough evening."

"Tell me about it," the blonde in the back said.

My heart was galloping along from the adrenaline rush (okay, adrenaline tickle, and "galloping" meant about ten beats a minute), which was stressful enough without having to watch Laura, the ghost in the back, and the road.

"Were you-did you-" I finally spit it out. "Were you planning this? Scratch that: how long have you been planning it?"

"I didn't really plan it," she confessed. "I carpe'd the diem."

"Well, Laura, I hope you-hope you know that for the-for your mother, that was pretty good. I mean, she was almost nice. Which for her, was really nice."

"Yes, I know."

"Just give her time. She'll, uh..." Grow a soul? "And Laura... don't take this the wrong way or anything, but if you were planning on saying anything to our father..."

"Christ," the woman in the back said. "This is better than Days of Our Lives."

"Shut up!"

"That's good advice," Laura said.

"No, uh... I mean, I wouldn't recommend... maybe not right now, anyway..."

"Don't worry," Laura said, tight-lipped. "I wasn't."

"That's a load off my mind," the dead woman in the back said.

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