Possess

paranoid schizophrenia heretofore unseen in a patient. And, of course, Sergeant Quinn’s testimony. How he’d brought Milton Undermeyer to see Dr. Liu for a series of psychiatric evaluations after his arrest. How two men had gone into Dr. Liu’s office that day. How an hour later Undermeyer was found in the office alone, the body of Dr. Liu lying in a massive pool of his own blood, his throat sliced from ear to ear.
    She’d never seen the crime scene photos of her dad’s murder, but she didn’t need to. The image of her dad’s mangled body was burned into her brain forever. Her imagination was way worse than reality. Panic swept over her. Her heart raced and her chest broke out in a damp sweat. She gripped the St. Benedict’s medal on her bracelet and held her breath.
    She forced her eyes open and stared at herself in the mirror. “Breathe, Bridge,” she said out loud. “Breathe.”
    She locked eyes with herself and practically willed her body into submission. Calm. Calm. Her breaths came slower; her heart rate receded to normal, nonfrantic levels.
    Nothing made sense anymore. If Penemuel was lying to her, trying to lead her astray, why tell her to go talk to her dad’s killer? It wasn’t logical.
    With a sigh, Bridget picked up a creased piece of white paper and reread Father Santos’s Xeroxed notes.
    Spins truth tottered.
    Thunder totters spit .
    Potent dither trusts .
    Nonsense. The only thing she’d been able to figure out was that each line had the exact same letters, which she’d scribbled below.
    D E E H I N O P R R S S T T T T T U
    Anagrams. She was crappy at them. She even put the letters into an online anagram generator but only got more of the same weird gibberish. She laid the page back on the counter and grabbed her lip gloss. Maybe it didn’t mean anything, just crazy demon talk? Why was Father Santos so convinced it was important?
    A sharp knock at the bathroom door jarred Bridget just as she was about to apply a layer of gloss.
    “What?”
    “Bridge,” Sammy whined. “I need to use the bathroom.”
    “Use Mom’s.”
    “Nooooo,” he whined.
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t like it.”
    “Okay, okay. Hold on.” Bridget took one last look in the mirror. Her curly brown hair was piled up on her head, her makeup was as good as she could possibly make it, and surprise surprise, she didn’t look nearly as heinous in the dress as she thought she would. This was as good as it got.
    Woo. Hoo.
    “All yours, Sammy,” she said, opening the door.
    Her mom hustled down the hallway, camera in hand. “You look beautiful.”
    Bridget translated: You look so nice when you make an effort and don’t wear that damn jacket and those boy boots. “Thanks, Mom.” Better to let her have this moment, this fantasy of a normal daughter going to a dance with a normal boy. No harm in it.
    “Your dad . . .” Her mom’s voice quavered. “He would have been so proud.”
    Heavy tears overflowed from her mom’s eyes and cascaded down her ruddy cheeks. There had been such a gap between them the last few months, with Bridget’s new drama and her mom’s friendships with Sergeant Quinn and Mr. Darlington. But suddenly none of it mattered.
    Bridget threw her arms around her mom’s neck and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “I love you, Mom.”
    She felt her mom’s chest heave, but neither of them said another word.
    “Ew,” Sammy said, pushing past them. “Lame.”
    Her mom laughed and brushed a hand over each cheek. Then she grabbed Sammy from behind and pulled him to her in a tight embrace.
    “Stop it, Mom. I’m not a baby.”
    “You’ll always be my baby.”
    The doorbell saved Sammy from further embarrassment. He wiggled free of his mom’s embrace and sprinted down the hall to answer the door. Bridget tripped after him, slow and a little awkward in her heels. She prayed she wouldn’t fall on her ass in the middle of the St. Michael’s gym and make herself the laughingstock of San Francisco high school lore for decades to come.
    Matt stood in the entryway. She’d expected to find him in a boxy black suit with a foul-looking corsage in a Tupperware container. What she saw caught her off guard. Matt wore dark gray slacks and a matching five-button vest over a light gray shirt. It was a funky, retro look, topped off with a short-brimmed fedora in matching gray. No boxy jacket, and not a Tupperware container in sight.
    “Hi,” he said, removing his hat. “You look