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you related to my family? Are you my long-lost cousin eighteen times removed or something?”
    Skag narrowed his eyes. “You can think of me as an exceedingly distant family connection.”
    “But you are a Riordan?”
    He sighed. “At one time, a great, great many years ago, I was, in fact, a Riordan.”
    “And you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart?”
    “My heart, such as it is, has nothing to do with it.” Another lit cigarette appeared in his holder. “My job is helping the family. As long as Riordans exist, I exist.” He bowed his head slightly. “At your service.”
    Rose frowned. That wasn’t exactly an answer, but it seemed to be the best she could get at the moment. “So what are you expecting me to do about all of this? Hold séances or something?”
    Skag stared meditatively at the ceiling, tapping the cigarette holder against his teeth. “Your great-grandmother, Siobhan, did in fact hold the occasional séance. But hers was a much more credible age than this one. Caroline confined herself to other pursuits.”
    “Other pursuits such as what?”
    “Such as finding what was lost.” Skag brought his gaze back to hers. “For a fee. Usually a quite considerable fee.”
    “Finding what was lost? You mean like missing wills, or the purloined family jewels? That kind of lost?”
    “Among other things. Sometimes what was lost was merely information. Answers to questions that the living needed from those who had passed on.”
    “The dead, you mean.” Rose shivered in the warm evening air. “And how do I go about finding this information?”
    “You ask me, of course.” Skag gave her a lazy smile. “I’m what previous generations called your
spirit guide
.
You’re the medium between the living and the dead. The living ask you for help. You bring their requests to me. I transmit your requests to the most appropriate residents on the Other Side. In many cases, I can find the answers easily enough. The dead can be quite accommodating.”
    Spirit guide. Of course. Made as much sense as anything else she’d heard this evening. “How do you go about finding the right dead person to give you the information you need?” She had a momentary vision of a room-size Rolodex—although maybe the dead had gone digital by now.
    Skag sighed. “None of your relatives has ever asked all of these questions, you know. They were content to simply accept the information I was able to find for them.”
    Rose folded her arms across her chest. “I’m a reference librarian. I like to know who my sources are.”
    “The sources in question, for the most part, are the newly dead. Spirits may linger for a few years after death before they move to the next level of existence. They’re frequently quite chatty. If I need to speak to a particular spirit, I can usually find them by asking around.”
    “Did you ever fail to find what Grandma Caroline was asking for?”
    Skag shrugged. “Oh yes. I don’t have access to all the spirits. And nothing compels the dead to tell the truth any more than the living. And there are limits to what I can find. And sometimes opposing powers can be greater than my own.”
    Rose frowned. “What powers are those?”
    Skag narrowed his eyes. “No, Rose, this is as far as I’m willing to go. The secrets of the afterlife are not mine to pass on. I’m here to help you in your inquiries. I’ll find whatever information I can glean from the spirits to whom I have access. And that’s really all you need to know about the process.” He arched one eyebrow. “Anything else?”
    Rose shrugged. “How would I charge people for this information without bringing the entire San Antonio police force down on my head? The cops have never been big fans of the supernatural in my experience and asking people for money in exchange for tips from the spirit world would probably put me on their radar.”
    “Caroline offered a money-back guarantee. No payment if the customer wasn’t entirely