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phone’s memory, under Bitchzilla.
She’d programmed that in during a brief fit of lucidity, on the heels of a
crying jag that started when she’d called Gran, actually dialed the phone and
listened in stunned silence to a message saying the number was no longer in
service. And finally remembered that Gran had been dead for a few years.
    Time to lay her sister with the rest of the ghosts. She opened
the address book, scrolled down to Bitchzilla and hit send.
    Four rings. There was a click, and then a
recording—answering machine, not voicemail. Angie was probably the last person
in Philly with a landline, other than their father. But she’d changed her
greeting. Instead of the casual Hi, it’s Angie, you know what to do ,
there was, You’ve reached Angela Frost. If this is a client with an
emergency situation, please call two-one—”
    “This is Angela.”
    For a second she couldn’t say anything. The brisk, professional
voice on the phone was as cold as the real Angie, someone Logan knew well and
the rest of the world rarely met.
    “Hello?” Irritated now.
    She made herself breathe. “Hi, Angie,” she said. “It’s
Logan.”
    There was a long pause. Too long. Then, “This isn’t funny.
I’ve got a trace on this line. Whoever you are, I can have the police there in
five minutes.”
    “Angie, it’s me.” Terrific. If her sister decided this was a
prank call, or whatever insane idea had taken root in her mind, she might have
to see her in person to close things out. She really didn’t want to do that.
With a sigh, she dredged up their last conversation. “The lying little cunt.
Remember?”
    Another pause. She could just about hear Angie’s jaw clench.
Finally, her sister said, “I thought you were dead. Now I’m disappointed.”
    She actually felt the punch in those words. It landed right
in her gut and knocked the wind from her. She’d anticipated fury and shouting.
This flat dismissal was much worse. She couldn’t even come up with a response.
    “What do you want? Money? A place to crash? Fuck you. Crawl
back in your hole.”
    “Rehab,” she blurted, and some of the pain cleared. “I’ve
been in rehab. Six months. I’m clean, Angie. I’m getting my life back
together.”
    “Well, good for you.” Sarcasm twisted through the phone.
“Dad’s dead.”
    “What—”
    “Five months ago. Heart attack. Gone.” Angie clipped out the
words with machine precision. “So were you.”
    The bubble of grief welling in her chest was a shock. She
hadn’t expected to feel anything for the man who’d delivered a command
performance at having only one daughter, who blamed her for the death of a
mother she’d never known, the woman who died giving birth to her. Who’d get
drunk and chase her around the house with a butcher knife, screaming it
should’ve been you! You should have died! Not her!
    The man who’d suddenly decided, around her sixteenth
birthday, that Invisible Girl should take over the bedroom duties of his
deceased wife.
    Angie filled the silence she left. “I tried to find you. I
even went to Crystaltown. God, that place. Nobody knew who I was talking about,
or else they were too fucking stoned to care.”
    “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t sure whether she was saying it about
Dad or because Angie had gone looking for her. Either way it didn’t matter.
“Where was he—”
    “Don’t pretend you give a shit, Logan. If you did, you
wouldn’t have…” For just an instant, her sister’s cold front wavered. There was
a muffled sound that was almost a sob. Then the bitch returned full force.
“Don’t call me again. Far as I’m concerned, you’re dead too.”
    It took a minute to realize Angie had hung up. When it
penetrated, she dropped the phone on the table as if it were diseased. Some
closure. Well, at least now she could try to work through whatever she felt on
her own, without trying to factor in her sister’s thoughts. Or her father’s.
    She told herself she wouldn’t