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Hours later, back in her apartment, Leona contemplated Cyrus Willard’s journal. It was now lying on the coffee table next to the little specter-cat sculpture. She had spent the long drive from Lost Creek studying the contents.

She picked up her glass of wine and considered what she had learned.

“It did answer a couple of very interesting questions,” she said. “We now know the identity of the body we found inside the Vortex machine. Cyrus Willard, twin brother of Nigel Willard, the man who kidnapped Molly all those years ago. I didn’t recognize him because the mummification process distorted his features. The last entry in the journal is about his plan to climb inside the Vortex machine. He was convinced he would emerge with all of Vance’s powers and the stability needed to control them.”

Oliver reached for the last slice of pizza. “Thus proving he was unstable before he went into the machine. Only a deranged individual would have climbed into that thing without making sure there was an exit strategy.”

“I wonder if the Willards really were descended from Vance.”

“It’s possible. Vance ran a cult and he was a womanizer. By all accounts, he had more than one lover.”

“A biological connection to Vance is not something most families would advertise. Definitely not the kind of thing you want to put down on a matchmaking agency questionnaire.”

She had called Molly and the moms to give them a full report and assure them that she and Oliver and Roxy were okay. They had wanted to see her when she arrived but she had pleaded exhaustion and promised to get together in the morning for a full accounting.

The first thing she had done after leading Oliver into her apartment was open a bottle of wine and order an extra-large pizza from Ollie’s House of Pizza. All four food groups in each delicious bite.

She and Oliver were now kicked back on the sofa in her apartment. The pizza box was empty and they were making their way through the last half of the wine. Roxy was on the table polishing off her final slice of pizza.

There were answers in the journal, and some of them were unsettling. Talking about them with Oliver was complicated, Leona thought, because they edged too close to the Griffin Family Secret. She had tried to go there when she told him that she was sure she was a triple, but he had seemed unconcerned, maybe because he didn’t believe her. The fact that she did not know the nature of her third talent made the claim hard to prove.

Still, the question of whether or not she had three talents had been raised, at least. It was no longer a secret. The mystery of her birth and the reasons why she had cause to believe she was a triple, however, were still a deep, dark family secret.

Molly had taken the huge risk of confiding the truth about their origins to Joshua, but that was different. She and Joshua had been through a lot together. They trusted each other. They were going into a Covenant Marriage. They were making a lifelong commitment.

She and Oliver, on the other hand, were merely sleeping together. Correction—they’d had a one-night stand.

She drank some wine and thought about that. When you got right down to it, they were not even involved in a serious romantic relationship. Yes, they had been through some bad stuff together and survived—which probably explained the hot sex. But they were nowhere near family secret territory. Maybe at some point in the future…

Great. Now she was sliding into a brooding mood. Achieving Inner Resonance strongly advised against allowing that state of mind to take control. Besides, this was not the time to contemplate the possibility of a future with Oliver. They both had too many other things to focus on. Priorities.

“It might be interesting to do a genealogical search on the Willard family,” Oliver said.

Clearly he was focusing on priorities. She suppressed a sigh.

“Good idea,” she said, trying for a bright and professional vibe. “The moms conducted one on Nigel Willard after he kidnapped Molly, but they didn’t get far. He was a real loner. There was certainly no mention of a twin or a sister. They found enough mysterious dead ends to conclude that he had gone to a lot of trouble to erase most of his history. That made them think that there was probably a streak of psychic instability in the bloodline. Families will go to almost any length to conceal that kind of thing.”

“Discovering that Nigel Willard had a twin and a sister will give your mothers some new leads,” Oliver said.

“When you think about it, it doesn’t matter if they were Vance’s descendants.” Leona swirled the wine gently in her glass. “Both brothers have been dead for years, so we won’t be getting any more answers from them.”

“The sister may still be alive, though. If she is, she will probably be living in an asylum under an assumed name.”

“The moms will find her. They are very good at that kind of research.”

Roxy chose that moment to bounce off the coffee table and hustle over to the balcony door. A dust bunny with places to go and things to do.

She stopped and chortled. Leona pushed herself up from the sofa and crossed the room to open the door. Roxy dashed out onto the patio and disappeared into the night, fascinator ribbons flying.

Leona smiled. “She’s back in town and ready to party.” She closed the door, flopped down on the sofa, and yawned. “Wish I had her energy.”

“So do I.” Oliver rested his head on the back of the sofa and contemplated the ceiling. “We’ve resolved several issues, but we don’t have the answer to the most important question.”

She looked at him. “We don’t know the identity of the person who put together the complex schemes that lured both of us to Lost Creek.”

“No, but we know that the individual was in Lost Creek,” Oliver said. “Hiding in plain sight.”

“Think it was someone we met while we were there?”

“Probably, but maybe not. We also know that person was at the Antiquarian Society reception, too.”

“Whoever it was murdered the waiter.”

“Right. So the Feds are looking for someone who was in both places. That should narrow down the list of suspects.”

Leona thought about that. “Well, they’ve got a town full of suspects, but it’s hard to see any of those people in Lost Creek as a good fit for the role of mastermind killer juggler.”

“The juggler was there, and by now they will be seriously pissed and very, very frustrated.”

Oliver sounded pleased. Satisfied.

“How is that helpful?” she asked.

“Rage and frustration are massively destabilizing emotions, even if your profile is strong and stable. Emotions like that cause people to make mistakes. That’s a good thing as far as law enforcement is concerned. Trust me, it’s just a matter of time before the Feds make an arrest.”

“You know, there was one person we never met in Lost Creek who was always there in the background,” Leona mused. “Margo Gibbs, the owner of the local rez-screen station. Everyone said she drank, but—”

“But that makes for a good cover. I agree. I also think the Bureau will take a close look at Thacker. He knew more about Vance’s connection to Lost Creek than anyone else, and he was obsessed with the history.”

“I don’t know,” Leona said. “He seemed genuinely happy that Vance hadn’t emerged from the Vortex machine.”

“Who knows how he really felt? He’s weird, even for a collector.”

“What about the waitress at the diner? Or the bartender, for that matter? Harp? Edith Fenwick? Burt?” Leona groaned and rested her head against the back of the sofa. “Forget it. Everyone in town is a suspect, except maybe Starkey.”

“Huh. That’s a thought.”

“No, I can’t imagine Starkey is our master juggler.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. She looked at the specter-cat on the coffee table. “But I’m too tired to think logically tonight.”

“So am I.” Oliver finished his wine and leaned forward to set the empty glass on the table. “I should go back to my apartment and get some sleep.”

There was a short silence. Leona knew the next move was up to her. She reminded herself that she was falling in love with a man who did not know all of her secrets. That was not smart. More importantly, it was not fair to him. After what they had been through, she owed him the truth, even if it meant the end of their relationship.

“You’re welcome to stay here,” she said.

He turned his head to look at her. His eyes burned, this time with the kind of heat that set fire to her senses.

“I’d like that,” he said.

“But there’s something you should know before you make the decision. There’s a reason why I was obsessed with the pyramid crystal.”

“Is this where you tell me that you think you and your sister have a history that involves getting dosed with Vortex radiation and that’s why you think you’re triples?”

She stilled. “You know?”

He shrugged. “Not the details, but it wasn’t hard to put the big picture together.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

“I’m listening.”

She took a deep breath. “Molly and I are the results of Vortex-type experiments that were conducted on our birth mothers. They were both pregnant and single. Alone in the world. Nigel Willard tricked them into taking jobs in his lab. He irradiated them with yellow crystals without their knowledge. Claimed it was a lab accident. And then he injected them with a serum that he told them would protect them against any ill effects of the radiation.”

“But in reality, Willard was attempting to enhance the para-profiles of the babies?”

She swallowed hard. “Well, yes. That’s pretty much it. Our birth mothers escaped and left their infants on the doorstep of the Inskip orphanage. But Willard tracked down both women and murdered them. He found Molly and me, too, but he left us at the orphanage to be raised.”

“While he monitored you from afar? Is that it?”

She nodded. “He kidnapped Molly when she was six and a half to run some tests on her. He planned to take me next. But the moms ended that plan. Willard died in the tunnels. Molly and I grew up to become triples. We were raised with the understanding that the only logical thing to do was keep the family secret a, well, a secret.”

“Given society’s attitudes toward triples and enhancement experiments, that was a perfectly sensible decision. Can we go to bed?”

She studied him, eyes narrowed, trying to get a handle on his reaction. “I’m not making this up. What I just told you is the truth. Molly and I are the result of some bizarre experiments conducted on our birth mothers.”

“I believe you. But when you think about it, we’re all experiments of one kind or another. That’s how evolution works. You and Molly survived and you are both stable. That makes the two of you success stories.”

“You really don’t care, do you?”

“About how you came to be you? Nope.” He did his edgy, telltale smile and his eyes got hotter. “For what it’s worth, I really like the way you turned out. Now can we go to bed?”

She touched the side of his face with her fingertips. “Yes.”

He got to his feet, swept her up off the couch, and carried her down the hall. When they reached her shadowed bedroom, he stood her on her feet beside the bed. He wrapped one powerful hand around the back of her head and pulled her close.

“For a while back there on the sofa, I thought we’d never get here,” he said.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?” she whispered.

“No. Are you afraid of me?”

“No.”

“To paraphrase an Old World movie, this looks like the start of a beautiful relationship.”

His mouth came down on hers before she could start to question his definition of relationship . He wasn’t afraid of her, and he wanted her, and she could trust him. It was more than enough. For now.