never forgotten Van’s name. Not even once. “He’s a slob and he leaves his towel on the bathroom floor, but he’s a pretty good boy.”
“No, I’m not.” I shook my head at Van. “I’m very, very bad.”
Vanessa laughed as she wrapped two cookies in a paper towel, then took them into the living room for Kenley, leaving me to explain things to my grandmother on my own. Again.
“Vanessa’s not my girlfriend, Gran. She’s with Kenley, remember?”
“Oh, please.” Gran huffed in exasperation. “Anyone can see how much she likes you.”
No one else could see any such thing. But trying to explain to Gran that Kenni and Vanessa were more than friends was like trying to explain … well, like trying to explain anything to Gran. Futile. We’d had a few temporary victories in the battle against Alzheimer’s but the backslides all but killed any real hope.
While Gran searched the kitchen drawers and cabinets for the missing stove knobs, Vanessa joined me again at the coffeepot with an empty mug of her own. “I’ve been meaning to ask you …” she said as she filled her mug. “Does your grandmother have a Skill? I’ve never seen her use it.”
“No, thank goodness.” I pulled the sugar bowl closer and stirred a spoonful into my coffee. “Alzheimer’s and Skills don’t mix well.” You can’t just take the knobs off a Skill to make sure it isn’t accidentally left running when the user forgets what year it is.
“I’m ready,” Kenni called from the living room, and I looked up to find her brushing cookie crumbs from her shirt while Kori slid a 9 mm into the holster beneath her left arm. Ian handed her a light jacket to hide the gun, just in case. His jacket was already in place, and if I didn’t already know where his own weapons were hidden, I’d never have known he had any.
“I’ll go.” I set my coffee on the counter, untouched. “You and Ian can stay.”
Kori frowned, always unhappy to be taken out of the action. “Why?”
“Because I’m sick of watching the two of you actively hate the rest of the world for interrupting your privacy. And because I don’t trust you not to kill Rick Wallace before Kenni has a chance to break his bindings.”
“I wasn’t gonna do any permanent damage,” Kori mumbled.
“It’s my turn anyway.” I grabbed my own jacket from the back of a chair at the kitchen table.
When she started to protest, Ian pulled her close. “Shut up before he changes his mind.” Then he turned to me. “Go on. We’ll hold down the fort.”
“And I’ll pretend I don’t know what you’re about to do with my sister. Ready, Kenni?” But when I turned, I found her kissing Vanessa goodbye. “Damn it, people,” I groaned. “This is a hideout, not a couples retreat!”
“Jealous?” Van teased, sinking into the chair Kenley had just vacated.
Was I jealous?
I might have been jealous of all the sex they were having, in their respective pairs, if each of those pairs didn’t involve one of my sisters. But because my sisters were involved, envy of their physical relationships wasn’t really … relevant. In fact, the very thought was vaguely nauseating.
As for the rest of it—the casual touches, intense looks and the feeling that the world would stop spinning if intimate eye contact was broken—I’d gone down that route once. The curves in the road were unpredictable, the speed bumps were more like small mountains, and the sudden roadblock thrown into my path had resulted in a collision I’d barely limped away from.
Since then, I stuck to the highway, with the other casual drivers. Regular shifts in the scenery, no stop-and-go traffic and the freedom to change lanes whenever I got bored.
“Let me get my stuff.” I jogged up the stairs and into the center bedroom, where I’d been sleeping for most of the three months we’d spent finding and contacting Tower’s remaining disgruntled employees and arranging clandestine meetings. Three months hiding from Julia in her own city while we slowly chipped away at the bedrock of indentured servants forming the foundation of the empire she’d inherited.
Eventually, that foundation would crumble, and its queen would plummet to the ground. And as with the fall of any corrupt dynasty, the peasants would rejoice.
I sat on the edge of my unmade bed and pulled open the nightstand drawer, and while my hand went straight for my gun, my gaze found something else instead.
What the hell?
My notebook. The indecipherable roadmap from my one disastrous trip down lover’s lane.
What the hell was it doing in the hideout house? In my bedroom? In my bedside drawer?
I lifted the notebook and flipped back the red cardboard cover. I hadn’t seen it in more than a year, but I still knew the curve of every G and the slanted cross of every T. I used to keep a yellow No. 2 pencil in the spiral, for when I needed to jot something down in the middle of the night.
But that was years ago …
The notebook was all I had left of Noelle. Twenty-three pages of dates and phrases—a visible reminder of the hardest lesson I’d ever learned, like an alcoholic’s sobriety chip or a junkie’s faded track marks. In the beginning, I’d read it so many times that now the cardboard cover had started falling apart and the entries in pencil had started to fade. Most of them, in retrospect, made no more sense than they had when I’d written them in the first place.
But … how the hell had the notebook gotten into my nightstand? It should have been in storage with everything else Gran and I hadn’t brought with us to the hideout house.
Kenley and Olivia were ready to go, so the notebook mystery would have to wait. I shook my head, trying to dislodge Noelle from my brain, then shoved the notebook back into the drawer and grabbed my .45. I popped the clip free and counted the rounds, then slid it back into place with a satisfying click. On my way down the stairs, I shrugged into my holster and jacket, then dropped the gun into place beneath my left arm.
“Ready, Kenni?” I said from the landing.
“Liv should be there waiting for you.” Kori sipped from my coffee mug. Without asking permission. “Call me if you need anything. I can be there in an instant.”
“I know.” Kori and I were Travelers—shadow-walkers—able to step into one shadow and out of another, anywhere within our range. When she was twenty-two, Kori got roped into using her Skill on behalf of the Tower syndicate to protect Kenley, who was already trapped in the same organization.
Tower signed Kori more for her skills with a knife and gun—and so he could use her to manipulate Kenni—than for her strength and range as a Traveler, which is mediocre at best.
My strength and range as a Traveler are better than most people know. Definitely better than Tower knew. And I’d like to keep it that way.
“We’re sure this guy’s for real?” I stepped into the hall closet with Kenley as she turned off the light.
“He’s
