“Did it have anything to do with the infamous hot ghoul I met yesterday?” she asked shrewdly. “Or lingering feelings for a certain officer of the law?”

“Maybe a little,” I admitted. “I realized I wasn’t being entirely fair to Sinclair. But I think he and I are okay, honestly.”

“Good,” she said. “I like him.”

Inspiration struck me. “You know, Sinclair’s got a spare bedroom. He talked about taking a roommate to help with the rent now that business is slowing down. And you’ve been talking about moving out of your folks’ place for ages.”

“Um. . . . yeah.” Jen didn’t sound thrilled “Let’s table that idea until the evil twin’s out of the picture, okay?”

“Fair enough.”

After we ended our call, I went back online and logged on to Facebook. I didn’t use it often—I never got in the habit because my mom and I couldn’t afford Internet access or expensive phone plans when I was growing up—but I had an account. Also, I had free wireless in my apartment courtesy of Mrs. Browne’s Olde World Bakery downstairs.

A search for Dan Stanton returned two results. One was some shirtless guy in Sydney, Australia. The profile picture for the other was a video game avatar of a soldier in battle fatigues. Betting on the latter, I sent a friend request. I would have added a personal message, but the option was disabled. All I could do was hope that Lee Hastings, aka Dan Stanton, aka Skeletor, remembered me kindly as someone who’d never called him that last one.

Well, at least not to his face. After all, it was high school.

Checking the time, I saw it wasn’t yet three o’clock. Until I heard from Casimir or Lee, there wasn’t much I could do on either Operation Contain Dear Emmy or Operation Database, which meant I had no excuse not to respond to Stefan Ludovic’s request to contact him when I was ready.

So I called him, trying to ignore the fluttery feeling in my belly. Partly because it made me feel guilty and partly because the whole thing weirded me out. Hot or not, I still had the image of Stefan impaling himself on his own sword stuck in my memory.

“Daisy.” Stefan picked up on the third ring. “Good afternoon. Are you well?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” I said. “But then, you’d be the first to know if I wasn’t, wouldn’t you?” I was still a little pissed about the bond between us being established without my knowledge or consent, too. “Anyway, you asked me to call?”

“Yes,” he said. “As I said, I have something I would like to show you. I think it will be of aid in the exercise we attempted the other day.”

“Okay,” I said. “Is this a good time for you? If it is, I can swing by the Wheelhouse.”