Her eyebrows raised. “I don’t remember that part being on the news.”

“Well…no.” Rex swallowed. “We may have asked her not to say anything about the, uh, incident.”

“You erased her memories,” she said coolly.

He narrowed his eyes. “We had to.”

The knife drew closer, the tip barely touching his cheek, where it burned like a spent match tip. Rex’s eyes focused on the pulse in Angie’s throat, the darkling part of his mind set on edge by the steel against his flesh, thinking killing thoughts. He knew that if he lost control, the short, brutal fight between them would be more evenly matched than Angie would expect, knife or no knife. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything. They had to communicate, not kill each other.

“And what will you do to my memories?” Angie said softly.

Rex tore his eyes from her throat. Would she believe that he’d wanted to change as little as possible inside her mind? Just find out what she knew about the Grayfoots leaving town and maybe introduce a strong phobia about kidnapping people in the future. Unless, of course, Melissa lost her temper in the middle of the whole thing and forgot her promises…

If that happened, Rex wouldn’t want to be in Angie’s shoes.

Maybe there was another way to do this—one that didn’t involve any mindcasting.

Rex tried to ignore the knife in his face. “Do you really believe all that stuff? About how the old midnighters were totally evil?”

“I don’t believe it, Rex, I know it. I’m a real historian, not some amateur. Before I found out about the secret hour, I was researching a book on Oklahoma’s early state-hood. I’ve documented everything the old man told me about his childhood. I’ve found the court records in Tulsa, from when they got his parents.”

Rex’s eyebrows rose. He’d collected old newspapers and handbills from Bixby’s past but not court records, and nothing from as far away as Tulsa.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“It was a big case in the nineteen-forties. Old Man Grayfoot’s parents contested an oil claim made on Indian land by some of the town fathers—seers like you, pillars of the community. Normally the trial would have been rigged so the midnighters would win, no problem. But the case wound up in a court in Tulsa, a judge that they couldn’t control.”

Rex frowned. “So what happened?”

“One day all the Native American parties involved decided to back down. They gave up the case, then sold their houses to pay the town fathers’ court costs. They lost everything they had.”

He swallowed. “That sounds…unfair.”

“Doesn’t it? And you know what’s worse, Rex?” she said. “After that day, Grayfoot’s parents never showed another ounce of backbone, except to agree with whatever the town fathers said. Just like a whole lot of other people always did. So the old guy got to thinking that things weren’t right in Bixby.”

Rex blinked. He’d spent his whole life learning this history; how could there turn out to be a completely different side?