I also remembered some numbers. A five and two threes. An address that I’d seen when I’d been snooping in Chris’s office. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not remember anything else. Just the colors, flashing at me like an OPEN sign. Ugh, was it possible to have amnesia by proxy?

Nothing in my life was adding up, even though it seemed like everything was so close. I remembered Heriberto’s name, but he didn’t exist. I got to search Jones’s truck, but there was nothing in it. I found Celeste Day, but not Luna. So frustrating to be this close on so many levels, but continue to come up just short.

I dug the Angry Elephant matchbook out of my front pocket and turned it in my hand, studying it. I half expected to feel something—some sort of cosmic current that would link me with my mother. Maybe hear her voice, guiding me. But it just wasn’t there. She was gone, and it was just a coincidence that I’d found something belonging to the studio where she used to work. Not really all that outside of reason, when I thought about it, for an actress to own something with a studio label on it. Especially an unknown actress and a small, independent studio. She probably owned loads of stuff from small studios. It would be much stranger for her to have something from a big studio, probably.

There was a knock on my door frame and I jumped, dropping the matchbook on my desk.

Dad was standing just inside my room.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. You looked pretty deep in thought there.” He gestured toward the matchbook. “Anything important?”

Because I couldn’t trust him, I didn’t want Dad to know about what I’d found or where I’d found it. If I told him I’d lifted it from an actress, he would undoubtedly want to know what I was doing at Pear Magic. And the truthful answer—trying to find the girl who’d twice tried to kill me—would not be a popular one.

“Nothing,” I said, sliding it off the corner of my desk so that it fell into the trash can below. “Just some trash I found in my pocket. Been a while since I wore these jeans, I guess.”

“Were those matches? I thought you were quitting smoking.”

Just hearing the words made my jaw ache for a cigarette. I didn’t know why I was still on the wagon if I wasn’t planning to go to the academy. Because Chris may not remember telling you to stop, but he doesn’t like it, and you may not want to admit it, but you care. I pressed my lips together, a sad attempt at a grin. “Like I said, it’s been a while.”