“Why haven’t you married?” he asked abruptly.And then he laughed in a hard burst. “Sorry if that’s too personal.”

“No. It isn’t.” All things considered, nothing seemed out-of-bounds anymore. “I never fell in love. Never had time to, really. Between chasing after Daniel and my work . . . no time. Plus . . .” It seemed at once perfectly normal and completely foreign to speak so candidly. “To be honest, I don’t think I ever wanted anyone that close to me. There were things I didn’t want to share.”

And it wasn’t like she was hoarding her family’s name or position or wealth. It was the bad things that she kept to herself—her brother . . . and her mother, too, if she was honest. Just as she and her father were both lawyers and very focused, the other two in the family had suffered from similar demons. After all, just because alcohol was legal, didn’t mean it couldn’t destroy a life as much as heroin did.

Her mother had been an elegant drunk for all of Grier’s life and it was hard to know what had put her there: biological predisposition; a husband who disappeared regularly; or a son who at an early age started to walk the path she did.

The loss of her had been just as horrible as Daniel’s death.

“Who’s Daniel?”

“My brother.”

“Whose pj’s I borrowed.”

“Yes.” She took a deep breath. “He died about two years ago.”

“God . . . I’m sorry.”

Grier glanced around, wondering if the man—er, ghost—in question would choose now to show up. “I’m sorry, too. I really thought I could save him . . . or help him save himself. It didn’t work out that way, though. He, ah, he had a drug problem.”

She hated the apologetic tone she always assumed when talking about what had killed Daniel—and yet it crept into her voice every time.

“I’m really sorry,” Isaac repeated.

“Thank you.” Abruptly, she shook her head as if it were a saltshaker that had caked up. Maybe this was why her brother refused to talk about the past—it was a terrible downer.

Switching gears, she said, “That man? Back at your apartment—he gave me something.” She leaned up and patted around for the Life Alert, finding it under the sweater she’d taken off after the first fight with her father. “He left it in my trunk.”

Although she handled it with the tissue, Isaac took the thing with his bare hands. Guess fingerprints were a nonissue to him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Something for me.”

“Wait—”

As he shoved it into his pocket, he talked over her objection. “If I want to turn myself in, all I have to do is hit the button and tell them where to find me. It’s got nothing to do with you.”