I didn’t need him to help me get control of my touch. I didn’t need him to believe that his father had anything to do with the accident. But what about all the other stuffthe things we shared that had nothing to do with my touch or the accident? His friendship, the way he could get me to talk about almost anything? Or the way he looked at me, the way I felt around him?

Coming to a stop in the foyer, I wanted to kick myself. I hadn’t needed any of that stuff for two years. Surely, I didn’t need it now. What I needed to do was forget about Hayden, because right now, he wasn’t important. Finding out who’d been behind the car crash was.

The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why someone would want Olivia badly enough to kill. And come on, kill me, too? When I’d been just a kid? Or maybe they’d planned to wipe my minderase all of our memories of Oliviabut when she brought me back with a new “gift,” they changed their plans. Maybe they wanted to see what I could do, see how I progressed on my own.

I just couldn’t figure out the “why” behind it all.

Tucking my sketchpad under my arm, I rubbed my temples. Ugh. Lack of sleep mixed in with learning someone might’ve wanted me dead could cause one hell of a headache.

I headed into the kitchen to dump my hot chocolate and found Cromwell at the table, several newspapers spread in front of him. I couldn’t make a hasty retreat before his gaze flicked up from the papers.

“Hello, Ember.”

“Hey.” I ambled over to the sink and dumped the mug, feeling his heavy stare on my back the whole time. It took everything in me to not fling accusations at him. When I turned around, Cromwell leaned back in the chair. “Can I ask you something?”

He nodded. “You can ask me anything.”

“Is it possible my parents knew about Olivia’s gift? Before she did anything?”

Cromwell glanced down at one of the papers. “It’s possible, especially if Olivia wasn’t the first one in the family to have a gift.”

“You’re saying someone else could’ve had the gift? In my family?”

“The ability to have gifts hasn’t been proven to be hereditary, but there’ve been several instances in which more than one member of a family has shown a gift. Just like Phoebe and Parker.”

“No way,” I murmured. “Mom and Dad were super-boring and ordinary.”

“Not your parents, but perhaps your grandparents, an aunt, or a cousin?”

My entire family was boring. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I admit I had looked into your family tree a bit when we first brought you here. Mostly for my own curiosity.”