“Okay.” Hayden’s breath stirred the hair around my ear. “Even though I think I should tell him, I won’t. But I will figure out who did this.”

* * *

“Emmie, I made this for you!”

I pulled my gaze from the television as Olivia shoved a sheet of construction paper at me. She’d done a drawing of what I assumed was her and me… and Ms. Liz. “Oh… this is really nice.”

“This is you.” She pointed at the stick figure with enormous red curly marks and blue eyes. “And this is Ms. Liz.”

Did my hair really look like that? I ran a hand over my head, feeling a bit like Little Orphan Annie.

“See how we’re holding hands?” she pointed out.

“Yeah.”

“I see the three of us holding hands.”

That was as likely as—I looked up, my fingers tightening around the paper. “What do you mean you see that, Olivia?”

Olivia pointed at the side of her head. “I see it all the time.”

Any other kid saying that would have been chalked up to an overactive imagination, but coming from Olivia could mean just about anything.

She patted my knee, looking very mature. “I had fun today. Did you?”

I swallowed. Dead bunnies usually didn’t equal fun—neither did the awkward dinner that every member of the Cromwell household attended that night.

During dinner, I’d wondered which one of them killed bunnies in their spare time.

“Yeah.” I forced a smile. “Did you?”

Olivia crawled up on the couch and sat beside me. She launched into a list of all her new friends. She loved her new teacher—a Ms. Tinsley. They got naptime. I was so jealous of that. Then they’d watched a movie about manners.

I missed kindergarten. Things had been so much easier then.

Several hours later, Olivia drifted off to sleep with her head on my lap, and I found myself stuck to the couch—literally. I’d left my gloves in the bedroom, like an idiot. Absently, I flipped through the channels, totally screwed. And I was tired, ready to go crawl into bed after such a bizarre day. There appeared no way I could get her off me.

Another hour passed, and I worked out strategic plans in my head.

A blanket to pick her up would help, but none were close. Topple her off the couch, but that wouldn’t be very nice. I glanced down at her. Thick curls identical to mine covered half of her face. She looked like a little cherub with her bow-shaped lips and hands folded under her cheek.

“What are you still doing up?”

I twisted around, spotting Hayden in the doorway. “Watching the… uh,” I turned back, frowning at the screen, “the… way tigers mate.” I sighed. Damn you, Discovery Channel.

He chuckled deep in his throat. “Didn’t know that kind of thing interested you.”

“Oh. Yeah, always wanted to know how they picked their boyfriends.”

He sat on the arm of the couch and glanced down at Olivia. Understanding flashed across his face. “I see,” was all he said. A minute went by. “I wanted to work on, you know, but after today…”