“Oh, my God,” Sam said. “I’ll come as soon as I can. I’ll get on the road tonight.” He hung up the phone very gently. “Don shot my mom,” he said. “When she changed, he shot her.” I’d never seen Sam look so upset.

“Is she dead?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“No,” he said. “No, but she’s in the hospital with a shattered collarbone and a gunshot wound to her upper left shoulder. He almost killed her. If she hadn’t jumped . . .”

“I’m so sorry,” Amelia said.

“What can I do to help?” I asked.

“Keep the bar open while I’m gone,” he said, shaking off the shock. “Call Terry. Terry and Tray can work out a bartend ing schedule between them. Tray, you know I’ll pay you when I get back. Sookie, the waitress schedule is on the wall behind the bar. Find someone to cover Arlene’s shifts, please.”

“Sure, Sam,” I said. “You need any help packing? Can I gas up your truck or something?”

“Nope, I’m good. You’ve got the key to my trailer, so can you water my plants? I don’t think I’ll be gone but a couple of days, but you never know.”

“Of course, Sam. Don’t worry. Keep us posted.”

We all cleared out so Sam could get over to his trailer to pack. It was in the lot right behind the bar, so at least he could get everything ready in a hurry.

As I drove home, I tried to imagine how Sam’s stepdad had come to do such a thing. Had he been so horrified at the discovery of his wife’s second life that he’d flipped? Had she changed out of his sight and walked up to him and startled him? I simply couldn’t believe you could shoot someone you loved, someone you lived with, just because they had more to them than you’d thought. Maybe Don had seen her second self as a betrayal. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d concealed it. I could kind of understand his reaction, if I looked at it that way.

People all had secrets, and I was in a position to know most of them. Being a telepath is not any fun. You hear the tawdry, the sad, the disgusting, the petty . . . the things we all want to keep hidden from our fellow humans, so they’ll keep their image of us intact.

The secrets I know least about are my own.

The one I was thinking of tonight was the unusual genetic inheritance my brother and I share, which had come through my father. My father had never known that his mother, Adele, had had a whopper of a secret, one disclosed to me only the past October. My grandmother’s two children—my dad and his sister, Linda—were not the products of her long marriage with my grandfather.