“Oopsie,” said Maggie. She flashed a smile at Kelly and pulled her hand back into the van as the green light next to the testing unit flashed on. “I guess Daddy must have pulled some strings.”

Again, added George dryly. I swallowed a chuckle.

“He did an excellent job,” said Mahir. The light next to his testing panel flashed green. Withdrawing his hand, he slumped in his seat and closed his eyes again. “Good lord, this nation is enormous. Wake me when there’s coffee.”

“You’ll need to open your eyes for the ocular scan in a minute,” said Maggie.

Mahir groaned.

I glanced at him in the rearview mirror, taking in the fine stress lines etched around his eyes. Those weren’t there a year ago. George’s death was almost as hard on him as it was on me—something I wouldn’t have believed possible for almost anybody else. Mahir had been her beta blogger, her colleague, and her best friend, and sometimes I got the feeling he would have tried to be more if they hadn’t lived on different continents. At least I had the constant reassurance of going crazy. He just had the silence, and now, thanks to me, the strain of whatever it was he’d learned that was bad enough to drive him out of England.

“Hope this was worth it,” I muttered, and started the engine again.

The ocular scanners were calibrated to test only two people at a time; it took us nearly five minutes to clear the fourth gate. Mahir and I went first—me because safety protocols say to clear the driver as fast as possible, him because I was afraid he’d actually fall asleep if we made him wait too long. His exhaustion was becoming more obvious by the moment. I wasn’t going to insist he stay awake long enough to tell us everything he knew, but I wanted to know if we were looking at another Oakland. Last time we let an unexpected visitor have time to calm down before telling us everything, our apartment building got blown up, Dave died, and we wound up running for our lives. I’d like to avoid having that happen again if I get any say in the matter.

Maggie’s bulldogs were waiting on the front lawn, and they mobbed our feet as soon as we got out of the van. Mahir backpedaled frantically, winding up sitting on the armrest of the passenger seat with his feet drawn up, out of reach of inquisitive noses. This didn’t stop them from jumping at his shoes, yapping in their oddly sonorous small-dog voices. “Good lord, dont you keep these things leashed?”

“Not when they’re at home,” Maggie replied. “Bruiser, Butch, Kitty, down.” The three dogs that had seemed the most intent on getting to Mahir dropped to all fours and trotted over to Maggie, tongues lolling.