He'd spent the past ninety minutes cooking and baking, his second passion in life. His first had been serving as a covert agent in Her Majesty's Secret Service. Retired now, he relished his role as chief advisor to the vigilantes. He was still in the game and loving every minute of the time he spent with his chicks as they worked to help men and women whom the judicial system had failed, victims who had fallen through the cracks.

Piled on the kitchen counter and out of the Sisters' view, was a neat stack of unbound printouts. He scanned the papers as he tidied up the kitchen. He pretty much had everything he was looking at committed to memory, but still, he wasn't sure. He had spent the night in what the Sisters called his lair—otherwise known as the war room. He'd dispatched a small army of former agents to Las Vegas—most, like him, retired and only too happy to get back in action.

Las Vegas, the small corner of the world that never slept. He'd been amazed to find out that there were no clocks in any of the casinos. Sin City. "Land of lost dreams" was how one report had read. He'd scanned so many articles on gambling addiction, he got dizzy as he tried to fathom how people could gamble their homes away, just one step from gambling away their families.

Charles looked around the kitchen to make sure he was leaving it the way he wanted to return to it to prepare lunch—sparkling clean. The girls themselves would clear the sideboard and load the dishwasher.

He quickly shuffled his papers into a neat pile and slipped them into an accordion-pleated envelope. He walked into the dining room to pour himself a last cup of coffee, coffee he didn't need. His nerves were already twanging all over the place, and it was only eight in the morning. He knew he would consume another gallon of coffee before what promised to be a long day finally came to a close.

Following Charles's rule that no business was to be discussed until meals were over, they all made small talk when he took his seat at the table.

"The acorns are starting to fall," Nikki said. "I saw a dozen squirrels scurrying about hiding nuts. I think that means it's going to be a bad winter."

"The pinecones are falling, too," Alexis said. "I gathered two bushel baskets yesterday." The Sisters loved to add the pinecones to a blazing fire in the winter. "Remember how we all gathered the acorns last year and put them in baskets to make it easy for the squirrels? We worked for hours and hours, and those darn squirrels didn't want them. My back ached for days after all that bending."