“Me, too,” said Aiden, thoroughly spooked. “Your name, my name—I wish she’d forget them all.” He glanced over at me. “Would you keep me safe for one more day? So I can think on this? I will do what I can to stay out of your way.”

“What do you expect to accomplish with another day?” asked Zee.

“I cannot promise anything yet,” I answered Aiden. “I have to talk to Adam.”

Before he could remind me that I’d given him sanctuary in the first place without talking to Adam, a door opened, and Christy burst into the kitchen. Tears slid down her pretty face, and she furiously wiped them away. She met my eyes, raised her chin, and said, “He is a bastard.”

Adam stalked in after her, temper in every muscle of his body. “Where’s Darryl?” he asked the room in general.

“Outside,” Zee told him. “Perimeter duty.” He must have been listening to what had gone on in the kitchen before he came down.

Adam opened the back door, and said, “Darryl, I have a job for you.”

Christy crossed her arms under her chest and glared at me. “This is your fault,” she said. She uncrossed her arms and wiped her eyes again, with special attention to not smearing her mascara.

I made a neutral sound.

Adam gave a look to Christy, who bit her lip and turned her head away.

“No,” he said. “It isn’t. Darryl?”

The big man slid into the kitchen. “Yes?”

“I need you to take Christy to her apartment and let her pack. Tomorrow, at six in the morning, she’s getting on a plane. You’ll be on it with her. She’ll change airplanes in Seattle for a flight to the Bahamas. You have the choice of waiting four hours for your return flight, which is paid for, or renting a car at the pack’s expense and driving home.”

“What’s up?” I asked.

“There was a note pinned to her door this morning,” Adam said. He reached into his back pocket and withdrew an envelope that he’d folded in half.

It was thick paper, the kind that comes with invitations to weddings or graduations. I took out the card inside. It was inscribed by hand by someone with incredibly good penmanship.

It read:

Dear Christina Hauptman,

Please give the attached message to your husband.

I grimaced at the “your husband” part. Christy had thrown Adam away, and she didn’t get him back. I raised the card to my nose. It smelled of Adam, Christy, and very faintly of the ocean and something . . .