Others filtered in. Elise Gaylord, the introspective thirty-five-year-old working on her PhD in history who was never without her knitting, was followed by Enrique Vega. Muttering under his breath, Enrique strutted across the room, found a chair, and plopped down with an energy drink he didn’t appear to need. He worked out daily at a gym, his biceps huge beneath a tight T-shirt. Brianna believed his constant state of anger had more to do with still living “at home” at thirty than the loss of his twin, who might not even be dead. Juan Vega had disappeared, leaving for San Francisco and never talking to anyone in the family again. Enrique didn’t know if his brother was still alive with a new identity, deliberately separated from the family, or the victim of foul play.

More than anything Enrique seemed pissed that his brother had taken off without him. “If Juan had taken me with him,” Enrique had said on one occasion, his shaved head shining beneath the overhead lights, “he would be alive today. Okay? See what I mean? But he didn’t even tell me he was leaving! What kind of brother does that? And he calls himself a twin! Bah!”

Now, slumping in his chair, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his eyes sparking with anger, Enrique popped open his drink and glowered as he drank and waited for the meeting to begin. Twice he glanced at the clock, then at Brianna. “We doin’ this, or what?” he asked impatiently.

“In a minute,” Brianna said loudly enough for him to hear. There were still a few others who might attend. Roger, the ex-football player who lived out of town. A big man who rarely spoke, he seemed bottled up and Brianna thought if anyone prodded and poked him too much, he might explode. There was anger beneath the surface of his calm. All Brianna really knew about him was that his twin, Ramona, had died at a campsite and that he blamed himself. Though her fall had been ruled an accident, Roger sensed that everyone, including his parents, thought he should have saved her.

A cell phone rang and Elise jumped, pulled it from her knitting bag, and spying the number on the screen, scuttled out to the hallway to find some privacy as she answered in hushed tones. She glanced furtively over her shoulder, as if she’d been caught in some kind of crime.

That was the thing with Elise. She always acted as if she had something to hide and much of her life was secret, which wasn’t unusual in this group. The call was short and she hurried back inside to reclaim her seat. “Sorry,” she said. “Ashton.”