And she did. And somehow, they made it down the hallway to her bedroom, dropping his clothes in a path along the way. They fell into her bed and when he was finally inside her, he knew he was exactly where he needed to be.

Where he wanted to be.

It was the first peace he’d had in days.

Rena was eating a doughnut when he approached her desk the next morning. “Chop,” he said. “Let’s go. We got a psychic to talk to.”

She licked her bottom lip. “Words I never thought I’d hear A.L. McKittridge say.” She deliberately looked at her watch. “It’s seven o’clock. No self-respecting psychic is at work yet.”

“She will be,” he said. “I sent an email to her very late last night, asking if we could meet this morning. I got a response right away. She said okay but that it would need to be early. She’s doing a group reading and won’t be available for most of the day.”

“What’s a group reading?”

“Not something I want to be part of. That’s why we’re going now.”

“So you were working last night. You didn’t go to see Tess.”

“I only did a little work last night and for your information, Ms. Nosy, I did go see Tess.”

He’d stayed the night. After they’d had sex, they’d finally had a little wine and enjoyed some cheese and crackers. It was only after she’d fallen asleep that he’d gotten around to sending the email to the psychic.

“She’s not pissed at you, then?”

“I’m pretty sure she’s not.”

Rena narrowed her eyes. “Okay, then. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, since Ferguson was already working on verifying Elaine’s time at the casino, I asked him to also make sure that Leah was there when she said she was.”

“Very good,” A.L. said.

Rena swallowed the last of her doughnut and took a big drink of her coffee. “And Kara Wiese has no siblings. Her parents died four years ago. Car accident. And her mother’s only siblings were two brothers. Her father had a sister. She’s alive and lives in Utah. I saw the photo from her driver’s license—looks nothing like Kara.”

“It was worth a shot.”

“Absolutely.” She balled up the napkin her doughnut had rested on and threw it in the trash. “I’m ready for the psychic. Maybe I’ll get my fortune read while I’m there.”

While the day care and the house next door to it had probably been built in the 1950s, the house that the psychic saw the future from was probably thirty or forty years older. It was a tall and narrow two-story, all brick, with leaded glass windows, and a big, heavy wood door that had an actual knocker. A.L. used it to announce their arrival.