She looked at me like I was the slow kid in class. “A Second who’s been living in this town under the alias of Justine Ryder, née Jenson.”

“Oh, right. Of course.”

I stood there wondering why she was talking to me instead of looking for Justine. Zion looked like she was just managing to keep herself from rolling her eyes.

“I’m told Justine Ryder’s been masquerading as your sister-in-law. I need you to take me to her home so that I can get her scent.”

“Her scent?”

What was this woman, a magical bloodhound or something?

Annoyance blossomed on Zion’s face, and I quickly ran my memory backwards to make sure I hadn’t said the “bloodhound” part aloud.

“Excuse me,” she said in a carefully polite tone, “Given your age, it’s hard to remember you’re … uninformed. ‘Scent’ is trackers’ shorthand for someone’s essence trace.”

“Okie-dokie, then,” I said, getting annoyed myself.

It wasn’t my fault I was “uninformed.” If these people could get their act together and send me a trainer who did his job, I’d get informed as fast as I could.

“Your car or mine?” I said, probably a little snappishly.

We ended up in her car, but only after she’d taken a good long look at mine and found it wanting. Admittedly, the Le Mans was a little worse for wear. In contrast, Zion had a Porsche Panamera. I was pretty sure the leather inside was too nice to have ever been on a cow, and the engine made a sound that was somehow both a rumble and a purr. I couldn’t imagine how much the thing cost.

Ben was upset with me. He thought it was terrible that I hadn’t shown up at the mall. I was suddenly glad I hadn’t pulled up in my own car, since it was supposed to be in the shop. Ben also thought it was shockingly insensitive that I’d just left a message the night before and hadn’t called back to make sure Tiff was okay. She was, fortunately, though she’d made it out of the mall, after all. The cops had picked her up trying to hitchhike southeast on I-94.

Clearly, the situation had been a lot more serious than I’d assumed. I was retroactively terrified. “Kidnapped, then out ’til 11:00 p.m. ogling a lava-man,” was unfortunately off-limits as an excuse. I couldn’t think of a reasonable substitute, so I spent a long time apologizing and talking about what an idiot I was.

The whole time, Zion wandered around the first story, touching things. She was using a half-working disguise, I realized: I could see the weird doubleness of presence and absence about her, and Ben was clearly unaware of her. I had a hard time not glancing at her — getting chewed out by my big brother in front of a gorgeous and ultra-competent stranger was excruciating.