On their way to their appointment with Madame Rune, Adam and Elle collected Mr. Kulshan, who came out of Mrs. Kulshan’s house a little spryer than when he went in, and while Elle transferred to the back-facing seat, Adam helped Mr. Kulshan into the front passenger seat.

“Good morning, folks!” Mr. Kulshan said. “Always good to spend time with the old bat. She’s got a way about her that makes a man remember...how to polka.”

Elle looked forward to the front seat. She observed Adam’s horror and laughed out loud.

The old man cranked around to look at her. “That sounds good,” he said. “I’ll bet the wind caught that laughter and carried it up the hill to catch in the olive trees where it will linger, whispering in the gray-green leaves.”

“Mr. Kulshan, you’re a poet!” Elle exclaimed.

“Once upon a time I was, before the war knocked it out of me. Women like you and the old bat bring it back.”

Elle asked cordially, “Out of curiosity, what’s the old bat’s name?”

“Her name is Irene.”

“A lovely name. Is there a single reason you shouldn’t use it all the time?”

Mr. Kulshan looked as if he was torn between fight and surrender. Wisely, he surrendered. “Young lady, you win. From now on, I’ll call her Irene.”

Adam pulled up to Mr. Kulshan’s house and helped him out. While Elle made the transfer back into the front seat, she gave the gent a kiss on the cheek. He patted her arm. “You look very sunny in that shirt,” he said and went up the walk singing “Goodnight, Irene.”

“My mother used to sing that to me,” Elle said dreamily, then looked at Adam sideways. “That’s all I remember about it. Her voice singing that song.”

Only when Mr. Kulshan had climbed the steps and opened the door did they drive away.

“I like your laughter, too,” Adam said. “And your shirt.”

She grinned at Adam. He had sounded so...competitive. She enjoyed that, and the warm breeze in her face. “Are you going to write a poem?”

“No.”

She laughed again, then her smile faded. If not for the sense of loss that haunted her and the terror that stalked her, right now she would be completely happy. She needed to recover her past. Soon. Now.

They reached the top of the curves where the Live Oak occupied the outer curve and Madame Rune’s Psychic Readings the inner curve. Adam parked, and before he could come around, Elle got out of the ATV.

“You’re moving better today,” he observed.

“Still a little stiff—” she gently rubbed her hip and her ribs and grimaced “—but the more I move, the better it gets.”

“Good.” Adam searched her eyes. One was brown. One was blue. Condition unchanged. “Good,” he murmured and opened the shop door for her.

A jingling bell announced their arrival.