For twenty-two years I didn’t remember my parents, either. They’d been in prison, the Cŵn Annwn unable to do more than make incarceration easier for them. Of course, what the Cŵn Annwn never knew was that my father played no role in those murders. He’d gone to jail because he believed my mother did the right thing—the brave and strong thing. He stayed there because freedom would come at the cost of testifying against her, erasing any chance she had of winning an appeal.

Now, with Imogen dead, I wasn’t sure either of them had any chance at all.

—

The next morning, Gabriel drove me to work. He’d spent the night at my house in Cainsville. In the guest room, I hasten to add. We’d been up for hours discussing the case. Now, as he pulled into the laneway of his office greystone, his topic of conversation had nothing to do with work and everything to do with distracting me from fretting over my parents’ appeal. Gabriel had put himself through law school with illegal gaming, and he was finally sharing details.

“Blackjack,” he said as we got out of the car. “That was my specialty. It’s simple and efficient.”

“It’s also one of the easiest games to cheat in, isn’t it? Counting cards?”

“No one counted cards at my table. Not after the first time.”

As we walked around the building, the front door swung open, no one behind it. I stopped short. When I blinked, the door was shut.

A door opening on its own. The sign of an unwanted visitor.

“Olivia?”

I shook off the omen. Given what Gabriel did for a living, we got plenty of unwanted visitors.

“Sorry. Missed my cue,” I said as we walked through the front door. “So, tell me, Gabriel, what’d you do the first time you caught someone counting cards?”

He studied me.

“Well, are you going to tell me?” I said. “Or is this one of those stories you tease me with and then say Whoops, looks like we’re at the office already. I’ll finish later?”

His lips twitched. “You like it when I do that. It builds suspense.”

“I hate it when you do that. It’s sadistic. You have five seconds—”

“Gabriel?” Lydia stepped out of the office, closing the door behind her.

He bristled at the interruption.

“Client?” I guessed.

Lydia nodded, and we backed farther down the hall. She glanced toward the stairs, but there was no sign of the other tenants. Still, she lowered her voice as she said, “It’s a woman. She claims to be a relative.”