As always, Todd walked out smiling. Before he sat, he tapped his knuckles against the glass. I tapped mine back. Then he nodded at Gabriel and lowered himself onto the stool.

“You’re a day early,” he said. “Guess you heard I had a visitation from the dead.”

“Actually…” I explained that the woman who’d tried to visit him really was Seanna.

“So, not an entirely welcome resurrection,” he said when I finished.

“To put it mildly,” I murmured.

Todd looked over at Gabriel. He didn’t offer any sympathetic comment, but he nodded, as if to say he understood this wasn’t welcome. Then he turned back to me with, “Well, if she tries to see me again, I’ll keep on refusing. I can’t imagine what she’d want anyway.”

“She says she knows something about your case.”

“How—?” He paused. “Right, she’s from Cainsville. She knows about the fae, then.”

“Actually, she doesn’t,” I said. “Whatever she’s coming here for, it’s bullshit. If she tries again, we’d appreciate it if you’d alert the prison authorities, so we can clear up her latest death hoax. But otherwise…”

“Steer clear,” he said. “I will. I’m not interested in whatever game she’s playing. Pam might be, though. You know how she is.”

Oh, I know exactly how she is.

“She’s already talked to Seanna,” I said. “She couldn’t resist that. We’ll speak to her next, and see what happened.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much.” Todd gave me a half smile. “Your mother can take care of herself. It’s Seanna you should be concerned about.”

“I’m not,” Gabriel said.

“Maybe so, but we know how Pam feels about you, Gabriel. If she sees Seanna as a way to hurt you…” Todd shrugged. “Just don’t ever tell yourselves that Pam can’t do much from behind bars.”

“I think she’s already proven she can,” I said.

He winced. “Sorry, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to remind you. I know you’re a match for her. Just…be careful. Both of you.”

—

We’d just left the visiting room when someone called, “Mr. Walsh?”

It was a guard—a young one I’d seen before, maybe twenty-one. He looked as if he’d come straight from the army with his crew cut, ramrod spine, and manner that was a little too deferential for my tastes.

He hurried over and said, “Thank-you for waiting, sir.”

Gabriel grunted, as if he was more comfortable with rudeness. Civilities meant someone wanted something from him.

“It’s about that lady who came to see Todd Larsen? Said she was your mother?” The guard inflected his sentences, adding invisible question marks to the ends.

Gabriel nodded curtly, hurrying him along.