“How?”

“Danny had a contagious grin and nobody could weave a better story.”

“How’d you get dragged into Danny’s scheme?”

“It wasn’t some big con,” I explain. “Danny was just charging for entertainment. And for the record, I never asked to be pulled in. The part of my origin story about being on my way home from waitressing and needing to get off my feet is true. Danny dared me to sit at his table, pretend I was a psychic. Bethany was my first customer.”

“What’d Danny do when Bethany freaked out?”

“Told me that I was a natural.”

Thomas leans back, crosses his arms, the picture of a judge who has already decided the verdict. “So you agreed to work as a psychic?”

“Actually, I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

But Danny persisted . . .

“Do you see a bright future waitressing? Let’s make some quick money and both go to LA, become actors. The first one to make it helps the other one. Deal?”

He grabbed my hand, pumped it. “Partners, no take backs.”

I laughed. “What are you, four? Okay. It’s a deal.”

“Eventually, I agreed,” I admit to Thomas.

“What changed your mind?”

“I’d come to San Francisco for a different life, and working as a psychic was different.” I trace the jagged scar that runs the length of my left palm.

“How’d you get that?” Thomas asks.

“Cut myself on some piece of farm equipment when I was little.” I look at him from beneath my lashes. “There’s no big secret here. Danny convinced me to join him. I still took some waitressing shifts, but word of mouth spread fast and within a month we had a line of customers.” Mostly for me.

Thomas scribbles a few notes. “Gigi said that Danny went down to LA with you to meet Lucas Haughter. What happened at that meeting?”

“Danny took the free flight then decided he wanted to pursue acting instead. End of story.”

“So why’d you lose touch?” Thomas presses.

I shrug. “It was a normal fork in the road. We were kids. Never saw Danny on TV or in a movie, so I guess he got tired of going out on auditions and left the City of Dreams.”

But that’s not what happened. There are people in life you wish you could reach back for, like Danny, drag by the scruff to the present, even if they hate you now, for another chance. Sadly, that’s not how it works. And if I had that chance, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t do the same thing. I was a kid who couldn’t go home, had no options, and my future was waitressing, garage studio apartments, and never having enough money to make ends meet. Maybe that’s why there are no do-overs in life. You can’t survive if you have to replay situations, hurt the people you love again and again.

The truth is, I screwed Danny over.

ELEVEN

Thomas

It’s clear Sylvie is leaving something out. I glance at the notes on my phone. “Okay. Let’s go backward. What do you remember from before you were adopted?”