“Right.” Kiren waved that off. “Okay. Everything points to you and your family having a system in place to prevent exposure. As I can now expose you, you need to take care of that. Me.” She frowned and seemed to think the point needed more clarifying. “My ability to expose you. I assume you’re not carrying around confidentiality agreements although, traditionally, signing a contract is a valid way to apply metaphysics. Applied metaphysics. Fantasy engineering, right? Besides . . .” The yawn caught her in the middle of giggling. “. . . you already told me you did Gary. Gary’s memory. Not Gary.”

Charlie’d always known that exhaustion and alcohol created similar symptoms. She’d never seen it proven quite so conclusively. “When was the last time you got any sleep?”

“Lying down? In a bed? My bed?” Kiren dragged both hands back through her hair. “When was the last time I saw you?”

“Come on.” Charlie stood and tugged the smaller woman up onto her feet. “The sandman’s waiting.”

“Is he real?”

“Not as far as I know.” The door after the bathroom led to a guest room/office. Also filled with paper. Shifting her grip as Kiren bounced off the wall, Charlie revised her belief that a scientist would have to be uber organized. Of course, there was always the chance this was organized and she wasn’t smart enough to spot the system.

“Santa?”

“Jury’s still out.”

“Surya?”

The master bedroom was behind the door at the end of the hall. With Kiren hanging off her right arm, Charlie had to twist past her to flick on the light. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Hindu sun god. One of the lesser Devatas.”

“Given the family baby-daddy, I’m probably not the best person to ask about gods.”

The bed hadn’t been made. Charlie dropped Kiren on the edge of the mattress, then tugged the comforter free of the crap piled on it.

Kiren watched a pile of paper tabbed with multicolored Post-it notes slide to the floor, and snorted. “Paperless office, my ass.” Then she snickered. “Paperless bedroom, my ass. I think you should know,” she added solemnly, “I don’t sleep with girls. Women. Where sleep is a commonly used euphemism for sex.”

“I do sleep with girls. Women. Where sleep is a commonly used euphemism for sex. But I am perfectly willing to take no for an answer.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“You answered anyway.”

“Efficiency. Go team.” She toppled sideways. “Any sufficiently advanced technology can be mistaken for magic. Arthur C. Clarke. More or less.”

“Auntie Ruby was in Sri Lanka in the early sixties.”

“Are you saying . . .”

“That Auntie Ruby got around. That’s all. In fifty years, we’ll be throwing around quotes inspired by my sisters.”

“I doubt that.”

“You haven’t met my sisters.”