Pain raked through the fog in his head. He said, “Yes, the hell he did.” It came out rougher than he’d meant, and he was sorry at once. But he saw too that it made her believe him. Suddenly uncertain, she ran her hand up through her hair. Her eyes grew frantic. Her lips trembled. Which was worse than the glare. “Something really is wrong here, Sophia,” he said more gently. “I think you have to find out what it is.”

“Oh, I don’t know what’s what anymore,” she whispered. “You’ve got me all confused.”

“Look.” He stepped closer to her. “Harper didn’t send us out here for nothing.”

“Oh, I don’t give a tinker’s damn …”

“Awright, awright. But …” He lifted his hand to calm her. “She thinks that finding out about your mother might help her figure where Iago is headed.”

“Oh, Iago!”

“Awright. But these guys … these bad guys who killed your friends …”

“They weren’t my friends …”

“Awright, awright. But the thing is … I think they’re closing in somehow. That must be what your father’s afraid of, see. That’s my guess. He must think that I’m the one they’ve sent.”

The way she frowned at him then—it burned into his chest like a brand, “Well, maybe you are,” she said. “I mean, how do I know?”

It was so dark now, the clouds so heavy, that the air seemed thick between them. There were no birds singing. And though Storm could see a small highway off in the hills by a distant church steeple, there was no sound of traffic, no noise louder than the wind.

“You don’t believe that,” he told her. “You’d just rather say something like that than find out about your mother’s death, than come right out and talk with your father about how she died and what you remember. And it’s no good, Sophia.” He let out a breath, lifting his face. The answering wind was damp on his skin. Cooled his forehead, cleared his mind. “Everything with you and him depends on these secrets,” he said. “It’s all what you don’t tell each other, what you don’t ask. I don’t think you have time to go on like this anymore, to keep doing this.”

Sophia brought both hands up to her hair now, clutched it. And Storm, watching her, just felt terribly lonely. It only took an instant of her anger to remind him that her affection was his only comfort just now, might be his last comfort forever. It only took an instant of her confusion and simmering panic to remind him of how much stood between him and what he needed from her. How much dead life would have to be cleared away before they could really be together.

These were not the sort of ghosts he had wanted to find.