I’D TOLD MICHAEL to dress casual. I only had the one dress and he’d seen it. For tonight, I went with a nice blouse, then waited until Michael got out of his car, saw he was wearing chinos, and decided I could get away with jeans.

I stuck to boots with low heels, though. I used to strap on three inches and didn’t care if it made me taller than the guy. It was a test. Most failed. I’d learned to tone it down. The high heels still came out, just a little later.

When Michael handed me his keys again, I knew I could have worn the heels. A guy who was cool with me being in the driver’s seat wouldn’t have minded me being an inch taller.

“Did you get a chance to talk to Kayla?” I asked.

“I tried, but she’s decided I’m an asshole, and she’s not budging. Paula was great, though, and I’m not really comfortable interviewing a kid.” He glanced over at me. “Thanks, too, for the tips. I really appreciated that. In return I should tell you that I might know why Claire was talking to Cody. She didn’t come here to join the commune. She came here to investigate it.”

“I thought she was a student.”

“She was. But she had a friend—Tamara—who joined the commune, and left after Ginny and Brandi died. Something had happened, Claire was sure of it, but she couldn’t get anything out of her. Then Tamara took off and Claire couldn’t find her. No one could.”

“She disappeared?”

He nodded. “Claire was afraid whatever happened to her was connected to the commune. I helped Tamara’s family file a missing person’s report but ... let’s just say they weren’t the most engaged parents in the world. They as much as told the police they figured Claire was overreacting and Tamara just took off, which meant there wasn’t much hope of an actual investigation.”

“So she launched her own. And you knew about it?”

“No. Claire and I ...” He took a deep breath. “We’re half siblings. Her mom married my dad after she was born, which was the soonest he could get a divorce from my mom.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. It’s an old story. Dad knocks up his secretary and has to choose a family. He picked them. Mom tried to keep that from me, but I figured it out pretty fast. I didn’t want to have anything to do with his new family, and he was fine with that. He wanted a complete do-over. I saw Claire maybe five times growing up. Then, the week she started college, she called, wanting to see me. I wasn’t really looking for a baby sister, but if she wanted to make contact, that was fine.”