“Got you there, honey,” Greg chimes in. “Smart and quick-witted.”

“And a talented jumper,” she says, still looking at me. “You’ve had, what, six months since the liver transplant, and you’ve already made your first jump?”

My body freezes. It’s like in those horror movies when the character realizes that the call is coming from inside the house. This family knows more about me than I know about them, and that disadvantage isn’t comforting.

“Why don’t we start from the beginning?” I suggest. “And only honest answers.”

Claire chuckles. “By the time we’re done, you’re going to be thinking very differently about that word.”

“Start?”

“Beginning.”

I push past the sense of wonder and hold my ground. It won’t be long before Isobel comes bursting in, anyway.

“How do you know so much about me?”

“Money,” she says bluntly, gesturing to the house. “We’re rich, Andre. You’re smart enough to know that the world works differently for certain people. If you’re rich, you can get away with more.”

“Like finding out who received a donated organ.”

She smiles. “Precisely. But that was more self-preservation. No. Protection. That’s a better word. We couldn’t have someone jumping through time, someone who got that ability through us, walking around the world unchecked. It was as much for your protection as it was for ours.”

Without another word or a request to follow her, she turns and walks back down the hall and into the study, and I obediently trail behind her.

Humming under her breath, she scans half a dozen bookshelves with her fingers before grabbing an older-looking book. She then sits on the couch and gestures for me to sit next to her. I hesitate but obey.

“For me to be honest with you, and for you to understand, you’re going to have to suspend your disbelief for a few minutes,” she says, dusting off the leather binding. “You’re going to have to go into this believing that there is a chance that I’m telling you the truth, that time travel exists. Can you do that, Andre?”

“As long as you’re honest with me, then sure.”

She grins, sitting back next to me.

I move half a foot away. But she doesn’t seem to mind.

“My family, and other families like us, are time travelers. It’s a genetic thing, and I’m not sure when it started or how. But for as long as I can remember, people in my family have been able to do it. Jump through time and space.”