"Oh, come on, Renate." I had finally heard enough to push me over the edge. "What's the big deal? I know you have a problem with humans, but isn't it in our mutual interest to find Karen so we can take her back to Boston?"

I might as well have been speaking Hindi. She fixed her beady little eyes on Luke.

"I like you," she said. "You're one of our favorite restaurant customers."

"You run a great place," Luke said. "I see why you have a four-star rating."

"I like you," she said again, "but not enough to make up for the fact you're human. If you want to talk to my staff, you'll need to do it through official channels or not at all."

Okay then.

"That went well," I said as the door slammed shut behind us. "I can't believe I used to like that woman." We started walking back toward town. "If she's not hiding something, I'll eat my entire stock of sock yarn."

"She's not hiding anything."

"Of course she's hiding something."

"I don't think so," Luke said. "I think she's telling the truth."

"What makes you think that?"

"Cop's intuition," he said. "Body language. Tone of voice. The whole package."

"You could see all of that with her the size of a budgie?"

"What can I tell you? I'm good at my job."

We stopped in at the bank, the pizza shop, Cut & Curl, and the sub shop.

n.o.body knew anything.

Or if they did, they weren't telling.

We walked back to the yarn shop, where eleven boxes of yarn waited by the front door.

"UPS must love you," Luke said as we dragged the boxes inside.

"You should see what it's like around here when the new fall yarns. .h.i.t."

Which would have been the perfect spot for him to say something about how he couldn't wait to see either our great autumn yarns or foliage, but he didn't.

I pulled one of yesterday's tuna sandwiches out of the fridge and grabbed two bottles of water.

"What do you know about Isadora's last power grab?" he asked as I cleared a spot for us at the worktable.

"Just what Lilith said this morning. That was the first time I heard about it."

"Sorcha never said anything?"

"Not a word."

"There's something-" He stopped and shook his head. "Every time I get close to it, it fades away."

"What?" I asked. "A suspicion? A guess? An idea?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is, I can't grab hold of it fast enough."

I took a breath, then jumped into the deep end of the pool.

"Steffie's here for a reason, Luke. She wants to be here. Isadora's only capitalizing on something that was already in motion."

The mask started to slip into place.

"Don't go all cop on me. Listen to what I have to say."

His jaw was set in that familiar line but he nodded. "I'm listening."

"You were raised Catholic. You know about the spirit . . . the soul."

"They didn't teach us anything about Fae battles."

"Some people pa.s.s into the next dimension in peace and harmony, and once they leave this plane of existence, nothing can reach them. There isn't a medium on the planet who could find them and lure them back for a visit. If Steffie's spirit had completed her journey, Isadora wouldn't have been able to capture her."

"If that was Steffie we saw."

"After all that's happened, you still don't believe Steffie's-"

"I don't know what the h.e.l.l I believe anymore."

What was wrong with him?

"You believe in giant anacondas, vampires, werewolves, mountain giants who can give you an aerial tour of the town, and a girlfriend who can turn you into a Ken Doll, but you can't bring yourself to believe your daughter's spirit needs you?" I took another deep, steadying breath. "Steffie wants to tell you something, and Isadora or no Isadora, she won't rest until she does."

He pushed aside his sandwich, stood up, then left the shop without another word.

And for the first time since this whole thing started, I began to wonder what would happen if I won the battle but still lost the war.

24.

KAREN.

"Welcome back," the friendly male voice said. "We've been waiting for you."

I opened my eyes, then closed them again. It looked the same either way.

"I can't see you," I said.

"You can't see anything. You're not supposed to." He had a warm, rea.s.suring voice. I could tell he was on my side. I didn't have to be afraid.

"Am I dreaming?"

"You're fully conscious."

"Then I must be blind."

"Only to this dimension."

"I don't understand."

"You will," he said.

And then a small voice whispered, "Mommy?"

"Oh G.o.d . . . Steffie! Are you here, baby? Are you with me?"

She was close, so close. I reached out to touch her, but there was nothing except the smell of warm, clean, fresh air.

"Where are you, baby? Mommy's here. Take my hand!"

I felt a soft, warm rush of breath against my skin . . . so soft. My heart yearned for just one hug, one moment with her.

"Daddy?"

"He's not here with me, baby. What do you need? Tell me and I'll get it for you."

"She can't stay this time," the man with the kind voice said. "She has to go."

"No!" I reached out into the darkness. "Stay with me, Stef! Don't go!"

I woke up suddenly and completely. I felt refreshed, rejuvenated, and disappointed to see I was still at the Inn, still in the beautiful four-poster bed with the fancy quilts and blankets. The blinds were closed. A vanilla candle flickered softly on the nightstand.

And my daughter was nowhere around.

"h.e.l.lo?" My voice sounded tentative, not at all like me. "Is anyone here?"

"You're awake." It was the same cordial male voice I'd heard in my dream. "I thought you'd sleep all day. Trying to cross dimensions usually wipes humans out."

"Who are you?" I sat up and glanced around. "Where are you?" are you?"

"Right here."

He was sitting on the foot of my bed and yet he wasn't. The bed didn't register his weight. I could see through him to the painting on the wall, but what I saw took my breath away. He was easily the most beautiful creature I had ever seen in my life. No movie star, no work of art, even came close. He glowed with a golden light that radiated off him in soft waves of energy that warmed my face.

"Are you a ghost? I couldn't see through the other ghosts."

"I'm not a ghost." He laughed but there was no mockery in it. "I'm just not of your dimension."

"I know your voice. You were with my daughter in my dream." It was my turn to laugh softly. "Except it wasn't a dream, was it?"

"No," he said, "it wasn't."

"Where is Steffie? Why isn't she here with you?"

"Do you want the long answer or the short one?"

"Long," I said.

His smile dimmed and so did he. "For that, you'd have to ask my mother."

LUKE.

The tiny library was swarming with kids. I was almost trampled by a quartet of second graders h.e.l.l bent on creating as much destruction as they could in as little time as possible.

"It's Love Your Library Week," Lilith said with a shake of her head.

"Followed by Send a Librarian to Hawaii Week?" I said and she laughed.

"Speaking friend to friend, this probably isn't a great time, Luke. If you need to concentrate, you should come back later."

"Clock's ticking," I reminded her. "I'm the oldest of five. I can handle noise."

"Tell me what you need and I'll try to find you a fairly quiet corner."

I told her what I was looking for. She nodded and grew quiet for a few moments. "We're not digitized," she said, "so you probably won't find anything on Google. Not to mention that most of what happens here stays here."

Like Vegas with a twist of magic.

"Do you have old Sugar Maple newspapers on microfiche?"

"We have the actual newspapers in the archive and daily logbooks kept by earlier town historians. You might find something there."

"You said you were around the last time Isadora made a move. What do you remember?"

"Not much." She glanced across the room at a pair of middle school girls who were giggling over a vampire book. "Chloe's mother was ready to deliver anytime. Her father worked at the hardware store with Paul but things weren't going well. Isadora was spending more time in this dimension because her boys and the Weaver kids were friends. She seemed to get angrier with every day that pa.s.sed. She hated Chloe's father because he was human and she despised the fact that the next leader of the town would be a half-blooded human."

"And that's when Isadora made her move?"

"I guess she figured this was her best chance. Before Guinevere gave birth and the next generation of Hobbs was in place."

It sounded reasonable enough, but my gut said there was more.