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things cool down after you arrived?”

    “No. The feud continues to this day.”

    “And you're caught in the middle?”

    Harry's shoulder lifted slightly. “That's the way it goes sometimes.”

    On the surface, he sounded incredibly casual, even dismissive of the family situation. But Molly flinched against the pain implied by his words. It hit her in a wave that made her catch her breath. Whatever Harry felt toward the Strattons and the Trevelyans, it was anything but indifference. But she also understood that he kept his emotions relating to that subject under lock and key.

    “Do your parents still live in the islands?” Molly asked.

    “My parents are dead. They were murdered by a couple of armored car thieves nine years ago.”

    Harry's voice was infinitely soft and infinitely cold. But Molly stilled beneath the deluge of powerful emotions that emanated from him. She could not even begin to identify the complex and dangerous brew. Rage? Despair? Remorse? All those and more, yes. This was the stuff of nightmares.

    “My God.” Molly could not think of anything else to say. “My God.”

    Harry was silent.

    “I'm so sorry,” Molly offered, feeling helpless.

    “Your folks are both dead, also,” he pointed out, as if they had that much in common.

    “Yes.” It was Molly's turn to fall silent for a while.

    Her feelings were not nearly as complicated as Harry's. Whenever she thought about her parents these days, she experienced a straightforward sense of wistful loss. The initial grief had faded over time. So had the anger and fear that she'd once had difficulty admitting to herself. She no longer lay awake at night wondering how she would make the mortgage payment and see her sister safely raised. She had managed to shoulder the responsibilities that had once seemed so overwhelming.

    Molly peered through the windshield as the lights of what her sister mockingly called “the Abberwick family mansion” appeared. “Well, here we are. Thanks so much for seeing me home.”

    “I'll take you to your door.” Harry brought the car to a halt in front of the massive wrought-iron gates.

    Molly hastily rummaged around in her purse for the card key. When she found it, she handed it to him. Harry lowered his window and inserted the card into the lock. The heavy gates swung inward.

    “Good security,” Harry remarked.

    “My father designed it.” Molly tilted her chin to indicate the night-shrouded gardens. “He designed the sprinkler system, too. He was always tinkering with things around the house. My sister, Kelsey, is following in his footsteps. She got the Abberwick genius for scientific and technical stuff.”

    “What about you?”

    Molly chuckled. “I got the bills.”

    Harry drove slowly along the curving driveway and stopped in front of the steps. He switched off the engine, removed the keys from the ignition, and opened his door. A brief smile came and went on his hard face as he surveyed the old, ramshackle mansion.

    Molly had no trouble guessing his thoughts. Her home looked like the work of a seriously deranged architect. It was a bizarre collection of Gothic arches and Victorian flourishes. The perfect setting for a mad scientist.

    “Interesting,” was all Harry said as he opened Molly's car door.

    She smiled as she got out. “Be honest, it bears a striking resemblance to Dr. Frankenstein's castle. What can I say? It's home.”

    “Were you raised in this house?”

    “Yes, indeed. You're looking at the ancestral manor. My parents bought it during a brief spell of Abberwick prosperity thirty years ago. Dad had just patented some new machine tool. He fell in love with this place. Said he needed the space for his workshops. The money didn't last long, of course. It never did with Dad. But somehow we managed to hang on to the house.”

    “I see.”

    Molly gave Harry a second card key. He took it from her as they went up the steps to the front door.

    Molly tried to think of a