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calm.
    Aaro’s messages were rants. He’d gotten spoiled, having Miles working twenty-four/seven, and wanted him back in the saddle. Of course. The guy was crazy in love. He had a life now, and wanted all the nice things that a life entailed. Time to canoodle, daily long lunch breaks with the pretty lady friend, long weekends in the hot tub, chugging champagne and slurping oysters off the half-shell between bouts of hot sex. Aaro wanted to work a scant third of the grinding hours he used to put into his business, and he wanted Miles back to pick up the slack.
    Too bad, dude. No more. He loved the guy, though he could not really feel the love through the shield right now. He’d almost died for Aaro and Nina at Spruce Ridge. He was paying a high price for that attempt at heroism. He deleted Aaro’s messages unread, without guilt or regret. His guilt and regret functions were disabled.
    He selected Sean’s latest, and opened it with just an instant’s hesitation.
    get ur ass to b&l’s wedding or there will be hell to pay
    Wedding? Oh, Christ. Bruno and Lily’s wedding had been put off because of Spruce Ridge, and the premature birth of their son. They had rescheduled for . . . what day was today? He thumbed around on the smartphone. Oh, fuck. Today. The wedding was today.
    He let out a long, whistling breath of real dismay. That he felt. Keenly. Even through the shield.
    He didn’t have to go to the wedding. He could just load up some more supplies, and drive on. To another mountain range. A farther one.
    Yeah, and never call his mother back again? That was a big deal to wrap his head around. Kind of like suicide. Considering that he was teetering on the edge of certifiable mental illness already.
    He had a voice mail message, too. He didn’t recognize the number.
    He clicked on it. “Hello, Miles.” It was a cracked, quavery old woman’s voice. “This is Matilda Bennet. I know you said you did your best trying to find poor Lara. Well and good. But I did some more digging on my own, and I came up with another line of inquiry that I think you could do something with. I’ve reached the end of my resources, but maybe you could push it further. If you have any interest in hearing about this matter, call me back at this number.”
    That call had come in a week before.
    Huh. That was unexpected. He’d met Matilda right before Spruce Ridge. She’d worked at Wentworth College with Lara’s father, the Professor Joseph Kirk. She was the one who had originally set Miles upon this quest to find Lara.
    Matilda’s words were calculated to sting him into action, but the barbs did not get through his shield. Just a weird, fluttering sense in his belly, that Fate was playing tricks on him. There was something he should be noticing here, some pattern that eluded him.
    It should be obvious. If he weren’t so goddamn thick.
    Lara’s dead. Let it go, man. Don’t drive yourself any further into crazyland. Don’t sublease yourself a fucking condo there.
    Yet, he clicked the number the message had been sent from, and hit “call.” It was brutally early, but Matilda wouldn’t want to wait for a callback, not about this. The phone rang twelve times. He had almost given up when the line clicked open. There was a brief pause. “Hello?”
    It was a youthful female voice. Not Matilda.
    “Hi, sorry about the hour. Can I speak to Matilda?”
    A breathless squeak answered him. Nothing comprehensible.
    “Hello?” he prompted. Then more loudly. “Hello?”
    A male voice spoke into the phone. “Hi. Who am I speaking with?”
    “My name is Miles Davenport,” he said. “I’m looking for Matilda.”
    “Well.” The guy’s voice was heavy. “She’s, ah . . . she’s dead.”
    Miles’ mind flash-froze. “Huh?”
    “Like I said. A week ago.”
    “A week . . . ?” That was the day Matilda had made the call. Miles struggled to organize his thoughts. “Who are you?”
    “I’m Mike Stafford. Her granddaughter’s