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a short driveway blocked by another set of elaborately coiled iron gates and stopped the car. He tapped a security code onto a recessed keypad and the wide gates silently glided open.
    Emotion clogged Lauryn’s throat as the car rolled into a circular brick courtyard and around the center fountain. Sensor lights flicked on, flooding the area with light. Scrambling to absorb it all at once, she ticked off details in her mind. Mediterranean style. Four-car garage to the left. Arched windows. Carved columns. Deep, shadowed porches.
    Her birthmother’s home. Lauryn’s heart thumped as hard and fast as a helicopter’s blades as she climbed from the car on trembling legs. She wished she could see the house in daylight instead of washed by a weak crescent moon. She wanted to examine every minute detail of the elaborately carved cornices above the windows and doors and under the gables and eaves.
    â€œIt’s beautiful,” she whispered.
    â€œLike I said, it’s a good investment. By the time I unload it, the property will have doubled in value.”
    Panic burst in her veins. He couldn’t sell. Not yet. “You’re going to sell it?”
    â€œWhen the market and price are right.”
    She wiped her dampening palms on her simple black sheath and followed Adam onto the front porch, tangling and untangling her fingers while he unlocked the door.
    How many times had her birthmother crossed this threshold?
    He entered, hit a light switch and then punched a sequence on an alarm system concealed by a small mirror. He gestured for her to join him, but she couldn’t move. A weird form of near-paralysis locked her muscles. She was so close to uncovering the truth. So close to the diaries and answers.
    If they were here.
    But what if she didn’t like what she learned? What if her mother wasn’t a nice person? What if her mother had died of some hideously debilitating and hereditary disease? And what if Lauryn possessed some flaw that made her unlovable?
    Her father and Susan had loved her hadn’t they? Maybe. Her parents had lied about so much that Lauryn didn’t trust herself to recognize the truth anymore.
    â€œLauryn?” Adam’s expression asked why she delayed.
    She scrambled for a response. “This luxury is about as far as you can get from the military housing I grew up in.”
    â€œDidn’t seem to bother you at the Ainsleys’.”
    â€œI guess I was too nervous about meeting all those people to be overwhelmed by the house. I, um…don’t get out much.” Not anymore.
    She forced her feet forward and found herself in a soaring circular two-story domed foyer. She slowly turned around in the center of the Mariner’s Compass pattern inlaid into the marble floor like a glossy stone quilt, and then crossed to the wide staircase sweeping up and around the foyer to the second floor.
    Had her mother crept up and down these stairs, avoiding the squeaky treads in the middle of the night? If marble treads creaked, that is.
    Had the wild streak that had landed Lauryn in so much trouble as a teen come from Adrianna Laurence? Lauryn certainly hadn’t inherited it from her father, a regimented career military man, or learned it from her adoptive mother, a serene saint of a woman who never raised her voice or her hand no matter how obnoxious Lauryn had been.
    â€œWant the ten-dollar tour?” Adam’s voice intruded.
    She blinked. “I thought that was a ten-cent tour.”
    â€œInflation,” Adam replied straight-faced. “If you don’t have cash, I’ll accept a more creative payment.”
    His gaze dropped to Lauryn’s lips and her mouth dried. She cleared her throat and looked away. “I’d love a tour.”
    She had to get into this house without him dogging her footsteps. Maybe she could convince him to give her a key to drop stuff off for the VIPs and steal a few minutes to explore. “How many