At the mention of their dad, Ariel felt her lip tremble.

Miranda sighed, impatient. “Listen. We’ll deal with the whole dad thing tomorrow. I mean seriously, what are the chances that it’s true? Uncle Anthony can be so lame, and everyone knows he hates Dad. He probably said it just to be mean.”

Ariel felt a sickening mix of gratitude that her sister said something nice and a sizzling worry about what Miranda was getting ready to do.

“Why do you have to go all the way out there to … do it?”

“Dustin thinks it will be fun. I shouldn’t even tell you this, but the first time is supposed to be special. He has a surprise for me.”

“But he broke up with you! Now he’s saying you’ve got to go out to New Jersey to have special sex with him? That just seems weird.”

“It is not weird! Kids go out to New Jersey all the time.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. We’re taking the bus. Totally easy.”

“But what will Dad say when he finds out?”

“He won’t find out. He thinks I’m spending the night with Becky.”

“This is a really bad idea, Mir.”

“Tell Dad, and you’re not my sister anymore.” Miranda said it flat and mean; then she grabbed her bag and slammed the door on the way out.

* * *

Ariel paced her bedroom. She felt sick and weird and terrified at the possibility that her dad wasn’t her dad. Panic stuck in her throat, making it hard to breathe.

A lump swelled in her throat. What would she do if was true? What if Anthony took her away? What would she do if she had to go live with him? She couldn’t imagine her dad not being her dad. She couldn’t imagine him not coming in and checking on her in the middle of the night. After a whole life of him being Mr. Busy Working Guy, it seemed unfair that he’d get taken away now, when he was staying at home so much of the time.

Her uncle had to be lying. Just like Miranda had said.

The thoughts went round and round in her head until she felt as if she was going to throw up. But there was something else. Miranda had gone to New Jersey. To their old house.

Ariel buckled over, clutching her stomach, other memories pressing in on her. The fact was, their old house held something she hadn’t wanted to face.

“Do you remember my memory chest, Ariel?”

The words hit Ariel hard, words she had refused to think about. They were her mother’s words as she lay trapped in the car, blood streaking down her face.

“Mom,” Ariel had cried. She hadn’t cared about any chest. “You have to be okay!”

Ariel had watched, terrified, as a tear rolled down her mom’s temple, into her hair. “You’re a big girl now, A.”

“I’m only eleven!”

“Nearly twelve,” her mother breathed.

Ariel still hadn’t understood how she could be unhurt while her mom was such a broken mess. Plus, it was Ariel who had made her mom so angry that she had driven fast, too fast.

“Ariel, pay attention.” Her mother had struggled to speak. Ariel had experienced the awful feeling that she was watching her mother disappear.

“Listen to me, Ariel. I was an idiot. I didn’t think. But now you’ve got to find the box. It’s in my study. Upstairs. In a little cabinet behind my memory chest. You have to get the box.” She had tried to move and moaned. “Find it. Make sure you give it to Gabriel.”

Ariel was crying by then, hard and loud. “What do you mean?”

But her mom hadn’t answered, her eyes fluttering closed, and Ariel watched her mother disappear.

“Mom! Mommy!”

Police and firefighters had arrived on the scene, pulling Ariel out of the car. But they hadn’t been able to free her mom.

Over a year had passed since then, and Ariel hadn’t done what her mom had asked. She hadn’t wanted anything to do with the chest, or the box her mother must have hidden behind the chest. She had tried to pretend that her mother hadn’t even said the words. She had resented the Shrink for wanting her to remember. But Portia had said that sometimes you had to dig deep to find answers. Ariel had hated when Portia said that. But now she knew she had to do it.

She flew to her stash of money, hoping she could catch up to Miranda. She’d have to sneak out of the house. So she wouldn’t run into her dad. Or non-dad.

She swallowed back tears, shoved the money into her backpack, and made it out the front door without being caught.

* * *

It wasn’t nearly as hard to get out of Manhattan as Ariel had thought it would be. She’d been saving money since the whole city clerk-cab fiasco. Every chance she got she asked her dad for money for this and that. Her dad never asked to see the birthday presents she supposedly bought for her nonexistent friends. She wasn’t ever going to get caught in some random place again without enough money to get home.

Who knew that the next “home” she would need to get back to would be her old one in New Jersey? That was weird.

Of course she had always known that she’d have to go back someday.

She took a taxi to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and made it on to a DeCamp bus without anyone questioning her. By then, she’d missed Miranda, probably by a couple of buses, but she managed it herself. Pretty soon she was looking out the window of the bus as it hurtled through the Lincoln Tunnel, focusing on the way her ears popped as they drove deeper under the Hudson River. Better than focusing on what she’d find when she got to Montclair.

What would she do if she walked in on Miranda in bed with Dustin?

A few tears escaped, but she used her sleeve to swipe them away and kept staring out the window so no one could see.

When they came out of the tunnel, she saw the giant buildings of Manhattan standing like a wall of cement and glass just across the Hudson River. Twenty minutes later, the bus pulled into the parking lot by the Upper Montclair train stop. Everything looked the same as when they’d lived there before the accident. But of course it wasn’t. It felt like some weird awful song.

She hitched the backpack over her shoulders and got off the bus. She went to the line of cabs, then asked the front driver to take her to the house.

He looked at her in the rearview mirror, then shrugged. “Sure.”

They turned right out of the parking lot, drove over the railroad tracks, followed by another right, a left, then one more right on to a road tucked into a hill, exactly as she and her mom had done a hundred times, even down to Ariel sitting in the backseat.

The house stood on the left, giant with the long green lawn—all lit up like a Christmas tree, teenage kids going in and out of the front door.

Ariel pressed back against the seat.

Miranda wasn’t out here having sex.

She was having a massive party.

Thirty-nine

PORTIA SAT DOWN in Stanley and Marcus’s living room, ready to get on with her life. Finally. She hadn’t so much as turned on the TV since her sisters left. She had made a list. A bunch of lists, actually.

She had cleaned up, put away the last of the prepackaged food, cooked Stanley and Marcus a big, early dinner before her hosts took off for Lincoln Center and the opera, leaving her alone. But the moment she turned to the first of her lists, the doorbell rang, surprising her.

Portia peeked out the window. Gabriel stood on the steps, looking out at the street rather than at the door. He looked typically Gabriel—tall, fit, ruggedly beautiful in his own beastly way. The very sight of him sent a stab of ridiculous lust through her, followed by a wave of panic.

Like a criminal, she dropped to the floor, not wanting him to see her. He had proven to be an addiction, and there was no better way to cure the need than going cold turkey.

Not that he was making it easy. He called her cell phone practically every hour. The messages had started simple. “Portia, we need to talk.” Gruff, impersonal, so very like Gabriel. From there, they had escalated. “Portia, call me. We need to talk about the apartment.” Before he moved on to a tightly controlled anger. “Damn it, Portia. Let’s deal with this like adults.” Then a sigh, as if giving in. “Please.”

Which only pissed her off more.

After a few minutes, she heard Gabriel going back down the front steps. She rolled to the side, sitting up on the floor with her back against the wall. And thought about violets. Watermelon.

The images surged in her head. She could taste the sweet juicy meat of watermelon crunching in her teeth. She smelled the gentle scent of violets. And something else, sharp and pungent. Burning. Like fire.

She leaped up and yanked open the front door. “Where’s Ariel?”

It came out in a bark.

Gabriel stopped halfway up his steps next door. The fierceness of his face softened, barely, but enough that she noticed.

“Portia.” Nothing else. Just a note of relief.

She looked at him, just looked, frozen for a tiny second as if she could do nothing more than memorize all that beautiful harshness of him, the strong jaw, the dark eyes, the dark hair winging back, the obstinacy, imprinting him on her mind.

But then the relief was gone, and the man in control returned. “We need to talk.”

“Gabriel, where is Ariel?” She ran down the stairs, then up his.

He scowled at her. “In her room.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am.”