She glided through the roped passageway that led from the street to theriserconstructed on the parking lot opposite the Sheherezade. There was a red carpet along the route, and she took long, easy steps in her heels. People called her name from the crowd, and she beamed at them, warm and friendly. A man in a dark business suit hurried down the steps of the stage and met her halfway and whispered instructions in her ear. She nodded and looked unfazed.

The head of the demolition team met her, too. Stride could hear what he said. “Everything is ready for you, ma’am.”

Claire followed them to theriser, but she stopped when she saw Stride and Serena off by themselves, between the stage on one side and theflockingcrowds of people on the other. She whispered at the man in the suit, who looked pained and pointed to his watch. Claire calmly shook her head.

She came over to join them. All the eyes followed her.

Stride noticed that Claire stared at Serena the whole time.

“Look at you,” Serena said.

Claire smirked and gave them a mock curtsy. She was dressed in a burgundy business suit, custom tapered to her curves, with diamond accessories adorning her wrist and neck. Her flowing strawberry blond hair was carefully pinned up and styled.

“Do you like it?”

“You’re beautiful.”

Claire blushed. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

“You’ll do fine.”

She soaked in the atmosphere around her. The sights, sounds, and smells. Her new world. “I haven’t had time to properly thank you both. For everything that happened with Mickey and Boni. I don’t know how you did it.”

“No thanks needed,” Stride said,

“A part of me wishes I was back at the Limelight. It was easier then. Singing my songs. Before all of this happened with Blake.”

Stride and Serena looked at each other.

“Do we tell her?” Stride asked.

He and Serena had talked about it through half the night, and they were genuinely torn. Maybe the truth wasn’t necessary. Maybe it was good enough to leave the lies in place that had been there so long.

“Tell me what?” Claire asked.

Their conversation seemed loud, but it was drowned out by the crowd. Stride felt exposed, talking about it here, but they had decided she needed to know before she pushed the button. Before the Sheherezade became dust and debris. So that she knew, as the building fell, what she was losing.

Except now, when they had to say it, Serena looked as if she couldn’t find the words. Stride knew there was a part of her that was in love with Claire, in a part of her soul that he couldn’t reach. She didn’t want to hurt her. But Serena had spent enough time running from the truth herself to know that there was no finish line.

“Blake wasn’t Amira’s son,” Serena told her.

Claire opened her mouth but didn’t find any words. She looked around as if everyone had heard. She stared at Serena, certain that she was joking, and then shook her head. “That can’t be.”

The dead seriousness in their faces was enough to convince her.

“But I could see it in his eyes,” she protested. “He was Boni’s son. He was my brother.”

Serena’s voice was sympathetic. “You saw what you wanted to see, Claire. So did Blake. You wanted to believe you weren’t alone. He wanted to believe that he’d found the mother he had been looking for his whole life. But he was wrong.”

“You mean everything he did was for nothing” All those innocent lives?”

“You’re here,” Stride said. “Boni’s not. Mickey’s not. So maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.”

“You can’t be sure about this,” Claire said.

“I’m sorry. We are sure. We talked to a woman named Beatrice Erdspring who was Amira’s nurse during the pregnancy. She knew what happened to the baby. It wasn’t Blake.”

“Then who was Blake’s real mother?” Claire asked.

Stride spread his hands. “We’ll probably never know. He was one of the throwaway babies from back then. Off the record and under the radar. He had the bad luck to wind up in a terrible home.”

Claire looked up at the Sheherezade, remembering, and Stride thought she was anxious now for it to be gone. She would push the button, and the memories would be rubble. He also wondered if her mind had leaped ahead of them and was dragging her places she didn’t want to go.

“Boni told you about Blake,” she said. “He sent you to Reno. Boni had to know Blake wasn’t Amira’s child.”

Serena nodded. “He did.”

“Then why?”

“He knew that Blake believed it,” Stride said. “As far as Blake was concerned, he was Amira’s son. Boni was happy for us and everyone else to believe it, too.”

“He could have stopped it,” Claire whispered. “That son of a bitch. He could have told Blake the truth. How many people could he have saved?”

“I don’t think Blake would have believed him,” Stride said. “Blake was too far gone.”

“He could have tried,” Clare insisted.

“Never,” Serena said gently. “There was no way Boni was going to tell the truth about Blake. Or Amira.”

“Oh, Serena, don’t protect him. He’s my father. I know what kind of a man he is. This time, he could have done the right thing. He could have told the truth.”

“It would have meant giving up the most important secret in his life,” Serena said.

Claire’s voice was bitter. “Mickey. I know.”

Serena shook her head. “No, not Mickey. He would have had to admit what really happened to Amira’s baby.”

Claire looked back and forth between them and read the discomfort in their eyes. “Why was that so important?”

Serena leaned forward and murmured in Claire’s ear, “Amira was your mother.”

Claire reacted as if she had been stung. She took a step back and shook her head violently. “No.”

Serena simply stared at her with sad eyes.

“I was born months later,” Claire told them. “My mother thed giving birth to me.”

“Boni’s wife thed in childbirth,” Stride said. “So did her baby.”

“That was me” Claire insisted.

“Boni went to Reno and found the family that adopted Amira’s child,” Stride said. “Not a son. A daughter. You.”

“You’re wrong.”

Serena put both arms on Claire’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Beatrice was the nurse in Reno who delivered you to them. She knew the story. She knew what happened. Boni wanted his daughter back. His only child.”

“He never wanted you to know,” Stride said. “He was afraid you’d find out the rest-that he was the one who had your mother murdered. That’s why he couldn’t let the truth about Blake come out.”

She took a step away from them. There were eyes and cameras on her everywhere, and for a moment Stride thought she might run.

“I’m Amira’s daughter?” Claire said, as if she were wrapping her mind around the idea. She was struggling not to cry. Then, in the next instant, her eyes sparked like flame. Amira’s eyes. “She wanted to be free. Just like me. God, I hate him. I hate what he did to us.”

“So did Blake,” Serena said. “It destroyed him. Don’t let it destroy you, Claire.”

“Are you saying I should forgive him? How can you say that?”

“I’m not saying that at all,” Serena told her. “I just don’t want this to consume you.”

Claire looked up at the riser, where the politicians and money men were gathered, waiting for her, watching her. It was her world now-Boni’s world-and Stride could see her questioning whether she really wanted it. Whether the prize meant anything at all.

Whether, knowing her past, she was different now than she had been moments before.

“You could have kept this from me,” Claire said.

“That’s true,” Serena said. “But you’re tough.”

Claire laughed and touched her shoulder. Something intimate flowed through their skin. “I don’t feel very tough right now.” She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and added, “Time to do what we do best in Vegas. Bury the past.”