“I don’t think this is about your mother, Alex.”

She swallowed hard. “No?”

“No.” He covered her hands with his. “Who’s the sacrificial lamb?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The slaughtered animal left under your sink was an actual lamb. The mutilated baby doll is its metaphorical parallel. Who in this story is the lamb?”

The one unfairly blamed for the acts of another. The one killed to further a cause.

“Dylan’s the obvious choice,” she whispered. “He’s the faceless baby of my visions. Screaming. Children are often called lambs.”

“Maybe. Who else?”

“My mother.”

“Maybe the baby is you?”

She stared at him, heart thundering. “No. I would know it.” At his expression, she added, “How could that be? I’m there in my vision. I’m the one seeing him scream.”

“In dream interpretation, everything in a dream represents an aspect of the self.”

“But these aren’t dreams. I’m awake, Tim.”

He tightened his fingers over hers. “Honey, this is about you. You’re the sacrificial lamb.”

She shook her head, not wanting to believe it. He pressed on. “Something happened to you, probably in the wine caves. And whatever it was, it was traumatic.” He searched her gaze. “And either somebody else knows about it and is tormenting you. Or your subconscious is doing its damnedest-”

“To get me to remember,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

She didn’t want to believe it, but it rang true. She started to shake. “That’s why it was so easy for me to forget.”

“I think so.”

“I’m like her, aren’t I? It’s happened.”

“No, Alex. You were a little girl and you were hurt. You’re not unbalanced.”

She laughed, tears filling her eyes. “Wow, that’s not the way it feels.”

“There’s still so much we don’t know, Alex. What’s the rest of the story? How does your brother’s abduction fit in? Or does it at all? What about your mother, that story about her? What about your father?”

She blinked, surprised. “My father? What could he have to do with any of this?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the point.” He lowered his voice. “I think it’s time for you to come home.”

Home, she thought. Away from all this craziness.

But how could she escape the craziness inside her?

“I can’t run away,” she said. “And I’m not afraid.”

“I sure as hell am, Alex. Afraid for you.” He leaned toward her. “Look, babe, whoever’s doing this isn’t screwing around. Somebody’s dead. A house has been burned to the ground.”

“I can’t run away,” she said. “You know I can’t. If I don’t stay to find the truth, the truth will find me.”

His lips lifted. “Ever heard of therapy? A nice safe couch, a boring but intuitive counselor, two or three visits a week-”

“No. I’m not going.”

“Think about it. Please?”

She opened her mouth to refuse, then shut it as a series of images filled her head: the mutilated doll, the blood of the lamb, Max Cragan’s gentle countenance distorted in death.

She should be afraid. Terrified.

Why wasn’t she?

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll think about it.”

Monday, March 15

7:40 P.M.

Alex and Tim sat at a window table at the girl & the fig. She had slept most of the afternoon. For part of the time, he’d laid with her, holding her. He’d made her feel safe.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Drained.”

“I’m glad you slept. You needed it.”

“Thanks for watching over me.” Emotion tightened her chest. “I’m a total screwup, aren’t I? A real head case.”

“Don’t say that, it’s not true. We’ll figure this out.”

“Alex?”

She looked up to find Rachel crossing to them. She got to her feet and hugged her. “This is Tim Clarkson. My ex-husband. Tim, my stepsister, Rachel.”

He stood and held out his hand. Rachel took it. “Tim of the chopsticks,” she said.

He glanced at Alex in question. “She admired the chopsticks you gave me.”

“Oh.” He smiled. “And you’re Rachel of the really red lipstick.”

“I guess I am. Although I prefer to think of myself as Rachel of the really wonderful red wine.”

“That’s right,” he murmured. “You’re one of the Sommer family.”

“Would you like to join us?” Alex asked. “Please do.”

“I’d love to, but I’ve got a date.” She motioned to a striking, silver-haired man at the bar. “It’s a first date, you know how tricky those can be. Nice meeting you, Tim. Call me,” she said to Alex. “We’ll have lunch.”

They returned to their seats. Although Tim didn’t comment, Alex could tell he hadn’t liked Rachel. She told him so.

“It was that obvious?”

“To me.”

He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “You know me a little too well.”

“That I do.” She squeezed his hand, then slid hers away and reached for her glass of wine. “Why didn’t you like her?”

He pursed his lips. “Too pushy.”

“She is not. I asked her to join us, remember? Not the other way around.”

“Fact was, she didn’t like me. And she didn’t waste a moment telling me who she was and why she was important. That says something about a person, Alex.”

“The wine comment?” She rolled her eyes. “First off, here it’s all about wine. If you are the wine, you let people know. Second, if you think she didn’t like you, it’s probably your own guilty conscience making you feel that way.”

“My guilty conscience?”

“You’re worried about what I might have told her.”

She was teasing him, but he flushed. Obviously, she’d pushed a button. “She’s possessive of you. It’s not normal.”

“That’s not true.”

“An entitlement thing. Like all those children of the vine.”

“You’ve had too much to drink. Children of the vine, give me a brea-”

She bit the last back and brought a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God. I know what it means.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“What you just said. Children of the vine. Not children, boys. Boys of the Vine. That’s what BOV stands for.”

He reached for his wine. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“My mother… the ring, its inscription…” Alex felt sick and got to her feet. “I have to leave. I need some air.”

“Alex, what… wait-”

She ignored his attempts to stop her and hurried from the restaurant out onto the street. Even though it was a Monday night, the square hummed with activity.

Blindly, she started to walk. Her thoughts whirled. Her mother. It was true. It couldn’t be, but it was.

It felt like losing her again. The few good memories, hopes and dreams that she had managed to cobble together, destroyed. She wanted to hate her. It would hurt so much less than this betrayal.

How could you, Mom? How could you be so low? So pathetic?

“Alex?”

She looked up, vision blurred with tears. Reed. With a woman. His partner, she recognized.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“No, I’m-” She moved into his arms and clung to him.

His arms came around and she pressed her face into his chest. She tried not to imagine her mother with those young men, concentrating instead on the steady rise and fall of Reed’s chest and how safe she felt in his arms. How reassured.

Tim called her name. He’d caught sight of her, she realized. And in that same moment, she realized how crazy she must look to Reed, his partner and anybody else strolling by.

“Alex, what’s going on? Is that man bothering you?”

“No, it’s-” She tipped her head back to look up at him. “The inscription on the ring, I figured it out, Reed. BOV means Boys of the Vine. My mother’s boys. The story’s true.”