“Yeah.” Cal walked over to stare out the window. “Have you checked in with your parents lately?”

“I talked to my father today. It’s all good with them. Why?”

“If all three of us are direct descendents, then one of your parents is in the line,” Cal pointed out.

“I figured that out on my own.”

“None of our family was ever affected during the Seven. We were always relieved by that.” He turned back. “Maybe relieved enough we didn’t really ask why.”

“Because we figured it, at least partly, was because they lived outside of town. Except for Bill Turner, and who the hell could tell what was going on with him?”

“My parents and yours, they came into town during the Seven. And there were people, you remember what happened out at the Poffenberger place last time?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember.” Fox rubbed at his eyes. “Being five miles out of town didn’t stop Poffenberger from strangling his wife while she hacked at him with a butcher knife.”

“Now we know Gran felt things, saw things that first summer, and she saw things the other night. Why is that?”

“Maybe it picks and chooses, Cal.” Rising, Fox walked over to toss another log on the fire. “There have always been people who weren’t affected, and there have always been degrees with those who were.”

“Quinn and Layla are the first outsiders. We figured a connection, but what if that connection is as simple as blood ties?”

Fox sat again, leaned back, stroked a hand over Lump’s head as the dog twitched in his sleep. “Good theory. It shouldn’t weird you out if you happen to be rolling naked with your cousin a couple hundred times removed.”

“Huh.” That was a thought. “If they’re descendents, the next point to figure is if having them here gives us more muscle, or makes us more vulnerable. Because it’s pretty clear this one’s it. This one’s going to be the all or nothing. So…Someone’s coming.”

Fox pushed off the couch, strode quickly over to stand by Cal. “I don’t think the Big Evil’s going to drive up to your house, and in a…” He peered closer as the car set off Cal’s motion lights. “Holy Jesus, is that a Ferrari?” He shot a grin at Cal.

“Gage,” they said together.

They went on the front porch, in shirtsleeves, leaving the door open behind them. Gage climbed out of the car, his eyes skimming over them both as he walked back to get his bag out of the trunk. He slung its strap over his shoulder, started up the steps. “You girls having a slumber party?”

“Strippers just left,” Fox told him. “Sorry you missed them.” Then he rushed forward, flung his arms around Gage in a hard hug. “Man, it’s good to see you. When can I drive your car?”

“I was thinking never. Cal.”

“Took your goddamn time.” The relief, the love, the sheer pleasure pushed him forward to grip Gage just as Fox had.

“Had some business here and there. Want a drink. Need a room.”

“Come on in.”

In the kitchen, Cal poured whiskey. All of them understood it was a welcome-home toast for Gage, and very likely a drink before war.

“So,” Cal began, “I take it you came back flush.”

“Oh yeah.”

“How much you up?”

Gage turned the glass around in his hand. “Considering expenses, and my new toy out there, about fifty.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Fox commented.

“And I can.”

“Look a little worn there, brother.”

Gage shrugged at Cal. “Long couple of days. Which nearly ended with me in a fiery crash right out on Sixty-seven.”

“Toy get away from you?” Fox asked.

“Please.” Gage smirked at the idea. “Some ditz, of the female and very hot variety, pulled out in front of me. Not another car on the road, and she pulls out in this ancient Karmann Ghia-nice wheels, actually-then she jumps out and goes at me like it was my fault.”

“Women,” Fox said, “are an endless source of every damn thing.”

“And then some. So she’s tipped down in the little runoff,” Gage went on, gesturing with his free hand. “No big deal, but she’s popped a flat. No big deal either, except her spare’s a pancake. Turns out she’s heading into the Hollow, so I manage to load her two-ton suitcase into my car. Then she’s rattling off an address and asking me, like I’m MapQuest, how long it’ll take to get there.”

He took a slow sip of whiskey. “Lucky for her I grew up here and could tell her I’d have her there in five. She snaps out her phone, calls somebody she calls Q, like James freaking Bond, tells her, as it turns out from the look I got of Q in the doorway-very nice, by the way-to wake up, she’ll be there in five minutes. Then-”

Cal rattled off an address. “That the one?”

Gage lowered his glass. “As a matter of fact.”

“Something in the wind,” Cal murmured. “I guess it was you, and Quinn’s Cybil.”

“Cybil Kinski,” Gage confirmed. “Looks like a gypsy by way of Park Avenue. Well, well.” He downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass. “Isn’t this a kick in the ass?”

“HE CAME OUT OF NOWHERE.” THERE WAS A glass of red wine on the dresser Quinn had picked up in anticipation of Cybil’s arrival.

As that arrival had woken Layla, Quinn sat beside her on what would be Cybil’s bed while the woman in question swirled around the room, hanging clothes, tucking them in drawers, taking the occasional sip of wine.

“I thought that was it, just it, even though I’ve never seen any death by car in my future. I swear, I don’t know how we missed being bloody pulps tangled in burning metal. I’m a good driver,” Cybil said to Quinn.

“You are.”

“But I must be better than I thought, and so-fortunately-was he. I know I’m lucky all I got was a scare and a flat tire out of it, but damn Rissa for, well, being Rissa.”

“Rissa?” Layla looked blank.

“Cyb’s sister, Marissa,” Quinn explained. “You loaned her your car again.”

“I know, I know. I know,” she said, puffing out a breath that blew curls off her forehead. “I don’t know how she manages to talk me into these things. My spare was flat, thanks to Rissa.”

“Which explains why you were dropped off from a really sexy sports car.”

“He could hardly leave me there, though he looked like the type who’d consider it. All scruffy, gorgeous, and dangerous looking.”

“Last time I had a flat,” Quinn remembered, “the very nice guy who stopped to help had a paunch over his belt the size of a sack of cement, and ass crack reveal.”

“No paunch on this one, and though his coat prevented me from a good look, I’m betting Gage Turner has a superior ass.”

“Gage Turner.” Layla put a hand on Quinn’s thigh. “Quinn.”

“Yeah.” Quinn let out a breath. “Okay, I guess it’s hail, hail, the gang’s all here.”

IN THE MORNING, QUINN LEFT HER HOUSEMATES sleeping while she jogged over to the community center. She already knew she’d regret jogging over, because that meant she’d have to jog back-after her workout. But it seemed a cheat on the lifestyle change to drive three blocks to the gym.

And she wanted the thinking time.

There was no buying, for any price, Cybil and Gage Turner had run into each other-almost literally-in the middle of the night just outside of town as a coincidence.

One more thing to add to the list of oddities, Quinn thought as she puffed out air in frosty vapors.

Another addition would be the fact that Cybil had a very sharp sense of direction, but had apparently made wrong turn after wrong turn to end up on that side road at the exact moment Gage was coming up the main.

One more, Quinn decided as she approached the back entrance of the community center, would be Cybil saying “he came out of nowhere.” Quinn was willing to take that literally. If Cybil didn’t see him, then maybe-in her reality, for just those vital moments-he hadn’t been there.

So why had it been important for them to meet separately, outside the group? Wasn’t it strange enough that they’d both arrived on the same night, at the same time?