That was a pretty big deal. Bianca did not believe in feeding her children fast food.

“Yay!” Stephen said as he ran up, zigzagged, feigned a left turn, took a right before circling the parental units and shooting off in the opposite direction. Reyes caught him just as he sped past. He giggled as he was lifted high into the air, then brought back down into Reyes’s arms. “I’m going to be fast like you,” he told Reyes.

“I bet your dad’s faster,” he said.

Amador scoffed playfully. “Don’t even start with that crap. I learned my lesson long ago.”

Bianca tickled Stephen’s bare foot. “If we’re going to McDonald’s, you’ll have to put your shoes on.”

Stephen had never been a big fan of shoes. Or socks. Or clothes in general. He’d once escaped from his house in his skivvies. They found him running down the street, telling anyone who would listen that his mother had been abducted by aliens.

“I don’t like those shoes,” he said, wiggling into the crook of Reyes’s neck to get away from his mother while she tried to slip his socks onto him.

“Do you remember what the sign at McDonald’s says when you go in? ‘No bare feet.’”

He stopped wiggling and looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “I’m not a bear.”

I fought yet another giggle.

“He has a point,” Reyes said.

“Yeah, laugh it up, pendejo,” Amador volleyed. “Your time is coming.”

“I can hardly wait,” Reyes said to me.

We hugged good-bye, my heart full of hopes and dreams for Beep. Watching Reyes with Ashley and Stephen was one of the highlights of my life. I couldn’t wait to see how he’d behave with Beep. If she was half as charming as Amador and Bianca’s kids—

Then the truth hit me. I looked down at Beep, then over at Reyes. She would have him wrapped around her little finger in no time. “We could be in trouble.”

He laughed and pulled me into his arms. “I have no doubt,” he said, walking me to a dark corner of the kitchen.

I giggled when he pressed himself into me. Gasped when he bent to nibble an earlobe. “I’m the size of Nevada. How can you even want me?”

“I happen to love Nevada,” he countered, his voice as deep and soft as his kisses.

If it weren’t for the lady standing right beside us, the moment would have been perfect.

“You are the oldest soul I’ve ever come across,” she said, astonished as she gazed at me, her eyes unblinking.

“Um, thank you?” I said as Reyes lifted his head at last.

I looked over at the woman. She wore an outdated floral dress and had clearly forgone a bra. She really needed the support a bra could offer her. I’d seen her piddling about, looking in our drawers when she thought no one was paying attention. I was certain she’d gone through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.

“You’re ancient.”

That wasn’t offensive at all. I straightened. “I’m only—”

“You are older than the stardust in the sky,” she said, interrupting. Her eyes were glassed over, and I decided right then and there, no more open bars at weddings. Brought out the crazies.

Reyes stepped out of my arms then, as though something outside had caught his attention, and said, “I have to go check on Artemis.”

“Artemis?” I asked, baffled. Since when did he have to check on a departed dog? Seriously, what kind of trouble could she get into?

“You are as old as time itself.”

“Look,” I said, growing frustrated, “that’s just not something a girl wants to hear.”

“You are older than—”

“Wow, you know what?” I said as I led her back into the kitchen where Denise was cleaning up. “There’s even more champagne in here. Don’t let anyone try to convince you we’re out. You call ’em on it, okay?”

Cookie walked in then, a horrified expression on her face.

“Lucille, why don’t you go find Uncle Tommy? He’s been looking for you.”

“Oh, my,” said the woman, rushing back outside.

“I am so sorry,” Cookie said. “Lucille won’t bother you again. Uncle Tommy has been gone for decades. She’ll never find him.”

“Oh, no. How did he die?”

“Oh, he didn’t die. He just packed up one night and left to live in the wilds of Alaska. We still get a postcard every few years.”

“You have a very eclectic collection of relatives.” I looked at Denise as she tried to scrub a stain out of the tablecloth. “But don’t we all?”

“No, you’re right. Mine is a little more eclectic than others, which is why you’re only just meeting most of them.”

“They’re great. Really, Cook, but you never told me your cousin Lucille was clairvoyant.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s … different. Remember? I told you that one night we were playing Screw Your Neighbor with that couple from the first floor.”

“Yes, you told me she’s different. You didn’t tell me she’s clairvoyant.”

Cookie cast a doubtful gaze. “Like clairvoyant clairvoyant?”

“Yep. Maybe that’s where Amber gets it.”

Cookie’s expression did a 180, shifting from doubt to horror. “Bite your tongue. Amber is nothing like Lucille.” I felt a spike of fear shudder through her. “That woman has sample packs of Preparation H from the 1970s.”

“That may be, but it must run in your family. There is something very special about your daughter.”

“Yes. Special. Just not that special.”

I cracked up. “You’re right. Odds are, Lucille was labeled insane at a very young age. But she’s really just—”

“Eccentric,” Cookie finished. “I get it. I just didn’t know she was gifted.”

“I doubt anyone does. But at least you know to nurture Amber’s gifts. Not suppress them before they have a chance to bloom and then she becomes the lady that collects samples of hemorrhoid medication.”

“I will do anything to avoid that.” She indicated Lucille with a nod. The poor woman was asking everyone who was left if they’d seen Tommy.

“Hey,” I said, frowning at her, “aren’t you supposed to be on your way to your one-night stand? I mean, your pre-honeymoon honeymoon?”

She laughed. “Well, we were, but there is a missing girl out there. She takes precedence.”

“What?” A jolt of alarm swept through me, not unlike a body shot might have. “Cook, no. This is your wedding day. You are not, under any circumstances, working. Oh my God, I can’t even—”

My phone chimed and I looked down. It was the text I’d been waiting for.

“I have to go—”

“Go?”

“—but you are going on your pre-honeymoon honeymoon, and that is an order.”

“Where are you going?”

“I mean it, Cook,” I said as I hurried—aka waddled faster than usual—past her. “I don’t want to see you when I get back.”

“You can’t leave the grounds.”

I grabbed a sweater, then rushed out the front door, saying just before it closed, “Go!”

*   *   *

I walked quickly past some guests loitering by the cars out front, hoping they wouldn’t wave me down for a chat. I also avoided eye contact with the departed who stood between me and my destination, winding through them, hoping I didn’t look drunk to the loiterers. Seriously, didn’t they have homes? I kept my head down and my stride quick. I had places to be, and I couldn’t risk Reyes coming back to find me gone. He would definitely come looking for me.

Fortunately, he wouldn’t see me go into the woods from the backyard unless he was specifically watching. I made sure to go straight for the cover of trees and stuck to them until I came around to a path that led to an access road about a hundred yards from the convent. I hurried as fast as my legs could carry the two of us, wobbling through the brush and dry yellow grass, dodging tree branches and departed alike. Even though I knew the Twelve couldn’t come onto the sacred ground, I still kept a constant vigil. I’d been attacked more than once. Their teeth were like razors set on thick, powerful jaws. It was not something I wanted to experience again.

I could hear them growling in the distance, the sound a low rumble over the land, reminding me that in all the months we’d been here, they’d never stopped patrolling the borders. The access road came into view at last. The deeper I ventured into the woods, the more nervous I became. A blue sedan sat parked there. I stopped, my ankles aching from traversing the uneven ground. The growls had grown louder, echoing off the trees around me and reverberating in my chest. I fought to control my fear lest I accidentally summon the one man I didn’t want to know I was meeting another of his gender. Alone. But it wasn’t easy. The hellhounds knew I was taking a direct path to their jaws. I could go only a few more feet before they would latch on to me and pull me off the blessed dirt. I glanced back one more time to make sure Reyes hadn’t followed me; then I called out to him.