“Where are the Band-Aids?”

“It’s not as bad as all that,” she says. “It should stop in a minute. Still, you should probably finish up with the dishes.” She grins. “I don’t want it to sting.”

“Sure,” I say, and grin back. Her head dips, to dab and blow at the cut, and I can smell her perfume. I’m still half holding her hand.

The doorbell buzzes shrill and sudden; I jerk away and almost pull the towel with me. I don’t know why, but for a second, my brain was sure that it would be Anna, that she’d be pounding the door down off its hinges with black-veined fists, ready to catch me with my pants down. But we were just doing dishes. My pants are firmly affixed.

Jestine goes to answer the door and I put my hands in the soapy water, fishing around carefully for the broken butter dish. I’m not interested at all in who’s at the door. The only thing that matters is it isn’t Anna, and even if it were, I am completely innocent, just scrubbing the egg pan. But Jestine’s voice is rising about something, and the voice that answers is a girl’s voice. Hairs that I never knew I had stand up on the back of my neck. I crane back to peer around the corner, just in time to see Carmel burst into the entryway.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“You just drag him off halfway around the world?” Carmel says, her toe tapping with indignation. “Where he has no contacts or advantages? Into who the hell knows what?” She narrows her eyes. “You said you’d take care of him.”

“Actually, Carmel, I said—”

“Oh, I don’t care what you said!”

“How did you find us, anyway?” I ask, and she finally inhales. She crashed into the house, a disaster in knee-high boots, and brought everything to a skidding stop. Upstairs, I hear the shower abruptly shut off. I hope Thomas doesn’t slip and crack his head open in his rush to get down here. And I hope he remembers to put on a towel.

“Morfran told me,” Carmel says. “Your mother told me.” The heat is suspended in her voice, neither rising nor cooling. Her eyes linger on my hands, studying my rolled-up sleeves and the clinging patches of soap bubbles that drip onto the floor. It must make for a quaint, domestic little scene. Nothing like the torrent of danger she expected. I wipe the suds off against the sides of my jeans.

Jestine slides through from behind, careful to keep from turning her back on Carmel, someone she doesn’t know. There’s tautness to her movements too, like she’s ready to spring. Whoever it was who taught her, taught her well. She moves like me and she’s twice as suspicious. I catch her eye and shake my head. Carmel doesn’t need to be welcomed the same way we were, with Jestine chanting curses and sucking the air from her lungs.

“She said she knew you,” she says. “I guess she was telling the truth.”

“Of course I was,” Carmel says, giving Jestine the once-over as she stands beside me. She extends her hand. “I’m Carmel Jones. I’m Thomas and Cas’s friend.” When they shake hands, my stomach relaxes. Jestine’s only curious and Carmel’s hostility is aimed at me. It’s strange, but my instincts told me they’d get along pretty much like a snake and a mongoose.

“Can I take your bag?” Jestine asks, gesturing to Carmel’s oversized duffel, some white designer thing with blinged-out zipper clasps.

“Sure,” Carmel says, and hands it off. “Thanks.”

We stare at each other with restraint until Jestine is upstairs and safely out of earshot. It’s really hard to maintain a serious expression. Carmel’s got on her best angry-frustrated face, but she really wants to hug me, I can tell. Instead, she shoves me so hard I stumble and catch myself against the arm of the sofa.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over here?” she asks.

“I was sort of under the impression that you didn’t want to know.”

Her face scrunches. “I didn’t want to know.”

“So what are you doing here?”

We both look up. Thomas is standing in the middle of the stairs. He was so quiet, coming down. I expected a bunch of stomping. I half expected him to fall and wind up at our feet, shampoo in his hair and naked as a jaybird. I watch Carmel’s expression carefully when she sees him. It’s as happy as someone can possibly look when they know they have no right to be so happy.

“Can we talk?” she asks. The pulse in her neck speeds up when he purses his lips, but we both know Thomas. He wouldn’t let her come across an ocean just to be turned away.