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“Is it?” I charge. “Frostbite, I mean? Is Laurel completely broken of the addiction?”

“No.” Emma mutters it from twisted lips, clearly craving to be wrong. “When she was in my closet and admiring my new boots, I deliberately told her they were an impulse buy, perhaps to make Faline jealous. She smiled and muttered something about how the woman doesn’t have time to be jealous.”

“Of course not,” I snarl. “The witch doesn’t waste time with the petty stuff. She goes straight for the big flash stuff. Spitting spite. Shondaland-show nastiness.”

Emma spurts out a soft laugh. “You know you just invoked Shonda Rhimes, mister. You also know I accept bribes for silence, right?”

Brief snort. “Oh, I might have a few…talents…with which to work off my shame.”

Emma indulges my flirty sarcasm with a fond smile but picks up her point where she left off. “Mother gave the assertion with a lot of obvious affection, as if she was speaking about an old friend she dearly missed.”

I rock back on one foot, letting my head fall in the same direction. “But still, an old friend.” I study the patterns of afternoon light reflecting off the pool onto our ceiling. Following the intersecting light trails makes it easier to re-envision those strange moments in which Laurel wasn’t really herself—which means, of course, that she’s actually becoming herself again. “Did you catch the moment where she almost forgot Fa-Fa’s name completely? She wanted to say something else, I think.”

“Perhaps Farrah?” Todd offers.

“Yeah.” I snap my head back down, meeting his quiet but insightful gaze. “That really could’ve been it. She was dancing with an ‘r’ sound, for sure. What came out sounded like ‘Farrine.’”

“Yep,” he confirms. “Heard it just as clearly.” And changes his expression to convey how he remembers the rest of the moment, as well. Laurel had fumed, openly mortified with herself…as if she was inwardly punishing herself.

As if she was petrified that Faline would show up and do it instead.

“Farrah.” Emma’s thoughtful repetition is the hook on my concentration, yanking me away from the startling hypothesis my mind’s begun spinning to life. It’s okay, since I know the theory isn’t fading off anytime soon. “Mother has a friend named Farrah, doesn’t she?” she asks her father. “From the club?”

Todd nods. “You have a good memory, kiddo. They bonded pretty tightly during your last year at college, so you only met her a few times. She and your mom enjoyed the same books and movies.” His smile is soft and genuine. “That was a good thing for your mother, since she was trying to get used to you girls not being around all the time. Farrah even encouraged your mom to start painting again. They started taking some night classes together.”

“Until our wedding reception.”

I could have predicted Emma’s ensuing words, down to the emotional wobble. What I’m less sure of is what Todd’s going to do with that. While I understand the crazy fence he’s been balancing since the second Laurel returned from her “field trip” with Faline after the wedding, there’s nothing he can do about the forces controlling his wife. Not so with his daughter, who needs to be guided and loved now more than ever.

And thank fuck, he gets it too.

My chest surges with warmth as I watch him gather Emma close, wrapping a hand around the back of her head as she burrows against his shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault, Lina-Bina,” he husks, rubbing the top of her head with his cheek. The new angle helps him look over to me as well. “Nor yours,” he affirms my way.

And while I have a long and valid list of reasons as to why he’s wrong about the last part, now isn’t the time to re-hash how his daughter could have married a lawyer, a doctor, or even a lion tamer and had just the loony drunk cousin to handle at the wedding reception instead of the lunatic bitch with a grand plan of taking over the world, one susceptible mind at a time.

Except that now…maybe she’s not.

Or maybe…she can’t.

I’ve never been happier in the conviction that Emma and I must sometimes share the same brain—and that this moment is absolutely one of those occasions. Just as the revelation stuns me like a high-voltage Taser, it zaps her as well. She stumbles back from her father, hands and jaw dropping, before swiveling to confirm all the same jolts of understanding are taking over me. One second’s worth of a look, and I confirm it’s so. We’re on the same page, down to the same damn letter.

And she grins, silently telling me what she plans on doing with that page.

Fold. Fold. Fold.

Tweak. Tweak. Tweak.

I’m pretty damn sure I’m the only bastard alive to ever watch a woman prepare to fly a paper F-18. Big deal if it only exists in her head. Her eyes, the color of rockets at full throttle, have me ready to whoop as if six Gs of force have slammed me back into my own cockpit. Rock and roll, my gorgeous Flare. Let me see what you’ve got cookin’, goddess.

She slides closer to Todd once more, gingerly toeing the floor. “So…Daddy?”

“Hmmm?”

She switches up her posture, leaning over to make sure that Laurel and Anya are still jabbering away about chick pea cookies and kale cupcakes. “How long has this stuff been happening? The…frostbite?”

Todd seesaws his head, bouncing from ear to ear as he considers the query. “Not that long,” he hedges. “Why?”

“A few weeks?” Emma persists.