“And you’re saying he wants Hadley for this little project?” I said, while Cam sat in stunned anger.

“I’m not saying a damn thing,” Kori insisted, and I ignored her words, again focusing on her expression, which seemed to give a little this time. She looked…pleased.

“Does he want to use her blood for a transfusion?” Cam asked, when he caught on to my game. “She’s supposed to be one of his resources?”

Kori crossed her arms over her chest. “I can’t answer that.” Which was an answer in itself. “Nor can I confirm my own involvement in collecting these resources.”

Which was as good as admitting that Tower had made her kidnap people to be used in his new project.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I said, to Cam this time. “Hadley hasn’t come into her Skill yet. We don’t even know what Skill she’ll have. If she even has one.” I turned back to Kori. “Anne’s husband wasn’t Hadley’s biological father. Anne doesn’t even know who the father is.” And again I was struck by how odd that was—Anne just wasn’t the type to not know something like that. “It’s entirely possible that her father was unSkilled, and that Hadley’s not going to inherit any ability at all.” And honestly, if she inherited Anne’s Skill, she wouldn’t be much of a prize. Readers were a dime a dozen. “Why would he go through so much trouble to get her if he doesn’t even know whether or not she’ll be Skilled?”

Kori’s brows rose and she looked right into my eyes. “He wouldn’t.”

I glanced at Cam, but he looked as surprised as I was. “You’re saying he knows she’ll be Skilled? How can he possibly know that unless…?” My voice trailed off as synapses misfired in my brain. Surely not…

“Unless what?” Kori prompted.

“Unless he knows who her father is.” I blinked and glanced at Cam, but he only shrugged, as if he was following my train of thought and reluctant to derail it. “But how could Tower know, if Anne doesn’t even know?”

“Maybe she does know.” Kori grabbed my water bottle and helped herself to several gulps. “Our binding doesn’t prevent us from lying to each other….” She left that reminder hanging in the air while she drank the rest of my water.

And suddenly everything I thought I’d known about Anne and her child was thrown into question. I felt as if I was standing on my elementary-school merry-go-round, watching the world spin around me, struggling to identify the now-blurry landmarks I’d known all my life.

I turned to Cam to find him frowning, his grip on his own water bottle tight enough to crack the plastic. If Anne had lied to me, she’d lied to him, too.

“Be right back,” Cam mumbled, then set his bottle down on his way to the bathroom.

When the door closed behind him, I turned to Kori, unable to purge my own curiosity. “So, you and Cam work together? How dd that happen?”

She shrugged. “We don’t so much work together as work near each other. I see him all the time, but we’ve only been paired up for a couple of jobs.”

“Was he already bound to Tower when you…signed on?”

“No, but he came on board soon after,” she said. I started to ask how the hell she’d wound up working for Tower, but she spoke before I could. “Speaking of familiar faces, you ever hear from Elle?”

I frowned, and she saw it on my face before I could figure out how best to say it.

“She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. I’ve tried to track her over and over, and I’m not getting even a blip of an energy signature from her name.” And I didn’t have a blood sample, of course.

Kori nodded. “I had a feeling. Her brother’s been looking for her for a while, without any luck.” Her petite features betrayed no hint of emotion, but I saw through her mask of disinterest. She and Elle were close once, like Anne and I had been.

Then Kori blinked, as if someone had pressed her reset button, and I knew she was going to change the subject—a tried-and-true defense mechanism. She twisted to face me, one arm resting on the back of the couch, and I should have recognized the look on her face. As if she was bored and ready to start trouble. I should have remembered….

“So, I’m kinda surprised to see you and Cam together again, after what happened at that party. Especially with Anne coming over.”

Anne? I shrugged. “That was six years ago. I made a mistake, but that’s all over now.”

Kori blinked, surprised. “You made a mistake?”

“I dumped him in the middle of the party, Kor. He deserved an explanation, at least. Then maybe I wouldn’t have lost six years with him. Maybe I wouldn’t have lost touch with the rest of you, either.”

Kori just frowned at me. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” Why was my heartbeat suddenly painful? Why did it hurt to inhale?

“Shit.” Kori glanced at the ceiling for a second, then met my eyes again. “I didn’t wanna be the one to tell you. I figured you knew and just decided to sweep it under the rug. Or whatever.”

“Knew what, Kori?”

“Cam slept with Annika. That night at the party. I thought you knew. Hell, I thought that’s why you walked out.” She watched me, waiting for my reaction, but I didn’t have one. Her words bounced around in my head and the hollow echo reverberated the entire length of my body. “Six years ago. Do the math, Liv.”