He winced, thinking about our time in Blue Marsh.

   “A psycho vampire almost sucked out all my magic, along with my blood, and I ended up tromping through a swamp in the middle of the night,” I said. “So forgive me if I am not eager to go on another vacation. To me, vacation just means extreme danger in a different place.”

   Finn waved away my concerns. “That was a onetime bout of bad luck, and you know it. Nothing like that will happen again.”

   I arched my eyebrows at him.

   “Well, probably not,” he said. “Although I do know for a fact that you won’t be tromping through any swamps.”

   “And why is that?”

   “Because they aren’t any down there.”

   He smiled, pleased with his logic, but I kept glowering at him. The smile slipped from his face, and his shoulders sagged again.

   “Please, Gin,” he said in a much quieter voice. “It would mean a lot to me.”

   “Why?”

   His lips pressed together in a tight line, and it took him a moment to answer. “Deirdre said that she spent a lot of time at the hotel. I’d like to see her room and her things, whatever she might have left behind.”

   Just like that, everything made sense. Even now, after how horribly she’d betrayed and tortured him, Finn still wanted to know more about Deirdre, the same way that I wanted to know more about my own mother, and if she’d really been a terrible person like Tucker had claimed. Finn needed to know if there had been anything more to Deirdre than her insatiable greed and cold, cold heart. I couldn’t blame my brother for his curiosity, since the same questions burned in my own heart about Eira.

   “Besides,” Finn continued, sensing that I was wavering, “maybe there’s some clue in her things about the Circle. She was their money manager, after all. At least, one of them. Surely, she kept records somewhere on their business interests and finances.”

   He had a point. We hadn’t found anything in Deirdre’s personal possessions in her rented penthouse suite here in Ashland, but perhaps she had left something behind at the hotel. Something that the Circle hadn’t gotten to yet. Something that might help me identify the other members—or at least figure out how my mother had been involved with them.

   Maybe Finn was right. Maybe a change of scenery would do us all some good. Clear our heads and hearts, and let us come back to Ashland with fresh eyes and renewed determination. Right now, I was just spinning my wheels when it came to the Circle, and I’d run out of people to question and places to look.

   I sighed, and Finn grinned, realizing that he’d won this third and final round and thus the whole shooting match.

   “Well, Gin?” Excitement was creeping into his voice again. “What do you say?”

   I shook my head and tossed the brochure down onto the table. “The only thing I can say. Cowboy up, y’all. We’re going on a road trip.”

6

   “Shoot me,” Owen Grayson muttered in a low voice that only I could hear. “Just go ahead and shoot me now. Please. Someone, anyone, put me out of my misery.”

   I looked over at my significant other, who was sprawled across the backseat of the Range Rover. We’d left Ashland early this Friday morning, and now, three hours later, we were finally approaching the Bullet Pointe theme park, which was located on the outskirts of Chattanooga, although it was actually in Georgia instead of Tennessee.

   Finn was driving and singing yet another cowboy-themed song, just as he had been ever since we’d left home. His warbling was enthusiastic but gratingly off-key. I didn’t know that so many Western songs existed, much less that Finn knew the words to so many of them, but he’d made a special playlist just for our trip. Yee-haw.

   Owen sighed and ran his fingers through his black hair as if he were thinking about pulling it out, just as he’d done a dozen times already in the last hour alone. The sunlight streaming in through the windows highlighted the rugged, handsome planes of his face, including his slightly crooked nose and the scar that slashed along his chin. Owen swiveled his neck from side to side, trying to release some of the tension that had gathered there and in his broad, muscled shoulders.

   I reached over and grabbed his hand, threading my fingers through his. “Relax,” I whispered. “We’re almost there.”

   “You so owe me for this,” he murmured back.

   “And how would you like to collect?”

   His violet eyes flashed with a sudden, intense heat, and a slow, sexy smile pulled up his lips. “Oh, I can think of a few ways.”

   “Well, then.” I grinned back at him. “I’ll be more than happy to pay up.”

   Detective Bria Coolidge was sitting in the front passenger’s seat, and she must have heard our whispers because she turned around and looked at me, her blond hair flying out around her shoulders.

   “I just saw another sign!” she chirped, her voice more manic than genuinely enthusiastic. “We should be pulling into the hotel any minute now!”

   Both of her blue eyes twitched. So did her fingers, and she glanced at Finn, then the volume control on the radio, as if debating which one she wanted to shut up more. Owen wasn’t the only one who was tired of my foster brother’s three-hour karaoke act.

   But Finn kept right on bellowing along to the music, singing about horses and beer and other cowboy things. I was the only one who seemed to notice how strained his smiles were and how forced and fake his over-the-top, giddyap cheer really was. Finn seemed determined to have a good time and forget all about his problems back in Ashland, at least for the weekend.

   I admired his determination, if not his singing.

   Thankfully, Bria was right, and Finn turned off the main road and into a long, paved driveway that arched up a tree-covered hill. According to the brochure I’d read, the Bullet Pointe hotel was located at the top of the hill, with the Western theme park spread out down in the shallow valley below it.