Or if she was dangerous herself.

   But I hadn’t been able to remember much. Just hazy images of my mother smiling at me or brushing my hair or laughing as the two of us watched Bria skip around the mansion, playing, singing, and talking nonsense to her dolls. It seemed like the harder I tried to pull those images into focus, the blurrier and more distant they became until they faded away altogether. The pain they brought along with them lingered, though, as sharp and clear as one of my knives in my hand. Because my mother was still dead—would always be dead—and I didn’t have any clue as to what she’d been involved in that had gotten her and Annabella killed.

   Being here at this hotel only made me wonder even more about my mother, the Circle, and everything else. I wondered how often Deirdre had come here. I wondered if she’d ever invited Tucker or any of her other Circle cronies to her resort. I wondered if my mother had ever been here before her death.

   I wondered . . . I wondered too many damn things that I had no way of getting the answers to. The more I tried to uncover the past, the more unraveled I felt myself, like a spiderweb that was slowly disintegrating one strand at a time into nothingness.

   Disgusted again, I slammed the snow globe down onto the carpet hard enough to make the boot and spur glitter smack against the side of the glass. A few of the stones adorning the Bullet Pointe sign also rattled out of their spots and plink-plink-plinked against the inside of the glass before drifting down to litter the tiny street. Cheap and tacky, just like Bria had said.

   I glared at the globe, my fingers itching to grab it and throw it against the closest wall, along with the other two, then stomp on them for good measure, until they were all as empty and broken as my heart.

   “Come on,” I growled, getting to my feet. “Finn’s right. This is pointless. There’s nothing here. Let’s go.”

   I leaned down and yanked the cord out of the socket, killing the lights on the Christmas tree. I didn’t wait for my friends to follow me as I spun around on my heel, stormed over to the door, and left Deirdre Shaw’s suite behind.

   * * *

   We’d spent most of the afternoon in Deirdre’s suite, but after coming up empty there, none of us felt like searching the rest of the hotel for the jewels. At least, not tonight. So the four of us ate a good, expensive Italian dinner in one of the hotel restaurants, then had a nightcap of spiced apple cider by the lobby fireplace. Once again, I was aware of the hotel staff watching us, but that’s all they did. Like I’d told Silvio earlier, Roxy and Brody probably wouldn’t make a move until we’d found the gems—or they decided that the stones were lost for good.

   After our nightcap, we went back to our respective suites—Finn and Bria in one, and Owen and I in the other. We all took precautions to make sure that we’d be safe for the night, including barricading the doors with several heavy tables and chairs and making sure that we all had our weapons handy. No one was getting in here tonight without making a whole lot of noise and getting a whole lot of dead in return.

   Once that was done, Finn and Bria disappeared into their own room. Owen and I both showered, changed into our pajamas, and got into bed. Owen fell asleep almost immediately, his soft, rumbling snores like a steady chorus beside me. But I lay in bed for a long time, staring at the ceiling, turning things over and over in my mind, thinking about my mother, Tucker, Deirdre, and especially where she might have stashed her treasure.

   But the answers didn’t magically come to me, so I quit glaring at the ceiling, rolled over onto my side, and snuggled down even deeper under the covers. Eventually I drifted off to sleep, to the land of dreams and memories. . . .

   “You’re doing it wrong,” a cross voice snapped.

   I looked up from the snow globe I was tying to the Christmas tree. “What?”

   Annabella, my older sister, scowled and stabbed her finger to the right. “Not you—her.”

   She glared at Bria, who was sitting on the floor, shaking one globe after another, sometimes two at once, humming to herself, lost in her own little world.

   Annabella glared at Bria again. “She’s supposed to be helping us put these stupid things on the tree. Not just sitting there. After all, this was her idea.”

   We were trimming our Christmas tree in the upstairs family room, something that I absolutely loved doing. At dinner last night, Mom had asked us how we wanted to decorate it this year, and Bria had piped up and suggested that we tie all of Mom’s snow globes to the tree. I’d thought it was a cool idea, but of course Annabella had decided it was totally lame, just like she did everything that wasn’t her idea or didn’t involve her hanging out with her friends. Still, Mom had insisted that Annabella help us, especially since Mom had a meeting and couldn’t come up here until she’d finished.

   So for the last hour, Annabella, Bria, and I had carefully nestled snow globes in the tree and tied them down to the branches with green wire, making sure that they wouldn’t slip off and break on the floor. Well, really, Annabella and I had been doing all the work. Bria had just been sitting by the tree, playing with the globes the way she always did.

   Annabella huffed. “If Bria’s not going to help, I’m not putting the stupid tree up all by myself.”

   “But—” I started to protest that I was helping, but it was too late.

   “Forget it,” Annabella snapped, cutting me off. “I’m calling my friends.”

   She whirled around, her long blond ponytail flying out behind her, and stomped down the hallway. Several seconds later, I heard the sharp bang of her bedroom door slamming shut. Saying that Annabella was a moody teenager was a total understatement. Just because she was in high school, she thought that she was all grown up, and she never wanted to do anything fun anymore, especially not when it came to playing with Bria and me. That was kid stuff, and she wasn’t a kid anymore, as she was so fond of reminding anyone who would listen.

   I looked over at Bria, expecting her to be in tears because Annabella had stormed off, but she was still playing with the globes, and she hadn’t even noticed that Annabella was gone. I let out a relieved sigh. Good. One sister’s temper tantrum was all that I could handle today.