Lulu just sipped. And waited.

“And that sounds really stupid, doesn’t it? Okay.” Ripley nodded, oddly settled on one very important level. “I think maybe I’ve got that now.”

“There’s more.”

“Yeah. Mia’s going to let him observe a ritual on Friday,” Ripley blurted out. “And if Mia’s involved, Nell will be, too. She’s only doing it because she was upset yesterday. At the cave . . . you know, the cave. She got all twisted up, and it doesn’t matter how quick she manages to untwist again, it shakes her. She’s just doing this to prove she can handle everything.”

“She can handle it,” Lulu said quietly. “If you’d stuck with her all those years ago, you’d have a better grip on what she can handle.”

“I couldn’t.”

“That’s done. Matters more what you’re going to do now.”

“I don’t know what to do. That’s the whole thing.”

“Are you looking for me to tell you?”

Ripley lifted her glass. “I guess I wanted to know what you’d say, what you thought. This messes me up, Lu. It’s coming back on me, in me. Oh, f**k, I don’t know how to explain it. I wanted it to go away. I made it go away. Now it’s like there are these little openings all over the place, and I can’t plug them all.”

“It never did sit comfortable on you. Some things aren’t meant to be comfortable.”

“Maybe I was worried it would get too comfortable. I don’t have Mia’s control, or Nell’s compassion. I don’t have those things.”

Circles, Lulu thought. They always came around. “No, what you’ve got is passion, and an innate sense of right and wrong—and a need to see it served up. That’s why the three of you make the circle, Ripley, bringing to it the best of yourselves.”

“Or the worst.” And that was her fear. Her terror. “That’s the way it went down three hundred years ago, if you buy into it.”

“You can’t change what was, but you can what’s coming. But you can’t hide from either. It sounds to me like you’re thinking you’ve been hiding out long enough.”

“I never thought of it as hiding. I’m not a coward. Even after we dealt with Remington I could pretty much pull it back, maintain the status quo. But since Mac, it keeps slipping out of my fingers.”

“So you’re worried that if you’re with him, you won’t be able to pull anything back. Not just what you

are, but what you feel.”

“That’s about it.”

“So you’re going to tiptoe around.” Lulu let out a huff of breath, shook her head. “Worry and fret and whatnot about what might be instead of swinging into the saddle and finding out what is.”

“I don’t want to hurt the ones who matter to me.”

“Doing nothing sometimes hurts more than doing something. Life doesn’t come with a guarantee, which is just as well, because most guarantees are bullshit.”

“Well, when you put it that way.” There was nothing and no one like Lulu, Ripley thought, for clearing out the murk. “I guess I’ve been on the edge of doing something for a while now, and not doing it is making me crazy. And stupid,” she added, as she would have said to few others.

“You gonna take that last step now?”

Ripley drummed her fingers on the table, then sighed. “Let’s say I’m going to take a step and see what happens next. Can I use the phone?”

“What for?”

“I need to call in a pizza order.”

It took Mac most of the day to fix the sensor, and even then it was only jury-rigged. It would take a day or two to get the replacement parts, and with Friday looming, he was in a crunch. I’m not sure what to expect on Friday, he wrote. It’s better that way. It’s a mistake to go into an experience anticipating specific results. Closes off the mind to possibilities. I do, now, have a theory on the events in theLogan cave. The Gaelic phrase carved into the cave wall translates to

“My heart is your heart. Ever and always.” While it will take time to ascertain the age of the carving (send rubbing and scraping to lab, ASAP) I continue to believe it was made within the last twenty years. Based on that, the location of the cave, and Mia Devlin’s reaction to finding me and Ripley there, it’s a logical assumption that the cave has particular and personal meaning for her. The carving, I believe, was done by her or for her.

TheLogans had a son, Samuel, who was raised onthe island. No one speaks of him in connection with Mia. It’s a studied, deliberate omission, which naturally leads me to conclude that he and Mia Devlin were involved, most probably were lovers before he moved off-island. This, in turn, may be the foundation for the last step of the legend, which is mirrored by the descendants of the original sisters.

Nell to Zack being the first, and hypothetically, Mia toLogan being the last. Which leaves Ripley in the middle. Ripley and . . .

His fingers fumbled, so he stopped, sat back, rubbed his eyes under his glasses. He reached absently for his coffee mug and knocked it off the table. The obligatory cleanup gave his system time to settle. I’m connected to the pattern, he continued. I sensed it before I came here, and with the documents I’ve yet to share with the others, I’ve formed certain theories. But theories and reality are different matters, with different effects on those involved. On me. It’s more difficult than I’d imagined to maintain objectivity, to stay in the role of observer, documenter when . . . I can’t stop thinking about her. Trying to separate feelings from professional judgment is hard enough, but how can I be sure those feelings don’t stem from professional interest?

“And glands,” he muttered, but he didn’t write that down.

Does Deputy Ripley Todd fascinate me because she has a preternatural gift that has come down to her over three centuries? Or because she’s a woman who has managed to attract me on every possible level?

I’m beginning to think it’s both, and that I’m already in too deep to care where these feelings come from.

He sat back again, and as his concentration level dipped, he tuned in to the beeps and buzzes of his equipment in the living room. He shoved away from the little desk, rapping his knee sharply on its underside, then limped cursing out of his office.