He drove her and Chelsea out to Brookings the first day after getting his license, and though Laurel held on to her seatbelt with white knuckles and Chelsea lectured him every time he went over the speed limit, they made it in one piece.

Laurel brought flowers—just wild ones from their yard. She hoped the reminder of home would make her father more anxious to return. He’d been very weak and only managed to keep his eyes open for a few minutes to say hello and accept a gentle hug. Then he slipped back into the oblivion of the morphine.

That was the last time Laurel had seen her father awake. Shortly afterward, the hospital staff started sedating him full-time to keep him from the continual pain that even morphine couldn’t completely take away. Laurel was secretly glad. It was easier to see him there asleep. He looked peaceful and content. When he was awake, she could see the pain he tried to hide and it was horribly obvious how weak he had become. Sleep was better.

The lab tech had been able to isolate a toxin in her dad’s blood, but it was one the doctors had never seen before and, so far, were helpless to treat. They tried everything, filling his body with any chemical they thought might help—turning him into a human guinea pig as they attempted to reverse the effects of the toxin. But nothing worked. His body was getting weaker, and two days earlier one of the doctors pulled Laurel’s mom out of the room and informed her that, though they would keep trying, if they couldn’t cleanse the toxin from his blood, it was only a matter of time before his organs would shut down, one by one.

And it didn’t help that Mr. Barnes had started calling every night. For over a week, Laurel had been able to just say that her mom wasn’t home, but after a while, he wouldn’t accept that answer. After being interrogated twice, Laurel had started letting the answering machine pick up all the calls, snatching it off the hook only if it was David or Chelsea.

She didn’t tell her mom about Mr. Barnes at all.

She felt guilty every night as she erased the daily message—sometimes two—but she had promised Tamani she would do what she could.

It was strange to think of Tamani now. He seemed almost like a dream. a bigger-than-life person who belonged with the glitz and excitement that had come with her acceptance that she really was a faerie. None of that seemed very important now. She considered going to see him, but even if she had transportation, what could he do? Enticing certainly wasn’t going to help her father.

She’d promised that she would warn him if the property was in trouble, but since she was erasing all of Mr. Barnes’s messages, it wasn’t. Lately, she just tried not to think about Tamani at all.

Laurel heard the high-pitched ring of the telephone from inside the door as she was coming home from the bookstore, and she hurried to turn her key in the lock. She reached the phone on the sixth ring and heard her mother’s voice.

“Hey, Mom. How’s Dad today?”

The line was silent.

“Mom?”

She heard her mother take a ragged breath and find her voice again. “I just spoke to Dr. Hansen,” she said, her voice quivering. “Your dad is showing signs of heart failure. They’ve given him less than a week.”

David was silent as he drove down the darkened highway. Laurel had managed to catch him on his cell phone just as he was reaching his house, and he’d insisted on driving her down to Brookings that night instead of waiting for morning. Laurel had the window down, and even though David must have been freezing with the cold autumn wind rushing through the car, he didn’t protest.

She felt his eyes flit continually to her, and once in a while he would reach over and run his hand down her arm. But he said nothing.

They pulled into the parking lot of Brookings Medical Center and David took Laurel’s hand as they followed the familiar route to Laurel’s dad’s room. Laurel knocked lightly on the open door and poked her head through the curtain that surrounded the doorway. Her mom sat at the small table with a man whose back was toward them—but she waved Laurel and David in.

Laurel recognized the man immediately. His shoulders were broad and hulking in a shirt that didn’t seem to fit quite right. And something about his presence put her nerves on edge. It was Mr. Barnes.

Laurel leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest as her mother continued talking to Barnes. She smiled and nodded several times and, though Laurel couldn’t hear what the man was saying, her mother kept repeating, “Oh, yes,” and “Of course,” and nodding enthusiastically. Laurel narrowed her eyes as she continued to watch her mother smile and nod—signing papers without a single glance at what they said. It was too weird.

Her mom didn’t like contracts, didn’t trust “legalese,” as she called it. She always pored over forms and agreements, often crossing lines out before she would sign. But now Laurel watched her sign about eight pieces of paper without reading a single word.

Barnes hadn’t even glanced in their direction the whole time.

Laurel’s skin began to tingle and she squeezed David’s hand as Barnes obtained a few more signatures, handed a stapled stack of papers to Laurel’s mom, and swept the rest into his briefcase. He shook her hand and turned, his eyes meeting Laurel’s almost instantly. His eyes snapped from Laurel to David, then back to Laurel. His features broke into a devious grin that made Laurel take a step back.

“Laurel,” he said in a voice that sounded so fake to her, “I was just asking about you. It seems that none of my messages made it through.” He finished the sentence with the slightest bit of a growl, and Laurel clenched her teeth as terror suddenly filled her chest.