She’d gotten the thing at a birthday party four years earlier-had been so proud when she’d finished painting it.

And I’d been proud too, of how secure she was…happy.

How would jerking her out of her bed in the middle of the night affect her? And what would I tell her? The Amazons have found us? Your grandmother is a spy?

How could I explain any of this, and even if I could, how could I yank her from the only world she’d ever known, really remembered? Ask her to leave it all behind again?

My jaw clenched. I turned, crushing an acorn under my heel. I’d run away once. I wouldn’t do it again.

I retrieved the staff. With it held in front of me, I approached the two Amazons-not Mother, not Zery, two Amazons I couldn’t trust.

I expected Mother to tell me to put it down but, her mouth a grim line, she just nodded, muttered, “Should have let me teach you how to use it.”

Zery folded her arms over her chest and angled her body so her back was to me-letting me know she didn’t see me as a threat, the bitch. Addressing Mother, she said, “Bring her to council. We’ll convince you.”

“Of what?” I used the staff to poke Zery in the back-a nice sharp poke. Not hard enough to do her any damage, just tick her off.

Her body stiffened.

I grinned, dropped the end of the pole onto the ground next to my foot, then held onto it with one hand. The other hand I kept at my side, my thumb strumming my fingers.

My poke resulted in the desired results. Zery turned on me. Mother stuck out her arm, blocking Zery with her own staff.

“That you’re a killer.”

“Me?” I started to move forward.

Mother held out a hand to stop me. “Mel, those girls we’ve seen on TV, the dead ones. They’re Amazons.” Her eyes concentrated on my face, steady, trusting. She believed she was telling me something I didn’t know. I dropped my eyelids, just for a second.

“She knows.” Zery rushed forward. Mother held her back, but there was doubt on her face now.

I raised my chin, took a step toward them. “I had nothing to do with those girls’ deaths.” I glanced to the side-couldn’t look at my old friend, couldn’t believe she would think such a thing of me. Yes, I’d thought it of her…but I had reason.

Anger wrapped back around me, I glared back. “Why me?” It was an open question, more so than Mother could guess, but if Zery was the killer, she’d understand.

Zery took a step back, seemed to settle. “Amazons don’t have enemies. No one outside the tribe even knows Amazons are real-except you.”

“And you’re sure the killer does?”

Zery pulled back. “What do you mean? She had to.”

I’d pretty much assumed the same, but hearing the assumptions from Zery’s lips put a new perspective on things-or maybe it was from being accused of the killings myself.

“These girls. Are they both from the Illinois safe camp?” I figured they had to be, or to have spent time there recently, but I wasn’t revealing any of my assumptions to Zery-didn’t want her to think I’d been spending time analyzing the deaths. There was no reason I would have been-if I hadn’t already known they were Amazons.

Zery nodded, but her expression was grim, not giving me an inch.

“They about the same age? Go places together?” Sneaking out with other teens was just as popular an activity for Amazon teens as human. Probably more so. No boys in an Amazon camp. About the time puberty hit and hormones went wild, I’d spent more time out of camp at night than in.

“They wouldn’t go off with a stranger.”

I cocked a brow. Zery and I had hitched plenty of rides into human towns with random truckers and local boys.

She glanced at Mother, then pursed her lips. “It would be easier for someone who knew the camp.”

Mother let out a sigh. “That’s your proof?” She shoved the staff back into Zery’s hand and moved toward the basement stairwell. “Go home.”

Zery hesitated. That’s when I realized she didn’t want me to be the killer-that maybe there was still some of my old friend inside the queen’s body.

But she did want to find the killer, and so did I.

“What can we do?” I asked.

Mother’s feet ground to a halt. Her hand already on the railing, she turned back and stared at me.

“Confess?” Zery asked, but as quickly as the question came, she shook her head, then pinned me with a stare. “Believe it or not, I hope you’re not involved, Mel. But you know that if you are, I’ll kill you myself.”

I shrugged. I wouldn’t expect anything less.

Seeing our uneasy truce, Mother crossed back to where we stood, came to a halt beside me, so close her bicep brushed my shoulder. A small show of support, but for Mother, huge.

“What else is being done?” she asked.

With the initial powder keg dampened, Mother and Zery settled into a conversation that I could tell they’d had before. More Zery filling Mother in on recent discussions than delivering plans previously unknown.

I listened, but definitely felt I was missing big chunks of information. I’d corner Mother later, force her to fill me in too. My mind had drifted somewhat, to what Zery’s arrival and the knowledge that Mother and most likely Bubbe still had contact with the Amazons meant, when a turn in the conversation jerked me back.

“There are showers and a kitchen, but you’ll have to clean it. Maybe do some repairs.”

My ears perked and my shoulders pulled back. “Clean what?”

Back in warrior mode, they both ignored me. Together they began striding down the walkway. I expected them to turn toward the front entrance of my shop, but instead they hung a left. Strolled to the old gym door.

My eyes rounded and I quickened my pace-almost to a jog to catch them. Before I reached them, Mother had already opened the doors.

My eyes narrowed. I kept the gymnasium locked. We didn’t use the place. It was expensive to heat, and I didn’t want news of its unused state to get out to the local beer-drinking teen crowd. I’d found an untapped pony keg hidden in the aspen grove at the far corner of our property last spring. Bad enough my trees were being used as an alcohol hand-off locale-I didn’t want my building to be usurped too.

The gym was only a few feet away from the main building, but the aspens where I’d found the keg hadn’t been that much farther away. Kids.

Point being, Mother had to have had a key on her. And there was no reason for her to-not that I knew of.

I followed her and Zery into the dark gym. None of us reached for the lights. They worked, but I didn’t want the place blazing if Bubbe or Harmony awoke. I figured Mother was thinking the same thing.

Mother bent and pulled a couple of flashlights from behind an overturned table.

Yeah, she’d been planning this.

She handed one to Zery and kept the other. I muttered under my breath.

Zery ran the beam over the interior. Things had been moved since I’d last been in the place. Nothing major, just broken furniture piled to the side, and what appeared to be new cleaning materials leaned against one wall. Based on her mention of showers and the kitchen, I guessed she’d turned the water back on too.

“This would work.” Zery walked to the center of the room and tapped her fingers against her leg.

I stepped forward. “Work for what?”

Two beams of light turned on me, blinding me. I kept my regard steady and didn’t blink.

“The Amazons need to be closer.” Mother’s voice was low, sure-just stating facts, not leaving an opening for input.

“Closer to what?” I did not like where this was headed. When I’d asked what we could do, I’d imagined sending Mother or Bubbe back to the camp for a while. Maybe even me doing some tattoo work to help strengthen those engaged in the hunt.

I did not envision Amazons here. No way.

“The bodies were found forty miles away,” I added.

“How do you know that?” Zery asked.