I rested a hand on the blunt head and thought of my brother and then of the Light.

It was there, only the tiniest bit—the barest molecule. But even that lit me up. Filled me from the inside out with safety and home and unending warmth.

Neither Above nor Below deserved the Light.

But hadn’t I known that all along? Yet business was business, and few knew backroom negotiations like I did. I knew how to get what I wanted—everything I wanted. My house of cards wasn’t going to tumble down now. There was no way that I would let that happen.

After the warmth and the light came two faces. The first was Jeb—alive, whole, the torture and death a thing of his future. I saw him through shark eyes as he stared back, cradling a large paper bag in the crook of his arm. From the paper bag came a glow—didn’t they say you shouldn’t hide your Light under a bushel? Or in a bag? Then Jeb moved, and a second face appeared, probably that of the next person who caught the shark’s attention. It could’ve been hours later or a day later; who knew? The face was unfamiliar, but I knew it wouldn’t stay that way. He had stared at the shark, mesmerized. Jeb had brought the Light to the shark, and it had passed something along to the giant fish. The shark had in turn passed it along to the second man. The Light hadn’t been shy about leaving a bit of itself in the shark to go poking about in the guy’s thoughts. Who, where, what? The Light obtained it all . . . and that was what was given to me.

Whatever the Light had given to the second man, however, was gone from the shark’s brain now. I was assuming that missing information would be the location of the Light. Assuming, hoping. But all I received was where to look next—or rather, whom to look in.

Clever. I knew where to look for the next trail marker, but the final resting place of the Light, that I still didn’t know.

Next thing I knew, I was standing on the back of a shark and being pulled upward, back through the netting. I wrapped my arms around Griffin’s free one and literally climbed back up him to the catwalk. Up at the top, I shivered, looked down, and then wrapped my arms around my bare breasts. I glared down at the shark, which was diving playfully with a red lace bra caught in his teeth. Then I laughed. What else could I do? And in my mind Kimano stood at my shoulder, laughing even harder. Black hair, black eyes, sun-browned skin, and a grin brighter than the sun on the Pacific.

“Funny, is it?” Griffin was trying to control a smile of his own as he disentangled himself from the netting and handed me his jacket.

I bundled up in it and wrung out my wet hair with a reminiscent curve of my lips. “Just nice to see it isn’t only people who have a little bit of the joker in them.” I leaned back against the netting and called down to the water. “Quite the trickster, aren’t you, Nemo?” I dressed back in my dry clothes, using Griffin’s jacket as a shield.

“So where is the Light?” Mr. Trinity demanded as we moved on, hopefully before security arrived.

“Oh, it’s hardly that easy. For a smart man, you underestimate the Light. It’s not like we’re talking a sixty-watt-bulb worth of intelligence or anything. We have a ways to go. The giant guppy just pointed me in the right direction, to the next bread crumb.”

“And where is that?” Griffin asked curiously. It was better than the harsh demand that had been ready to cross Trinity’s lips.

“Details.” I offered his jacket back. “Details. Give my brain a chance to sort it out.”

Trinity didn’t look especially pleased with that and turned to the nearest bodyguard, because that’s what they were: a body for him; just plain guard for me. He tapped his shoulder and pointed down into the water. “Go. See if it tells you anything.”

The bodyguard’s mouth gave a faint twitch. It wasn’t a happy twitch. He looked at me and I could see him calculating that if I could do it, a glorified bartender about a third his weight, then how dangerous could it be? The sharks must be tame from captivity and daily feedings and, yes, he so didn’t have a clue. He stripped to boxer briefs, which, I had to admit he wore well, and dived in as I had. He came out—the newspapers said later—with a red bra wrapped around his neck and missing a chunk of his calf. We didn’t stay around long enough for the live version. Once the thrashing and bubbling screams from the tank and security started rattling at the door that Griffin had jury-rigged shut behind us, we left. I heard later from Griffin, that aside from the bra and missing flesh, the bodyguard had gotten nothing out of the shark. I was still Eden House’s hole card.

Before that information had come my way, we’d passed out of the casino into the sun, making our escape as Trinity went on, wasting no thought on the man left behind. “Where is the next step, Iktomi? I assume the Light passed its next bit of the puzzle to you. There is no other reason to be discussing it.”

“I don’t know.” It wasn’t completely a lie. The winter sun, mildly warm, felt good against my skin and I held my face up to it. “It’s all sliding through my head. One big, jumbled puzzle of letters and identity. It hasn’t come together yet. It might not for a day or two. I’m not quite used to telepathic Lights playing with my brain or its carrier leaving me with a huge appetite for raw fish.” I let the tourists swell around us on the sidewalk. “I want to go home. You can leave your pit bulls behind to watch the place if that’s what you want, but being at home, being someplace familiar will help me get my brain unknotted.” I looked down. “Besides, I have bras there. And while I like to consider myself a free spirit, I’m not that free.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the bra argument or the little regard Trinity had for me, but he had me dropped off back at the bar with men taking turns watching the place, two at a time. I didn’t offer them any food or shelter. Their car was more plush than my place anyway. Griffin was torn, but not so torn he didn’t go back to Zeke’s side—which was the way it should be. More than ever his partner needed protection . . . from injury, from himself, and maybe from Eden House.

I walked into the bar and Lenore was pecking, bored at the countertop. A bright eye flashed at me and he cawed, “Boom chika boom.”

“I’m not Dolly Parton, you horny crow. It’s not that noticeable,” I retorted, then went upstairs to change into some sweats and take a nap. You’d think it would be swimming with the sharks that would take it out of you, but that wasn’t it. It was the Light. It weighed down every thought, buzzing like a swarm of bees setting up camp there—every gray cell a honey cell. I took a quick shower before changing, getting the aquarium salt off me, pulled on the softest sweats I owned, and climbed into bed. It was only then I noticed a sprinkling of brown dog hair on the foot of my bed. I took a quick glance around the room. Nothing was missing. The girl hadn’t been up here, but her fat friend had taken advantage of a soft bed for a nap of his own.

I clucked my tongue, but I wasn’t mad. If I were a fat little dog, I think I probably would’ve done the same. It was a comfortable bed. He had good taste. I rolled my hand into a loose fist and tucked it under my chin, closed my eyes, and drifted. I dreamed of family. Of traveling the world, as we always had—as our ancestors had—seeing mountains, forests, oceans or water and sand, seeing people of every color and language. Of coming together with my mother, brother, and cousins, laughing and swapping stories, then going our separate ways again. It was a good life, and though each of us was born a wanderer, we kept close—coming together again and again. They were always the best of times, except the last time. Without Kimano.

“Sorry about that,” Kimano said in my dream. He lounged in the chair in the room’s corner, legs sprawled, wearing bathing trunks with a shell necklace around his neck. I could even see the beads of Pacific Ocean water on him. “I’ll bet I deprived Mama of some prime bitching about my work ethic.”