Arabella's downstairs in the kitchen when I come through the front door. She ducks her head out long enough to check me over for wounds, and then she's back out of sight in a din of clatters and clomps. There's a large foil tray in the center of the dining room table, along with the remains of about six newspapers, and the air's got the earthy funk of bad coffee run through an even worse microwave. Must've been a testing night.

"Hey," I call, as I unload spare change into our cookie jar.

"Hey," she responds. "Yeah, it was."

I lose count of my pennies, and have to think as hard as I can about anything but my experience on the bus. "How'd it go?"

The real Arabella scoffs; the Arabella she plays on TV is all silence. "He says I did fine. Like always." There's a question in her head she desperately wants asked.

"Like always," I say, "he's right."

I get a bright chuckle for that one, with a dollop of something huskier just under the surface. The question's still there; I keep circling her mind and watching for the opening as I waltz over to the table and peek into the tray.

"Who bought the lasagna?"

"Order of Eagles.¹" Another clink, ceramic on ceramic.

"Didn't know there were angle men in the Order of Eagles."

"Just one. I think he feeds on irony."

My turn for the loaded laugh; a snort seems like the best use of the opportunity. I come into the kitchen, stand in the doorway. Arabella's sitting on the counter, wearing the yummy sushi pajamas that make her look like a thirty-year-old passing for sixteen, and stacking all our cups into a pyramid. A blind man could read my smile.

"You missed the link-up," she says. A dry little number with rich notes of disappointment. "Dr. Barg says we're doing it at breakfast."

"Was he mad?"

Upset flicks across her eyebrows. "Not about that." I'm getting the shape of the question now, but the nouns are just loud honks of emotion.

"About what, then?"

She finishes balancing an espresso mug, and looks down at her hands as a wall of tension snaps together around her.

"It's bad, Randy." She glances at me with red eyes that dare me to even mention them.

I stay balanced against the doorway, face blank. "Late-breaking news?"

She's looking at the cups again. "The cops were on the scene a little after Paul came home. Anonymous tip that the family hadn't been heard from in a week."

"Oh, bullshit," I snap, before I can bite my tongue.

Arabella fills to the brim with winces, and picks up a jelly glass. "That's what I said. Paul said it, too."

"You've snatched the pebble from my hand." I lean against the doorframe, and let the words spill out of my mouth. "Any further insight? Plan of attack? Anything?" I think my voice raises a solid octave somewhere in there.

"Dr. Barg said he needed to think about it." She studies the glass, and adds it with great care to the second tier.

"And then he tested you."

Her eyes go wide, the first warning that we're near boiling point. "No telling what impact my parents had," she says. "We need to know if I've surpassed you guys, we need to know—"

"—if we have a weapon in the house with us." This isn't actually why I'm mad, but being psychic means never having to communicate.

I get another glance, and she opens the cabinet behind her to hunt for more cups. Her thoughts are clenched fists, gray fire, preludes to a fight in a schoolyard. "That too," she allows, as she balances a Coke glass on top of two mugs.

"Not even really a pyramid anymore," I say.

"Mm." No vowels; I screwed up I bad.

"More of a ziggurat."

She doesn't even respond to that with body language. I tuck my hands into my pockets, and watch her in silence, listening to the wild flailing at the core of her anger. She looks up from the pyramid, sees me watching, and sighs, exasperated.

"You're not telling me something."

The words come wrapped in velvet, but they still manage to sting. I squirm into a more comfortable position, gather my breath.

"I had a run-in tonight," I say.

For just a second, Arabella hesitates. "How many angles did they have?" I can feel the pinball game of panic starting up inside her.

"An entire separate geometry's worth. Dead gangbanger on the 22, probably got shot up in EPA and shuffled all the way down to the bus route—"

"Whose was he?" Arabella shivers, but keeps on building the pyramid.

"Someone big," I say. "And someone who knows us."

Her mouth dips the barest inch. "They know about the killing?"

I sigh, scratch at my wrist. "Well, see…yes. Yes, they do."

"They tried to make a deal with you."

"Smart cookie."

"Don't patronize me, Randy."

Part of me resonates when she snaps like that. "Sorry, Ara. Sorry. It's just...they tried to hook me in, they told me some things...we know it's a guy who did it, we know he had something with enough memories in it to mask him, but..." Arabella looks me in the eye, and I instantly hate the guy who's saying this to her. "But apparently, it's killings." I swallow. "Plural."

I get a second look, and a one-two punch of emotion from her thoughts and her eyes. She inspects the cup pyramid with finality, sighs, and slips down off the counter. I don't bother stopping her from grabbing the bottle of scotch.

"I'm two years off a multiple of six," she quips; the corners of her mouth are sharp as she pops ice into a glass. "That's like twenty-one."

"Remind me never to let you do my taxes."

She gives me a smirk over her shoulder, and tips the glass to her lips. Her face crinkles as she takes her first sip; she looks like she's been drinking paint. She sets the glass down next to the pyramid, and watches the ice melt.

"Did you take the deal?"

"Hell no."

"Nice word choice." Another smirk. She turns away from me and downs another slug. "Keh." I feel the alcohol swimming up to her brain. "What did they want?"

I toss that memory into the back depths of my mind. "Political bullshit. Nothing you'll be interested in."

Arabella sets down the empty scotch glass, and turns around. Her eyes are black pearls; her face is so puffy you'd think it was makeup. There's nothing but acid on her lips. But despite all that, she gives me the slow, private smile that sends a current down through my belly. My mind ices over as she steps closer.

"Sounds like your night actually went pretty well."

She slides up against me, and wraps her arms around my torso. Her cheek press soft into my chest, her legs glide up to squeeze one of my knees. Lightning nibbles through my belly, along my arms, into my crotch. Hands come up to my shoulders; fingers wander into my hair. Arabella breathes against me, little breasts mashed hard into my stomach, and with one long, soft breath, she lowers her defenses. My mind floods over with the images of her night, the wide loose pans across her room and ceiling; and in the murmurs of familiar voices, I find my saturation point for drama.

Arabella steps back from me, with just a brief gentle stroke for my hair. She smiles up at me with those big brown eyes, with the light that says her face might some day come in a little closer, and she manages a wan smile as she picks up the bottle of scotch.

"Office time," she whispers, and looks with hollow reverence into my eyes. She shrugs, and in that shrug tells me everything she doesn't want to tell anyone. Then she's gone.

That night I dream like a fever patient: wake up sweaty five minutes after the last time, try to sleep as the chill flows down over your skin. I keep seeing the gangbanger with a seam around his face, and in the seam is the empty air gone brackish from the thing feeling away inside him. It's got a voice like broken speakers, eyes like a mug shot. It comes back again every time I doze, finds its way into disastrous dates and stilted nonsense conversations, and it says the same thing every time.

"The deal stands."

Every time it says it, I'm surprised. Every time, I wake up. And every time, I'd rather go to sleep. When I'm awake, it takes less than a minute for me to flash back to that hug in the kitchen, and the ache in my crotch, and the flashes, beneath the agony and the shame, of Dr. Barg through Arabella's eyes, sitting in his rolling chair with the canes up on his lap, insisting despite the terror in his eyes that his legs are in no way getting worse.