“It hasn’t tried for Charles or Tag,” she said. “So maybe not people near me.” She paused and said slowly, “Or not unless it succeeds in taking me over and can reach out to people through me.”

That felt right. And it led her to another thought. Since she’d been wanting to smack Bran for how he’d forced Leah through her first Change, bonding, and then mating ever since she’d heard the full story, there was a bite in her voice when she said, “I think that you were really lucky Leah is mule-stubborn, Bran Cornick, or your mating could have gone quite differently.”

She didn’t give him time to respond—she wasn’t stupid. Her voice was overly chipper as she continued, “Anyway, at the end of this morning’s chase, Charles says he sent me to sleep with some sneaky magic trick. But I don’t remember that, either.”

“I see,” said Bran. After a brief pause, he said softly, “And I have always known I was lucky in my choice of mate.”

Charles’s eyebrows raised.

“Doesn’t mean that you weren’t a bastard,” Anna said. She probably wouldn’t have said that if they hadn’t been communicating by phone.

“Charles says that after you finished playing the recorder, you didn’t know who he or Tag were.”

Clearly he was done with the topic of the events surrounding his mating. Trust Bran to ignore her rundown on what she didn’t remember and hit exactly where she wished she didn’t remember.

“That’s right,” she said. “Whatever it was, while I was playing, it stuck me right in the middle of the worst moment in my life. In Chicago.” Bran would understand. He knew about Chicago. “It did not feel like a memory and I had the bite marks to prove it.”

“Bite marks?” Bran’s voice stayed calm.

“Justin,” Anna said flatly. “While he was still in human form, he bit my neck, blooding me to excite the pack. That was real. When I found myself standing in that gods-be-damned amphitheater facing Charles and Tag, I thought I’d been teleported from Chicago somehow. I didn’t have a clue who either of them were, where I was, or how I got there. The last thing I remembered was the pack house in Chicago. As if all of my memories between that day in Chicago and the moment in Wild Sign had disappeared.” Her voice was tight.

Charles held out his hand and she grabbed it as if it were a lifeline. It was solid, warm, and strong, and it made her feel as if she could breathe.

“The bite wound on her neck was still bleeding,” Charles growled.

“I see,” Bran said. “I’ve heard of magic that could make your body remember wounds it had suffered, calling that damage from memory into flesh. I don’t remember where, or from whom, and I’ve never seen it myself.” He hesitated. “Not that I remember.” The very old wolves had lots of memories they couldn’t instantly recall. “I’ll make inquiries.”

There was the sound of drumming fingers; Anna presumed they belonged to Bran.

“Sherwood Post doesn’t remember his past,” Bran said. “I thought—we all thought—it was because he couldn’t bear to remember the way in which the witches removed his leg so it could not be regrown.”

“You did not speak to Sherwood after he sent you back to Montana with Leah beside you,” said Charles. “What if he came back here? To make sure the Singer was dead?”

“It does raise some questions,” agreed Bran. “He was, in his own way, one of the most powerful magic users I’ve ever known.”

That hung in the air.

“I always wondered how the witches got him,” Charles said neutrally.

“Exactly,” said Bran. After a moment he said, “Well—”

“You called it the Singer in the Woods.” Leah’s voice cut through Bran’s. “The one who attacked you.”

Anna hadn’t known she was listening. From Charles’s face, he hadn’t known, either. Anna wondered if her dig at Bran would have gone differently if he’d been alone.

“Yes,” Anna agreed. “I don’t know where I got that—it doesn’t feel like something I made up, though.”

“No,” agreed Leah. “I don’t think you did.” Her voice was tight. “I wish I could help. I don’t remember a lot about that time, and most of it would not be useful to you.” She made a soft sound and then said, “There is something about memories. We fed it with music, I think.” Her voice grew hesitant, soft. “Not just with music. That was part of it. It did something with memories, too. But”—her tone turned ironic—“I don’t remember exactly what that was.”

“Were there witches?” asked Charles.

“Like you think there were in Wild Sign? I don’t know,” Leah said. “I’m not witchborn.” She sighed. “It doesn’t feel like being witchborn mattered very much to the Singer, but I can’t be sure.”

Silence fell and lingered.

“If I remember more, I’ll let you know,” Leah said finally, sounding . . . Anna wished she could see Leah’s face so she could read it. She sounded odd. “I’ll call Anna.”

“All right,” said Charles. “Thank you, Leah. Da. We’ll keep you apprised.”

“Be careful,” Bran said. “Remember Sherwood.”

“Yes,” Charles said, and ended the call.

He looked at Anna. “I think we should have you contact Dr. Connors.”

Tag looked up from his book and grinned wolfishly at Anna. “Charles and I are the muscle. You are our communications expert. By that we mean that you get to do all of the investigative work. We just get to kill things or, less interestingly, intimidate people.”

Anna stuck her tongue out at him.

“He’s not wrong,” said Charles, deadpan. “Annoying, but not wrong.” He still carried a bit of Brother Wolf in his eyes and the set of his shoulders, but if he was teasing, he would be okay.

Anna rolled her eyes. “Okay, Brute Squad, give me the phone number. Getting information means giving some back. What do we want Dr. Connors to know? And what do we absolutely not want her to know?”

“Why don’t you play it by ear,” Charles suggested. “Tell her we have some letters addressed to her and see where it goes from there.”

“It occurs to me that I’d feel better about this if we hadn’t opened those letters,” Anna said. “In the household I grew up in, opening someone else’s mail just wasn’t done. I think my father would have forgiven murder before he’d have forgiven us interfering in the US mail.”

“That’s why we’re making you call her,” said Tag. “You can blame us if you’d like. In the household I grew up in, opening letters without ruining the seal was an art form. It’s harder to make a modern letter look as though you haven’t opened it. Not impossible—but I generally don’t bother.”

Charles consulted his laptop and gave Anna the number.

The phone went to voice mail, which was a bit anticlimactic.

“This is Anna Cornick,” Anna said. “I have your number from Special Agents Fisher and Goldstein of the FBI. My husband and I have been up to Wild Sign and we found some letters addressed to you that we’d like to talk about.” She left her number, repeated it, and disconnected.

“What was the name of the place that check for Daniel Green was written to?” asked Anna. “If I’m making calls, I might as well try them, too.”

“Angel Hills,” said Charles.

“There’s an Angel Hills Assisted Living in Yreka,” said Tag. He had evidently started looking it up while Anna had been leaving a message for Dr. Connors. “You have about ten minutes before their regular hours are over. There’s an after-hours number.”

Anna called and asked after Daniel Green.

“Are you a member of his family?” asked the receptionist.

Anna looked at Charles, who shrugged. Tag nodded vigorously.

“Yes,” she lied. “This is Anna Cornick. I’m Carrie Green’s . . . sister-in-law.”

“Ms. Cornick, if you will stay on the line? I will get someone who is authorized to speak with you.”

Elevator music played with static-aided awfulness. The person who’d turned Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” into elevator music should have been shot.

Eventually a deliberately mellow voice came on the line. “Ms. Cornick, this is Dr. Sheldon Underwood. Letty tells me that you are calling about Daniel Green?”

“That’s right,” Anna said. “Look, we were going through Carrie’s papers and found a check—” It had been enough to buy a new car.

“Has something happened to Carrie?” he interrupted, losing the mellow tones.

“We don’t know.” Anna managed to make her voice sound weary. “That’s what we are trying to find out. But no one has heard from her since this spring, and you know she lived out in the middle of nowhere. We can’t find her.”

There was a long pause. “Daniel is—well, if you are a member of the family, Daniel has good days and bad. But they were very close; she came here every month to spend time with him. We were concerned when she stopped. It is possible that she told him something. He told us, you see, that Carrie wasn’t going to be coming around anymore. He might tell you more.”

She opened her mouth to refuse—Daniel Green would know that she wasn’t related to him. But Dr. Underwood had continued speaking.

“Daniel’s memory isn’t good, and some days he doesn’t know anyone. But if you come in the morning on a good day, he’s very nearly himself.”