I pulled up to the garage in a spray of gravel, bringing Ciar to the door with a wrench in his hand. My fingers hesitated on the keys as last night passed between us, but then I glanced over at the passenger's seat. Monica and half of Amanda's face stared up at me, their two-dimensional prison all their families might ever see of them.

I cut the engine, grabbed the papers, and stepped out.

"Maisye," Ciar began, his eyes guarded.

I cut him off. "Why is Donovan—"

I stopped in my tracks as I finally noticed the car behind him, raised high on a lift.

"Why is Donovan what?" he prodded, eyebrows raised.

I ignored him and pointed at the white Fiat. "Is that Tilda's car?"

He threw half a glance over his shoulder. "It was."

"Well what's it doing here?" I didn't mean to come off so belligerent, but I'd been so close to finally solving something, and now that damn car was yanking it all away.

"Scheduled maintenance."

"He brings her car to you for maintenance?"

"Yeah, I know. Fucked up, right?" He turned back into the garage with a humorless chuckle. "I never bought her a car. He did. He had her. But he knows I'll take care of it."

Take care of her, I heard behind his words.

The way we'd left things last night ballooned in the silence, forcing invisible distance between us. I took a deep breath, sneaking another glance down at the blond-haired, gray-eyed women clutched in my fist.

"How far do you think he would go?" I asked.

"Donovan?"

I nodded.

He pressed a button, and the lift started to sink back down again. "How far would he go for what?"

I raised my shoulders, searching for the right words. "To make sure no one else had her," I tried. "Or...to replicate her."

"Well I think you are the answer to the second question." Ciar watched the tires settle onto the ground as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. "And I think the answer to the first is why you haven't talked to him since the bonfire."

The reminder set everything above my shoulders aflame with a mixture of shame and indignance. I still didn't know how much of the tape Ciar had seen, but the fact that he had seen something curdled the air in my lungs.

I shoved it aside and soldiered on. "But do you think he'd go further than making a jerry-rigged sex tape?"

If he noticed the way I choked on the last two words, he didn't comment. Maybe he wasn't as big of an asshole as I thought.

"How far are we talking?" he asked.

I studied his face, trying to gauge his mood, but there was nothing. Was he just humoring me because I looked like her and he didn't have the heart to throw me out? Had working on her car put him in a sentimental mood? Or did he genuinely believe his brother was capable of something more?

"Someone's stalking me."

It wasn't what I'd intended to say at all, and Amanda, Monica, Crystal, and Valerie glared at me from the stack of papers in my hand. Ciar just raised his eyebrows, skepticism heavy in every line of his forehead.

I let out a short breath of half-laughter. "And you don't believe me because I told you I'm a nutcase."

"I didn't say that."

"I am Maisye," I said anyway, paranoid now that he would always wonder. "I'm me. This is me, coming to you with something serious."

He held up his hands. "Okay."

He still looked wary, and I didn't know if it was because of last night's animosity or because he still had no reason to believe me.

I sighed. "I'm not kidding. I've heard someone in my apartment when I'm alone. I've heard them at Donovan's house, in the cabin in Provincetown—I thought it was you, because that's where my underwear disappeared, but if I really do believe you when you say you didn't do it—then someone else took them. And that's solid proof that I'm not making this up."

"Maisye..." His tongue darted out to wet his lips, his eyes wandering the walls over my head. "Have you considered the possibility that Donovan took them and framed me so you'd hate me?"

"I thought it might be him. He did get into my apartment once, and I don't know how. And I thought I just saw him at my house, in that car, but—"

I pointed at it, throwing my arms out and turning away. The sheaf of papers crackled, waiting to be acknowledged.

I looked over my shoulder, the yellowing bruises on Ciar's face still clearly visible. I remembered the way Donovan had watched me tear up the garage in my rage—that hungry, eager stare, like it was the world's most important test and I was passing. After what he'd done to me in there, I wouldn't even put it past him to beat up his own brother out of spite. If I didn't think too hard, it made sense.

"But why would he run away from the cabin?" I asked. "If it was really him, then he ran out through the window and came back around to the front door. Why wouldn't he just apologize for waking me when I came out? He was supposed to be there. It wouldn't have been suspicious."

Ciar just shrugged. "You came in here asking what he was capable of. I'm just answering."

I sighed. If Donovan wasn't the stalker, then who could it be? Someone connected to him? Someone who wanted revenge and knew how much he cared about Tilda and, therefore, me?

What if it was someone who knew Tilda? I looked just like her. Maybe they thought they'd seen a ghost. Another ex, maybe? Who was to say she'd stopped with just the Cosgrave brothers?

"Who else did she hang out with?" I asked, causing Ciar to frown at the sudden change of subject. "Tilda, did she run with any other people?"

"I mean, her friends were mostly my friends," he said slowly. "And Donovan. There was one other woman—dark skin, dark hair, an endless supply of pantsuits. She always looked like Tilda's complete opposite, so I could never figure out how they knew each other."

I whirled away, my mind racing. Clarissa. It had to be. Clarissa knew Tilda? My eyes widened as I remembered our first meeting, how she'd laid everything out for me, the name she'd used to speak of Matilda.

Tillie.

"That's why he killed her," I whispered. She was working with the FBI.

"Who killed—what?"

I turned back to him, my heart pounding. He looked almost as panicked as I felt, but I knew at least some of it was worry about my sanity. If Clarissa had gotten to Tilda, sent her in as a spy like me, then were the other gray-eyed blondes second, third, and fourth tries? Before she'd found me, had she just kept sending in an army of lookalikes, hoping Donovan would let one of them close enough to give her intel?

And they all disappeared.

"Of course she didn't fucking tell me. Nobody tells me until I'm coming down off the meds and finally sane again, and then all of a sudden I'm just"—I laughed desperately—"an ex-wife, or an ex-sister, or an ex—"

"Maisye." Ciar's hands closed around my shoulders, holding me still as I tried to squirm. "Do you want me to call someone?"

"Who would you call? Mark?" I cackled in his face. "He's not going to come. He doesn't even pick up the phone anymore."

"Just anyone," he said. "I don't think you should be here while you're like this."

I'm afraid you're turning into her.

"I'm not crazy," I snapped, remembering the photos. I raised them, ignoring the part where my sweaty hand had crumpled the edges, and pointed. "These women. Valerie disappeared." I let her fall to the floor. "But before her—there were three, all within a year. All missing, all in Charlestown."

"Boston's a big city," he tried to soothe me. "A lot of people go missing here."

"But these women all have three things in common," I continued, briefly catching my tongue between my teeth before continuing. "Blond hair, gray eyes...and your brother."

He shifted, something sparking to life in his eyes. "What does Donovan have to do with them?"

"She"—I pointed to the picture of Crystal—"left a party with him and was never seen again. She had a summer fling with him"—I held up the picture of Amanda—"and vanished into thin air. And her."

I flashed the third photo, wondering if he recognized it; his face remained emotionless.

"You fixed her car. She and Donovan went out for a walk while she waited, and she never came back."

He leaned away, his movements careful. Almost like I was the predator this time, and he was the prey.

"That's a hell of a coincidence," he said.

"What if it's not?" I pressed. "Look at them. What if they—if he—and Tilda, what if—"

My voice broke, and I cursed it. Ciar was the last person I wanted to break down in front of.

"What if she was the first? What if he killed her, too?"

His eyes flicked upward as he turned away, and I reached for him reflexively. I grabbed his wrist, and even though he could have easily shaken me off, he froze instead. But I saw in the mask of his face that I was losing him.

"They all looked like her," I whispered, thinking fast. "I look like her. More than anyone ever will."

I swallowed, not even trying to fight back my tears anymore. I needed them, and I mustered up a huge sniffle as I said the one thing I knew would make him come back to me.

"I'm scared, Ciar."

Silence engulfed us. A bird swept in overhead and skittered around the rafters, its wings thrumming. My chest heaved. I hadn't anticipated the weight that would lift off it the moment I let the truth out. Because I was scared, no matter how much I tried to pretend.

"I thought you wanted to die," he finally said.

"I want control."

I doubted he understood, but I couldn't lie anymore. I hated feeling like a passenger in my own life. Driven from foster home to foster home, back to orphanages after every unsuccessful attempt. Hijacked by Tilda's ghost. Dumped by the man who'd talked me down from the Golden Gate Bridge the night I'd finally found control.

He'd convinced me to give up that power. Then he'd thrown me away.

Ciar studied me, still bent so that our eyes were level with each other. He straightened slowly, as if a sudden movement might set me off again, and sighed.

"He didn't kill her."

I blinked. "What?"

"He didn't do it."

"How do you know?"

"Because she killed herself, Maisye."

"But that's what I'm saying." I had to make him understand, because if he believed me then maybe he'd help prove it. Together, maybe we could end this nightmare. "What if she didn't? What if he pushed her off the bridge, or killed her somewhere else and just threw her body in the—in the river, or—?"

Ciar grabbed me by the biceps and shook me once, gently. "He didn't."

I stared up at him, wide-eyed. "But how do you know?"

His eyes hardened so quickly that it was like a curtain had dropped behind them. "I just do, okay?" he growled, letting me go and turning his back. "Don't ask me how I know. What the fuck kind of question is that?"

But his voice had weakened, and as he propped himself with both hands on the hood of her car, his shoulders sagging, my mouth fell open.

"Were you there?"

He didn't answer, but he didn't need to. I saw it in the uneven rise and fall of his ribs.

"Ciar...you saw...?"

"Leave."

My throat had closed, fresh tears blurring my vision. "No, I—"

"Just go, please."

He was crying. I heard the water behind his words, their unsteadiness as he fought to keep the mask he'd learned to wear all those years. Hesitantly, I took a step toward him, my hand outstretched.

When I settled it on his shoulder, he pounced, seizing me by the wrist.

"Don't," he threatened, his voice low. His eyes gleamed with excess moisture, their whites edging toward pink. "Don't come in here and try to play me. You thought you could rope me into whatever the hell you want? That 'cause you look like her, you can act like you need me and I'll come running?"

I shook my head, but he flung my arm away and stepped back.

"Been there, done that, honey. I'm not making the same mistake again." He picked up a vise and chucked it hard at its shelf. "Get out."

I flinched at the ensuing clang, but I obeyed. I hadn't seen this Ciar—the truly frightening one—in a long time, even when he was an asshole. As I scampered toward the parking lot, I chanced one last glance over my shoulder.

He was bent double over the Fiat, the top of his head pressed against the hood and his arms folded tight against his ears, his shoulders shaking in silent sobs.