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do know he spent the past few hours sleeping and running and searching for help, not flying here from New York. He just lied, cold-blooded lied.
    And his lying means he’s not backing up my story. Which makes me look crazy. Crazier. So much for us being a team.
    “My work here is done.” Sheriff Hank tips his hat as he puts it back on.
    Liz thanks him for all his hard work and waves him off. “You must be so tired,” she says to Dark-Eyed Boy as the sheriff-mobile’s engine starts up. “Here, let me give you the grand tour. Oh, where are your bags?”
    “Lost at the airport,” he adds smoothly. “I’ve had quite the day.”
    Quite the day. I marvel at the way he’s managed to make himself sound older, mature enough to book a hotel room. Same way he was able to make himself sound more Boy Scout harmless when he was talking to Hazel.
    Liz clucks. “They say travel can be so stressful.” Her voice is bright again. Either she’s really good at hiding her feelings, or the reality of my amnesia hasn’t quite sunk in. Or hasn’t upset her. I hope she’s hiding her feelings.
    Dark-Eyed Boy squeezes my shoulder, a silent thank-you for not ratting him out, and together we follow Liz toward the mini castle. Up the stone steps, onto the vine-covered porch, where a carved wooden swing blows eerily in the breeze, into a cavernous, mirrored, marble foyer. Liz shuts the door behind us.

Chapter 8
DARK-EYED BOY
     
    Sure. I lied. I told that woman what she already wanted to hear, and running that con didn’t even make my pulse speed up. But I did it because I had to.
    I’m not leaving Elyse alone here, not until I know she’ll be safe.
    Even if she is glaring at me from the front parlor sofa while Liz—chattering nonstop about the house and its hundred-and-twenty-year history—leads me down a wide hallway toward the room Jim reserved.
    The hallway is carpeted in deep blue and lined with blue-painted doors, the wall space between them plastered with black-and-white photographs. Judging from the doors’ nameplates, proudly scripted in silver, the rooms are competing for cheesiest name ever: Suite Nostalgia Lane. The Summer Romance. The Happy Family Suite.
    “You’re going to love the Country Sun,” Liz gushes. “It’s one of my favorite rooms.”
    Bullshit. Like she’s ever going to tell people, Sorry, you picked one of the crappy rooms?
    I put on a smile and pray that the real Jim never shows. “Awesome.”
    We breeze past more doors and more silver frames, some locket-size, some as large as plates and ornately carved, showing austere, unsmiling people who couldn’t possibly still be on this planet. Elyse’s ancestors? Or just the rich people who lived in this house, before it became an inn? Was the Suite Nostalgia Lane where the butler slept?
    The Country Sun is a huge bedroom with a comfy-looking quilt on the king-size bed, a sunburst-orange-painted ceiling that matches the paint on the bed’s wooden headboard, and geese on the wallpaper. No phone. No TV. The geese appear to be wearing blue neck ribbons.
    “Hey, is there wi-fi in the house?”
    “Our computer with internet access is in the library.” She sounds disapproving. “But if you’re not too tired, I recommend you check out the trails in Waterfall Park today.”
    “Love to, but . . .” I have way more important things to do than stare at some waterfall. I point to my sneakers. “I’m not exactly prepared to hike.”
    She clucks over my supposedly lost luggage. “Airlines these days—the pilots are asleep and the bag checkers are a bunch of crooks and thieves. You hear things on CNN . . .” She trails off vaguely. “That’s why I don’t fly.”
    I get the distinct feeling she’s never been anywhere near an airport, period.
    “But the trails are really easy to get to.” Liz is beginning to sound like a waiter pushing the halibut special. “City people always say they didn’t realize how much they loved nature till they walked