Justina raised an eyebrow and a shadow of a smirk slid across her face:

"Not surprising to me. That's Frankie all over."

"Forgive me," I hastened to continue. "I understand this must be unpleasant for you to hear about your ex-husband and son."

"Son?" Justina frowned, but quickly realized. "Oh of course, you must mean Glenn. He's not my son at all. He's my brother."

I looked at Oscar, who couldn't tear himself away from the compote and, by all appearances, had missed half the conversation.

"I don't quite understand, ma'am," I forced out.

My head began to ache.

"Glenn is my blood brother," Justina repeated distinctly. "I actually have many brothers and sisters, but Glenn is the youngest and most difficult of them all. He constantly lies and believes the stories he makes up on the spot."

"And Frank?"

"Frankie really is my husband – an insufferable, cunning fox. When I left him, Glenn kept in touch and they created their own circus, bonding over our disagreements. They travel from town to town fooling people. But honestly, I didn't expect them to have the nerve to come back and pull their cheap scams in their hometown."

"Is there any chance they might return soon?" I asked the pressing question.

"Who can tell with those two? They're fickle with their plans," the woman sighed.

"I'll never see that bike again," I replied and stood up. "Still, thank you for your help, Justina."

I took the empty glass from Oscar, set it on the table, and pulled the boy along:

"Let's go, Oz."

"Justina, what are these uninvited guests doing in our house?"

Cold steel pressed between my shoulder blades, and I instinctively held my breath, realizing it was a rifle.

Apparently, standing behind me was none other than Vance himself, and right now he had me in his sights.

Vance did not look like an unbalanced aggressor. Perhaps it was his bushy dark eyebrows, with gray hairs every other one, that diminished their thickness. Perhaps it was the brown freckles that abundantly covered his face, tanned from working in the sun. Or maybe the reason was his frail physique with a large belly and short legs, creating that very deceptive impression that this kindest soul of a man, who had just been fussing with a foal, couldn’t possibly be so full of rage at the world.

And yet, the gun in his hands—which completely clashed with the overall image of a balding middle-aged man in a cowboy hat with a pedigreed beauty of a wife (which, by the way, also caused utter bewilderment)—had been pointed at my back just a couple of minutes ago. Even the presence of a child didn’t seem to faze the man in the slightest.

"Darling, please, be more lenient with our guests. Show some hospitality."

Justina gave her husband a soothing, almost maternal smile and tapped the couch seat beside her, gesturing for him to sit down. But Vance paced back and forth across the room, impatiently casting scrutinizing glances at us as we settled back into our armchairs.

I felt like I was in a pen with a wild beast, one that was surveying its territory, deciding whom to start its meal with.

"I, Justina, am in no hurry to send our guests away. On the contrary, I’m asking them to stay, as I have not yet had the pleasure of getting to know them."

Vance had a small lower jaw, set far back, and at times, there was a lisping quality to his voice that was hard to mask. Though Vance tried, enunciating each word slowly. It was entirely possible that this very thing drove him into a frenzy—the necessity of constant self-control.

"Well? Speak up, what do you want?" Vance finally stopped pacing restlessly along the stained-glass windows and took his place behind his wife, slinging the rifle over his shoulder.