I replayed the message again. What was a shi-sadu? And what was the deal with her cryptic You don't even know what you are? What could Alina possibly have meant by that?

By my third run-through, I knew the message by heart.

I also knew that there was no way I could play it for Mom and Dad. Not only would it drive them further off the deep end (if there was a deeper end than the one they were currently off), but they'd probably lock me in my room and throw away the key. I couldn't see them taking any chances with their remaining child.

But… if I went to Dublin and played it for the police, they'd have to reopen her case, wouldn't they? This was a bona fide lead. If Alina had been in love with someone, she would have been seen with him at some point, somewhere. At school, at her apartment, at work, somewhere. Somebody would know who he was.

And if the mystery man wasn't her killer, surely he was the key to discovering who was. After all, he was "one of them."

I frowned.

Whoever or whatever 'they' were.

CHAPTER 2

I quickly learned that it was one thing to think about going to Dublin and demanding justice for my sister—and entirely another to find myself standing there in the jet-lagged flesh, across an ocean, four thousand miles from home.

But standing there I was, in rapidly deepening dusk, on a cobbled street in the heart of a foreign city, watching my taxi drive away, surrounded by people speaking a version of English that was virtually unintelligible, trying to come to terms with the fact that, although there were more than a million inhabitants in and around the city, I didn't know a single soul.