Peculiar, Missouri. You can’t make these things up.

Megan opened the door, nodded to her brother, looked up at me and said, “You’re him. You’re the wizard.” Her eyes narrowed. “Your… your car broke down. And you think the name of our town is a bad joke…” She nodded, like a musician who has picked up on a beat and a chord progression. “And you think this probably isn’t a supernatural problem.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “You’re one hell of a sensitive.”

She nodded. “You were expecting someone who was good at cold reading.”

“A lot of professional psychics are,” I said. I smiled. “So are you.”

She arched an eyebrow at me.

“There’s at least a fair chance that if someone is late to what is perceived as an important appointment that car trouble is to blame, particularly if they show up in a rental car. Most people who hadn’t grown up around a town named Peculiar would think the name was odd.” I grinned at her. “And gosh. A lot of professional investigators are just a tad cynical.”

Her expression broke and she laughed. “Apparently.” She turned from me and kissed her brother on the cheek. “Ben.”

“Meg.”

“Child services was here again today,” she said, her tone neutral.

“Dammit,” Yardly said. “How’s Kat?”

She waggled a hand in the air, but her face suddenly aged ten years. “The same.”

“Meg, the doctors-”

“Not again, Ben,” she said, closing her eyes briefly. She shook her head once, and Yardly shut his jaws with an audible click. Megan looked down at the ground for a moment and then up at me. “So. Harry Dresden. High Mucketymuck of the White Council.”

“Actually,” I said, “I’m a fairly low mucketymuck. Or maybe a mucketymuck militant. High mucketymucks-”

“Wouldn’t come to Peculiar?”

“You’re really into interruption, aren’t you?” I said, smiling. “I was going to say, they wouldn’t have a problem with their car.”