"We cannot go to Montana for winter break," Cam said. "We already have other plans."

"Yo, no trespassing," Alex said angrily. "I am sooo sorry I ever taught you how to break into my mind. And I wasn't obsessing. I was just thinking about that disgusting weasel, Ike — "

Isaac Fielding, or Ike, was the creep Alex's mom had been married to at the time of Alex's adoption. He was part of the package, just one of the two toxic things that came with Sara. Like the cigarettes that had killed her, Ike was poisonous and cost way too much. He had disappeared when Alex was in grade school, taking all of Sara's money and leaving a pile of debts she could never pay off.

Now he was back.

Now, months after Sara's death, just when Alex had finally agreed to become the legal ward of David and Emily Barnes, the trustworthy twosome who'd reared Cam. Now, when Cam's adoptive parents were in the final stages of becoming Alexandra Fielding's legal guardians.

Dave was a lawyer, Emily an interior designer. They lived in a classy neighborhood in the cutesy town of Marble Bay, Massachusetts. And they'd already filed the papers requesting legal guardianship. Nothing stood in their way - except suddenly, Ike.

Drawn by the smell of money, like a rat to cheese, Ike had crept out of his hiding place and was hungry for handouts. By way of a lawyer's letter, Mr. Isaac Fielding was challenging the Barnses' petition for guardianship, claiming that he, as Alex's adoptive father, was her legal custodian.

Cam was right. Alex had been obsessing. She'd found out that Ike had recently been seen around Crow Creek. And Alex couldn't get the idea out of her head that she ought to visit her old Montana hometown and have a little chat with Daddy Dearest...