I nodded.

“I think he’s dead,” Derek O’Bannion told me. “And I’m going to kill the fuck that did it.”

I nodded again.

“He was my brother.”

I nodded a third time. “My sister was murdered,” I blurted.

His gaze sharpened with new interest. I was suddenly more in his eyes than another flirty, pretty girl. “Then you understand vengeance,” he said softly.

“I understand vengeance,” I agreed.

“Call me anytime, Mac,” he said. “I think I like you.”

I watched him leave in silence.

When the door closed behind him, I raced to the bathroom, locked myself in, and leaned back against the door, where I stood staring at myself in the mirror trying to reconcile dual images.

I was hunting the monster that had killed my sister.

I was the monster that had killed his brother.

When I came out of the bathroom, I glanced around, relieved to find no customers had entered the store. I’d forgotten to slap one of the Back in five minutes signs that I’d made up yesterday to cover my bathroom breaks on the front door.

I hurried now to turn over the sign. Once again I was closing early. Barrons was just going to have to deal with it. It wasn’t much early, and it wasn’t like he needed the money.

As I flipped the placard, I made the mistake of glancing out the window.

It was nearly dark, that time of day folks around these parts call “gloaming,” or twilight, when the day gently bruises into night.

And I was unable to decide which was worse: Inspector Jayne sitting on a bench a few doors down to the right not even pretending to be reading the newspaper he held; the black-shrouded specter standing directly across the street, watching me from beneath the ashy shadows of a dimly flickering streetlamp; or Derek O’Bannion exiting a shop two doors down, turning left, and heading straight into the Dark Zone.

“Where the hell have you been?” Barrons yanked open the cab door and pried me out with a hand around my upper arm. My feet left the ground for a moment.

“Don’t start with me,” I growled. Shaking off his grip, I pushed past him. Inspector Jayne’s cab was just pulling up behind me. I wonder if he missed his family yet. I hoped he’d get tired of me soon and go home.

“I’m getting you a cell phone, Ms. Lane,” he barked at my back. “You will carry it at all times, like the spear. You will do nothing without it. Need I remind you of all the things you won’t be doing without it?”

I told him where he could put my as-yet-unpurchased cell phone—the sun didn’t shine there and I didn’t call it by a flower’s name—and stomped into the store.

He stomped in after me. “Have you forgotten the dangers out there in the Dublin night, Ms. Lane? Shall we go for a little walk?” Once before when he’d thought I was being intractable he’d threatened to drag me into the Dark Zone at night. Tonight, I was too numb to care. Dead bolts rang out like bullets against steel as he slammed them home. “Have you forgotten your purpose here, Ms. Lane?”

“How could I?” I said bitterly. “Every time I try to, something worse happens.”

I was halfway to the connecting doors when he caught me and spun me around. He gave me a furious once-over that seemed to get tangled up for a moment on the crystal dangling between my breasts. Or was it my breasts? “And there you are, dressed like a two-bit floozy, going out for a drink. What the fuck were you thinking? Were you thinking?”

“Two-bit floozy? Get with the times, Barrons. I don’t look like a two-bit anything. In fact, I’m positively overdressed by lots of people’s standards these days, and certainly wearing more than that stupid little black dress you made me wear when we—” I broke off; where I’d worn that skimpy halter dress was hitting too close to home right now. “And for the record,” I said stiffly, “I did not go out for a drink.”

“Don’t lie to me, Ms. Lane. I smell it on you. And other things. Who was the man?” His dark, exotic face was cold. His nostrils flared and constricted like an animal scenting prey.

Barrons has extraordinary senses. I’d not had even the tiniest sip of alcohol. “I said I didn’t have a drink,” I repeated. I’d had an awful night, one of the absolute worst of my life.

“You had something. What was it?” he demanded.

“An alcohol-laced kiss,” I said tightly. “Two, to be precise.” But only because I hadn’t moved fast enough to avoid the second one. I turned away, hating myself, hating my choices.

His hand shot out and closed on my shoulder. He spun me back to him with such vehemence that I might have whirled in dizzying toplike circles if he hadn’t caught me by the shoulders. He seemed to realize he was holding me too hard at the precise moment I was about to snap at him, and his fingers relaxed on my skin, but his body seemed to doubly absorb the tension. His gaze dropped to my necklace again, to its soft cushion between my breasts. “From who?”

“From whom, I believe is the correct phrasing.”

“All right, from-the-fuck-whom, Ms. Lane?”

“Derek O’Bannion. Any other questions?”

He regarded me a moment, then a slow half-smile curved his lips. Just as O’Bannion had earlier, he suddenly seemed to find me much more interesting. “Well, well.” He brushed the pad of his thumb across my mouth, then cupped my chin and angled my face back up to the light, searching my eyes. For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me himself, to taste the complexity and complicity of me. Or was that duplicity? “And you were kissing the brother of the man you killed—why?” he murmured silkily.

“I didn’t kill him,” I said bitterly. “You killed him without my permission.”

“Ballocks, Ms. Lane,” he said. “If I’d asked you that night if you wanted him dead so you could be safe, you’d have said yes.”

I remembered that night. I would remember it forever. I’d been freaked out by the rapidity with which my life was unraveling, terrified of Rocky O’Bannion, and fully aware that if we didn’t do something about him, he was going to do something very bad and no doubt unspeakably painful to me. I have no delusions about my ability to withstand torture. Barrons was right. I would have said “Do whatever you have to do to keep me safe.” But I didn’t have to like it. And I didn’t have to admit it.

I turned and walked away.

“I want you to go to the Ancient Languages Department at Trinity College tomorrow morning, Ms. Lane.”

I drew up like he’d yanked my leash, and scowled up at the ceiling. Was something Cosmic up there playing tricks on me? Was the whole universe in on a great big let’s-mess-with-Mac joke? The Ancient Languages Department was the only place in all of Dublin I’d made a mental note never to go. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Why?”

“Forget it,” I muttered. “What do you want me to do there?”

“Ask for a woman named Elle Masters. She’ll have an envelope for you.”

“Why don’t you go get it yourself?” What did he do all day?

“I’m busy tomorrow.”

“So, go get it tonight.”

“She won’t have it until morning.”

“Then have her send it by courier.”

“Who’s the employer here, Ms. Lane?”

“Who’s the OOP detector?”

“Is there some reason you don’t want to go to the university?”

“No.” I was in no mood to talk about dreamy-eyed guys and dates I could never have.

“Then what, Ms. Lane, is your problem?”

“Shouldn’t I be afraid the Lord Master might get me while I’m out and about?”

“Were you worrying about that tonight when you were letting Derek O’Bannion shove his tongue down your throat?”

I stiffened. “He was walking into the Dark Zone, Barrons.”

“So? One less problem for us.”

I shook my head. “I’m not you, Barrons. I’m not dead inside.”

His smile was ten shades of ice. “So what did you do? Run after him and offer yourself on a silver platter to get him to turn around?”