Growing up in San Francisco, it’s only natural that I know how to surf. Still, it’s been eleven years since I rode these waves. Eight since I stood on a board in San Diego, near the base. At one time, some people called me an expert, too.

My experience with deep, frigid waters and sweeping currents certainly helped when it came to passing the intensive tests that are required to become a SEAL. Tests that only twenty percent of candidates ever pass. I blew through the basic physical requirements. In the intensive twenty-four-week-long BUD/S training program, I led my group for time in the physical conditioning and combat diving phases.

For a sport that I enjoyed so much, I’m surprised I’ve forgotten it so easily. I watch that surfer now with a small amount of envy, and promise myself that, when this assignment is over, I’ll coast on a barrel wave again.

Ivy has dismissed the surfer already and is now flipping pages over in her sketchbook, her hair fluttering around her with the soft breeze. Her head’s down and she has seemingly shut out everything around her. After a full night of spray-painting walls, I don’t know how she has any desire to draw, but I guess that’s why I’m not an artist. My creativity is limited to how I’m going to get past security gates and passcodes and barking dogs without being identified.

I simply lean against a lightpost and watch as she sketches from that rock for half an hour, as the sun rises farther in the sky and people in brightly colored latex outfits pass her, out for their morning jog—some alone, some in groups, some with dogs who veer off path with noses pointed toward her—until she closes her book, tucks it under her arm, and trudges through the sand toward her car.

Not until I’ve watched her drag her feet up the stairs of her home, her energy finally spent, do I leave her for my own rented bed.

“Yeah,” I say into the receiver, my eyes shut against the beam of midmorning sunlight shining directly on me. The thin and tattered cotton curtain hanging over the window is pointless for both shade and decoration.

“What’s the update?”

I sigh. “Negative for the house.”

“You’ve searched everywhere?” Bentley pants into the receiver. I assume he’s on his treadmill. The guy always loved going for a morning run.

“Top to bottom.”

“Dammit,” he mutters under his breath.

I reach over my head to pinch and tug at the lifted wallpaper seam until it begins to tear away, waiting for Bentley to say something. If he’s going to annoy me by checking up daily like this, then he can be the one putting effort into the conversation. And if he pisses me off enough, I can just go back to Greece.

Except I’m not going to do that, because for some stupid reason, I already feel a vested interest in making sure that video is found and nothing happens to Ivy in the process. Because even though I don’t have evidence for this, I have a gut feeling that she’s completely innocent.

“What’s your next move?”

“The shop. And her.”

“Keep me informed. If nothing turns up today, I’ll bring in help for you.”

“What? No.” My stomach tightens instantly. “You know I work alone.”

“And you know that this tape needs to be found or we’re all fucked!” he snaps. “This job of yours? Any future assignments? You can kiss it all good-bye.” He pauses, and when he speaks again, his tone is more calm. “They’ll be there to help turn over rocks.”

“I thought you said you didn’t want any more people involved?”

“I don’t. These two are the idiots who helped make the mess, so now they’re going to help clean it up.”

The two guys who killed Royce and Ivy’s uncle. Great.

“They’ll stay out of your way with the girl. I agree, it’s best you work on her alone.”

The dial tone fills my ear and I realize that he’s hung up on me. Tossing the phone onto the bed next to me, I simply lie there for a moment, listening to car doors slam and horns honk from down below. It’s cool outside, but that doesn’t translate in here, with the poor air circulation. The air duct on the wall across from me is meant for air-conditioning, but it’s being used for nothing more than the hidden camera that I found in my preliminary search, expecting as much. I covered it with a piece of cardboard for privacy and left it at that. The scrawny forty-year-old male receptionist downstairs doesn’t need to be jerking off to the sight of my unconscious naked body, but I’m not going to say shit about it, just like he’s not going to say anything about the torn wallpaper.

I give my forehead a hard rub, an annoyed whisper of “Fuck . . .” slipping out of my mouth. Bringing those two guys in means that they could connect me to this. I’m usually far removed from Alliance and for good reason. This is a mistake on Bentley’s part, but it’s his call. He must be desperate.

I reach up and pull another chunk off. Something to kill time with while I wait to resume the search for this damning video confession.

And see Ivy.

ELEVEN

IVY

I jump at the sound of knuckles hitting glass.

The shade is pulled down, so I can’t be sure that it’s him. And as much as I’d love to not care whether it is, I already know that if I go to the door and find anyone besides Sebastian standing there, I’m going to be royally disappointed.

We never agreed on a time yesterday, thanks to Bobby, something I realized when my eyes cracked open at noon. So I threw on some clothes and rushed to my car, telling myself that I was in a hurry only because I’d already wasted enough of the day sleeping and still had plenty to do at Black Rabbit.

Really, it’s because I didn’t want to miss Sebastian.

If he’s coming back, that is. And I so desperately need him to, so I can prove to myself that my reaction to working on Bobby yesterday was an anomaly—an insidious after-effect of Ned’s horrific death and nothing that will stop me from inking people permanently.

Forcing myself to walk at an extra-slow pace, so as not to appear overeager, I make my way to the door and peer out from behind the shade.

My heart skips a beat at the sight of Sebastian.

And I’m instantly disappointed in myself. I can’t be having this kind of a reaction to a guy who lives in a city I’m about to leave. “Sebastian.”

His intense gaze is hidden behind reflective aviators today. I can see myself in them. My bright, wide eyes. I’m not hiding my eagerness very well.

“Ivy.” Even through the closed door, his voice is so deep, so even, so instantly soothing to me, that it sends a shiver down my back. No one should be able to elicit that kind of reaction by just saying my name.

I turn the dead bolt and open the door for him.

He steps past me, and suddenly Black Rabbit doesn’t seem as eerie and lonely anymore. Just his presence swallows up some of the anxiety that’s been hanging over me.

He inhales deeply. “You like that scent, don’t you?”

I use the excuse of locking the door to turn my back on him and hide my reddened cheeks. There’s nothing cheaper than a woman who wears too much perfume, and it doesn’t matter how much she paid for the bottle. Or how much her friend paid for the bottle, in this case. Still half-asleep, I must have gone a little overboard with it before I left the house, if he’s commenting on it now.

“We’re doing this in the back room, I gather?” His sharp raptor gaze sizes up the shop in a very calculated way. I worked double time all afternoon, both to keep my idle hands and mind busy while I waited, and because the painters are coming first thing tomorrow morning. There’s nothing much left here, except a few cardboard boxes and a thousand thumb tacks, where Ned had pinned up old newspaper clippings and pictures. I’m probably the least sentimental person on the planet when it comes to material things, and yet I can’t bear to throw them out, so they’re now neatly piled in a box. Maybe someday I’ll put them in an album.