I realize I’ve probably said too much when Dev’s eyebrow spots go up. There’s no hair there, but that doesn’t stop his brow from moving up toward what would be a hairline on a person without alopecia.

“And uh . . . you have swords all over the place, so I guess there’s someone here with a ninja fetish.”

Thibault starts laughing, placing his hand on his stomach. “Oh my god, I can’t take it.” He stands and walks around the table with his bowl, bringing it to the sink.

“What?” I ask, looking around. “What’d I say?”

“She’s pretty observant,” says Lucky, shrugging. “Most people miss the cameras.”

I smile. “Well, I’m a photographer, so I tend to focus on those kinds of things.”

“Focus, eh? No pun intended?” asks Toni. Her expression is kind of hard to read, but I think it might be a smile. I decide then and there that I’ll always think twice before whacking her with my pee-purse.

My face flushes. “Yeah, no pun intended.” I clasp my hands hard in my lap. “So, Ozzie, are you going to tell me what happened to that hairy mess you had on your face, or what?”

Someone lets out a low whistle—Lucky, I think.

I look around. “What? Did I say something wrong?” He couldn’t possibly have liked that thing, could he?

Dev’s non-eyebrows are still at his scalp.

I frown, worried I’ve upset the kingpin. “Oh, is he sensitive about his facial hair?” I look over at Ozzie, his expression unreadable. “Were you attached to it? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. It was kind of big, though, right? And . . . puffy?”

“That beard was keeping me in that bar with those people.”

I smile. “Oh, okay. Well, then, you’re welcome.”

“No, I’m not welcome.” He glares at me.

“Oh.” My smile falls away. “So losing the beard and those people is a bad thing?” I look over at Toni. She’s nodding. This, I don’t get, because any woman in the entire world would have looked at that hairy mess and thought the same thing as I did: gross, unsanitary, and—well . . . gross. And those people back in that bar—well, one of them did shoot at us, so I can’t really see as how the loss of their friendship is that big of a deal.

“Losing the beard means losing my cover and months of work. Now we’re back to square one with the Sixth Ward.”

Again I’m back to panicking, just like that. “The Sixth Ward? As in the Sixth Ward D-Block? Isn’t that a gang?” My voice peters out at the end. I distinctly remember reading about a string of murders they were blamed for not that long ago.

“Only the most vicious one in New Orleans,” Dev says, standing up with his bowl in hand. He sounds pretty proud of that fact.

I slowly sink down in my chair. “Oh, crap. I knew this was a lair.” I wait for my sentence to be handed down. Looking at my soup causes a crazy thought to float through my head: At least I had a decent last meal.

“It’s not a lair,” says Ozzie, picking up his bread. “It’s our place of business. And we’re not gang members; we’re a private security firm. That’s all you need to know.” He bites into his food, taking more bread than I would have imagined possible.

“You ever do any freelance work?” Thibault asks me, sitting back down at the table.

“That’s all I ever do,” I say. “I’m self-employed.”

“Hmmm.” He nods his head, glancing for a second at Ozzie before continuing. “Ever do any surveillance work?”

I open my mouth to answer, but Ozzie cuts me off.

“No. She’s never done any surveillance work, and she’s not going to start.”

I sit up straighter. “Excuse me, but I’ll have you know that I have done some surveillance work.” Okay, so I’m exaggerating my history a little bit, but they’ll never know.

“Really?” Thibault says. “What kind?” Now everyone at the table is looking at me.

My face is going pink again. “I . . . uh . . . took some photos of a man cheating on his wife.” I hurry to add, “At the park,” so they won’t think I was perving out in someone’s bedroom closet or something equally distasteful.

“You bust him?” Toni asks, like she has a personal stake in my answer.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Got some great stills. Caught him red-handed, as they say.” I grin with pride. Yes, it was an embarrassing job, but sometimes when the wedding bookings and family portraits get fewer and farther between, I have to be less picky about the kind of work I do. I won’t tell them about the sexy housewife shoot I did last winter. They probably won’t get as excited about that one, and I still can’t get some of the images out of my head. The last thing I want to do is start dredging those memories up.

“You didn’t get caught?” asks Lucky.

“I find that hard to believe,” Ozzie says, not even giving me a chance to answer.

My eyebrows draw together again as I glare at the cook. “As a matter of fact, I was able to take the pictures right in front of his face.” My chin lifts with pride. “I pretended to be taking pictures of the flowers near where he was sitting. He didn’t suspect a thing.”

Lucky gestures at me with his bread. “If she was wearing that Little Bo Peep outfit, I wouldn’t suspect anything either. You know that’s our biggest problem with recruiting, Ozzie. We don’t have a single Bo Peep in the group.”

He’s grinning at me, but I don’t smile back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ozzie stands, his voice booming across the table. “It means you don’t belong here. Time to go.”

Everyone looks up at him. Dev looks especially confused. “Where’s she going to go? You said she was stuck here for a while.”

“I changed my mind.” Ozzie brings his half-full bowl to the sink, and I look at everyone around the table. “She can’t stay.”

“What’s going on?” My voice comes out as a near whisper. No one answers me. They’re all looking at Thibault.

“Time to take a vote,” says Thibault, sounding resigned.

“What exactly are we voting on?” asks Toni, glancing at me before turning her attention back to the guy who looks like her brother.

He gestures at me with his chin. “On what to do with her. Does she stay or go?”

I have difficulty swallowing when I realize that I might be witnessing my own death sentence being handed down.

CHAPTER TEN

We don’t need a vote because I say she goes.” Ozzie is back at the head of the table, but he remains standing.

“Dude, you must have been way more attached to that facial hair than you ever let on,” says Toni, giving him a slight, teasing smile.

Her brother glares at her, but she acts like she doesn’t care, shrugging and turning her back on him to face Ozzie.

“You know as well as anyone else here how long I worked to cultivate those connections. Now they’re all blown, thanks to Little Bo Peep over there, and we’re back to square one. You want to tell me how I’m going to get my hands on their list now?”

“Whose list?” I ask. The more they talk, the more interesting things are getting. So they’re not the bad guys, and yet they’re trying to infiltrate a gang? What’s up with that?

“Never mind whose list,” Ozzie says, glaring at me.

I don’t have any idea why, but when he does that, it makes me smile. Instead of holding back, I just let the lights bounce off my pearly whites. He reminds me of his dog—all scary and blustery, but really just a giant couch pillow for a tiny dog when all’s said and done. I’ll bet his stomach would make a great headrest during a movie.

Say what? Did I just really think that?

I must be losing my mind. It’s probably from lack of calories. I take a big spoonful of soup, just in case.

“It’s a list of gang members with their contact info and stats,” says Dev.