He’d stacked canvases against the walls, dozens of them. She wanted to ask him what inspired him to paint them, then stack them up that way. What he did with them all, if anything. But it didn’t seem like the right time for questions.

Then she saw the mermaid.

“Oh God, she’s beautiful. And terrifying. Terrifying in the way real beauty can be. She won’t save them, will she? She’s no Ariel looking for love, wishing for legs. The sea’s the only lover she needs or wants. She’ll watch them drown. If one makes it to her rock, it might be worse for him than drowning. And still the last thing he’ll see is beauty.”

She wanted to touch that sinuous, iridescent tail, had to put her hand behind her back to stop herself.

“What do you call it?”

“She Waits.”

“It’s perfect. Just perfect. Who’ll buy this, I wonder? And will they see what you painted, or just see the beautiful mermaid on the rocks over a stormy sea?”

“It depends on what they want to see.”

“Then they’re not really looking. And that distracted me. No one’s here anymore. She came, she’s gone.” Lila turned back to see Ash watching her. “We should call the police.”

“And tell them what, exactly? That we smelled perfume, which will have faded before they get here anyway? Nothing’s out of place, not that I can tell.”

“She took things from Julie’s. She probably took something. Just little things. Souvenirs, the prizes in the box, however she thinks of it. But that’s not as important, is it?”

“No. She wasn’t looking for you here, but she was looking for something. What did Oliver have that she wants? She wouldn’t have found it here.”

“Which means she’ll keep looking. I’m not the one who needs to be careful, Ash. You are.”

Seven

Maybe she had a point, but he still walked her back to the apartment, went through the apartment room by room before he left her alone.

Then he walked home half hoping someone would try something. He was in the mood to give a hell of a something back—even if it was a woman, as Julie claimed, wearing designer shoes and sporting an ankle tat.

Whoever had killed his brother—or had, at least, been an accessory to the murders—had come into his home, past his pretty damn good security, walked through it much, he imagined, as Lila had.

Free, clear.

And didn’t that mean someone was watching him? Didn’t the woman have to know her way was free and clear? And more, hadn’t she known to get out again? She’d been there literally minutes before he’d come in with Lila. The perfume would have faded, wouldn’t it, with a little more time?

The tally to date? Two murders, two break-ins, and certainly some sort of surveillance.

What the hell had Oliver gotten himself into?

Not gambling this time, not drugs. Neither fit. What once-in-a-lifetime deal, what big score had Oliver wrangled?

Whatever it was, it had died with him. This woman, whoever she worked with or for, could watch him all she wanted, could search all she wanted. She’d find nothing because he had nothing.

Nothing but a dead brother, a grieving family and a world of guilt and fury.

He let himself back into his loft. He’d change the security code—whatever good that would do. And he supposed he’d have the company come back in, beef it up.

But for now, he should spend some time trying to figure out if his unwelcome visitor had taken any souvenirs.

He stood a moment, dragged both hands through his hair. A big space, he thought. He liked having a big space, plenty of room to spread out, to designate purposes. And to accommodate various members of his family.

Now he had to go through it, knowing someone had slipped through the locks.

It took him more than an hour to come up with a short, strange list of missing items.

The bath salts his mother particularly liked, the earrings his sister (half sister, mother’s second marriage) left behind when she and their mother had stayed for a night a few weeks earlier, the little stained-glass sun catcher his sister (stepsister, father’s fourth marriage) made for him one Christmas, and a pair of hammered silver cuff links, still in their little blue box from Tiffany.

She hadn’t bothered with the cash, which he imagined she found in his desk drawer. Just a few hundred, but why wouldn’t she take cash? Bath salts, but not cash.

Too impersonal? he considered. Not as appealing?

Who the f**k knew?

Restless, unsettled, he went up to his studio. He couldn’t work on the mermaid—his mood was all wrong—but he studied it, thinking how Lila had expressed his thoughts, his feelings about the painting almost exactly. He hadn’t expected she’d see what he did, much less understand it.

He hadn’t expected to be fascinated by her. A woman with gypsy eyes who pulled out a hefty multi-tool like another might a tube of lipstick—and who used it just as casually. One who shared his own vision of an unfinished painting and offered comfort to a stranger.

A woman who wrote about teenage werewolves and had no place of her own—by choice.

Maybe she was right, maybe he didn’t quite have her number.

But he would, once he painted her.

Thinking of that, of her, he set up another easel and began to prep a canvas.

Lila stood outside Ash’s loft, studying it in the bright light of day. It looked ordinary, she thought. Just an old brick building a few steps above street level. Anyone passing it might think, as she had, that it held maybe a half dozen apartments.

Nice ones, you might think, snapped up by young professionals after the downtown flavor.

In reality, it was nothing of the kind. In reality, he’d created a home that reflected exactly who and what he was. An artist, a family man. One who combined those two parts, and could create the room to seamlessly accommodate both exactly as he wished.

That, to her mind, took a clear eye and considerable self-awareness. Ashton Archer, she thought, knew exactly who he was and what he wanted.

And for reasons that made no sense whatsoever, he wanted to paint her.

She walked up, pressed the buzzer.

He was probably home. Didn’t he have to work? She should be working, but she just couldn’t focus. Now she was very likely interrupting his work, and really, she could’ve just sent him a text to—

“What?”

She literally jumped at the terse syllable—a very clear accusation—snapping through the speaker.