“Pay me,” she retorted.

He shook his head, not as if he were denying her, more as if he were trying to shake off a concussion. He glanced around the condo, saw the open suitcase piled with clothes, the cardboard box she’d loaded up with nonperishables from her kitchen: cereal, canned soup, boxed mac and cheese. She knew how to cook but never seemed to get around to it.

“You’re moving,” he said. “Too bad. This is a nice place.”

“It’s okay.” It was more than okay. And it would be hers to keep if she gave up and went back to her old job. But she didn’t want to do online promotions for motor oil or deal with one-star reviews because a customer’s replacement ignition coil failed. That kind of work had sucked out her soul.

He picked up Oinky. “Nice pig.”

She fought the urge to snatch her pig away. “School mascot.”

He took Oinky with him as he sat uninvited on her cocoa-colored sofa. Compared with Officer Hottie’s pumped-up calendar-boy gorgeousness, Graham was rougher at the edges—the planes of his face more rugged, a battle scar on his forehead, another on the side of his jaw. That cleft chin. He was hard as nails, despite the hand clasping her pig. In times of war, Graham would be the commander men followed into battle. In peacetime, he led his team to glory. All in all, a man not to be trifled with.

“Keith and I’ve been friends since college,” he said. “I trusted him as much as I’ve ever trusted anyone.”

“Your mistake.” But there was something about the slump in those big warrior’s shoulders, the burnished shadow in his wolf’s eyes that got to her.

“Don’t let yourself get sucked in,” Duke had said. “Every jackass has a sad story.”

The sandwich had crumbled in her fingers. She dropped it untouched in the trash. “You’re not the first employer who’s been ripped off by a trusted employee. It happens all the time.”

He curled his hand around the ankle he’d hooked over his knee. “I should have seen what was going on.”

“Your so-called security people should have seen. That’s why you hired them. But they’re probably taking a cut.”

His head came up, and he bristled with hostility. “My security people are top-notch.”

She gave him a faintly pitying look. “So rich and yet so dumb.” It felt good to see what he couldn’t. “The reality is that you’re so used to everybody bowing and scraping that you don’t understand most people only show you their best side. You’ve forgotten how many creeps there are. All your fame has made you a babe in the woods when it comes to living in the real world.”

She expected a hot dispute. Instead, he set her pig aside and drilled her with his eyes. “Who hired you to follow me?”

She steeled herself. “That’s confidential. Don’t ask me again.”

He uncoiled from the couch. “Let me get this straight. Even though I have the best lawyers in the city on your ass, and even though your two-bit detective agency is barely surviving—yeah, I did some investigating of my own—you’re still not giving me the name of your client, is that right?”

She had to hold her ground, no matter how much she wanted to cave. “What part of ‘unethical’ don’t you understand?”

“Oh, I understand, all right. So let me put it another way. Turn over the name, and I’ll hire you myself.”

She gaped at him. “For what?”

“For your suspicious nature. I’m a fast learner. It’s obvious I need another set of eyes in the club. Just for a couple of weeks. Someone who can see what I’ve been missing. Security to check on my security, if you will.”

This was her dream job. Exactly what she needed right now—a client with deep pockets offering work that would be both interesting and challenging. Her head spun. There was only one catch. A big one. “And all I have to do is . . .”

“Turn over the name of your client.”

At that moment, Piper hated Deidre Joss. Deidre’s stubborn insistence on anonymity was going to ruin Piper. She should just tell him the truth.

But she couldn’t. She stalked across the carpet to the door, fighting the ache in her chest. “Nice talking with you, Mr. Graham. Too bad you have to leave.”

“You’re not going to do it?”

The urge to give him the name he wanted was so strong she had to clench her teeth. “I don’t have your money, or your power, or your fame, but I’ve got ethics.” Ethics. She’d never hated a word more.

“Once you step over the line, you can never step back. Remember that.”

Duke had probably been talking about sex, but the fact was, if she gave in on this, she’d be giving away her self-respect, and she wouldn’t do that for anything or anyone.

Graham came closer, dangling the golden carrot. “Think of all the money you could make on this job . . .”

“Believe me, I am!” She flung open the door. “I did you a favor. Now do me a favor and get out of here so I can finish packing and move into my cousin’s shitty basement and come up with another way to stay in business without selling my soul.”

The sadistic bastard grinned. A big grin that took over his rugged face. “You’re hired.”

“Are you deaf? I told you! I’m not selling out my client.”

“That’s why you’re hired. Meet me at my condo tomorrow morning at ten. I believe you know where it is.”

And that was that.

***

Piper awoke at dawn the next morning, her mind still reeling from what had happened. After downing two cups of black coffee, she settled on wearing her khaki skirt, a short-sleeved army-green T-shirt printed with a red scorpion, and her scuffed brown ankle-high booties. Semiprofessional without looking as if she was trying to impress him.

She was ready too early, so she killed time by detouring to Lincoln Square and stopping in at the few places that were open. Not surprisingly, nobody recognized the photo of Howard that Berni had given her. Because he was dead.

As Jen had forecast, it was unseasonably warm for late September, and Piper kept the windows down on her way to Lakeview. At exactly two minutes before ten, she parked in one of the three allotted visitor spaces in the alley behind his residence.

Once part of a Catholic seminary, the brick building had sat empty for years before it was converted into three luxury condos. Graham owned the two-story penthouse, while a local real estate titan and a Hollywood actor with Chicago roots owned the other two units.