“His bodyguard.” I paused. “Former bodyguard, who may not be any happier with you, considering you blew off half his foot.”

“I’m going to offer to defend him.”

I glanced over. “Seriously?”

“He will be more forthcoming with his lawyer, and he might be able to tell me whom Chandler would hire to put that body in your car. As for his foot . . .” He shrugged. “It was business. He was acting on his employer’s behalf; I was acting on my client’s. I’m sure he’ll see reason.”

“Good luck with it.”

“Luck has nothing to do with that. He will hire me, and I will find out everything he knows about Edgar Chandler’s associates.”

—

My dad kept the labeled keys for his car collection in a garage safe. I was grabbing the set for the Jetta when Gabriel reached past me and took the ones for the Maserati.

I sighed. “I almost hope that means you’re taking the car hostage pending payment of your bill. Otherwise, I believe we’ve already had this conversation, and—”

“And you’re taking the Jetta. For now. I accept that decision, even if I think it’s foolish. This”—he dangled the keys—“is temporary. We’re going for a ride.”

“We are?”

“I have a long night ahead of me. I’d like a coffee, and I suspect the Maserati will get me one faster than the Jetta.”

I could have pointed out that the short walk to the house would get him one even faster. As might his own car, waiting in the drive. But I looked at the keys, considering. He dangled them again, as if to say, “You want this—I know you do.”

“When’s the last time you took it out?” he asked.

My smile evaporated. “Not since my dad—”

Gabriel cut in before I could go there. “Then you should take it for a spin. Cars like that shouldn’t be left in storage. It causes mechanical issues. With brakes and tires and engines and such.”

My smile returned. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you?”

“Not a word.”

This wasn’t about getting a coffee. It was about getting me out of my post-Pamela funk. So I took the keys and waved him to the passenger seat.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I put the top down and whipped along my favorite roads, ones where the danger—of cops or traffic or, most important, kids—was minimal and I could put the hammer down and go. People used to joke that I’d inherited my father’s love for fast cars. Some of my earliest memories were of being out with him in this very car, me in my booster seat, straining against the harness like a dog with its nose out the window, feeling the rush of wind, closing my eyes and imagining I was flying.

It was a rush like no other. Okay, when I was seventeen I discovered a rush I liked just as well, but that’s altogether different. Or maybe not so different—the adrenaline rush, the descent into the absolutely physical, where nothing else mattered except what I felt. And what I felt was glorious. That evening, it knocked every vestige of hurt from my brain, and when I grinned over at Gabriel, he granted me a rare smile in return.

After about twenty minutes of roaring around, I slowed and said, “There’s a place up here where we can grab you a coffee.”

“Does it have your mochas?”

“Nope. Straight-up coffee, which is fine—”

“Go someplace else, then. Get your mocha. We have time.”

Another grin for him before I veered around the corner and sped off again.

—

After we got our coffees, Gabriel suggested we walk for a bit to stretch our legs. Stretch his legs, I’m guessing—my dad was six-two, and I remember him complaining about the Spyder’s lack of legroom.

“Can I ask what Pamela talked to you about?” I said as we set out. “She said some things that made me worry it might not be a business chat.”

“It was. She hired me back.”

I stopped short. “Really?”

“Moreover, she will complete payment of her past-due bill first thing tomorrow, along with a sizable retainer.”

I gaped at him. Pamela had money—a healthy inheritance—with nothing to spend it on. Yet she hadn’t paid her initial bill. She claimed Gabriel screwed her over, but I suspect after their falling-out over the failed appeal she’d known withholding payment was the best revenge. That was why Gabriel came to me in the first place, hoping to recoup his losses. She’d been slowly paying him back as he’d helped me. Now, minutes after claiming she was still lawyer-shopping, she’d not only hired him but repaid him?

“You know your mother and I don’t get along,” he said.

“To put it mildly.”

“But I do feel the need to give her some credit here, and say that I think this is her way of apologizing for lying about the omens. That does not excuse the lie but proves she isn’t actively trying to thwart you, Olivia. Pamela and I have our differences, but I don’t question her attachment to you. If she won’t speak of the omens, she has a reason. I agree, however, that despite her olive branch here, you are correct to refrain from visiting until she agrees to discuss it. But it is an olive branch. She knows you want me on this case.”

“But she also knows she’d be an idiot not to hire you back. She was just toying with you.”

“Yes, she would have eventually rehired me. Then we’d have spent a week dickering, as I insisted on repayment and a retainer. The fact she offered both willingly indicates it is an apology to you.”

“Okay.”

“It also means I can put you to work on her case. It will be part of your job with me. A large part once the police investigation slows and I begin the appeal in earnest. At that point, you may find it difficult to continue at the diner—”

I shot him a look.

“I said, ‘at that point.’” He slowed at the corner, hand going against my back as if to stop me from running into nonexistent traffic. “I even qualified it with ‘may.’”

I shook my head. He wanted me to quit the diner, namely so I’d be at his beck and call for research. I refused so I wouldn’t be beholden to him for my entire income.

As we walked, we discussed our next move on the Larsens’ case.

My birth parents had been convicted of killing four young couples in what was presumed to be some kind of ritual. The murders themselves had been swift strangulations. No sex. No torture. No sign that the victims even had time to realize what was going on. It was only after their deaths that those “ritualistic elements” took shape. Five things had been done to the corpses. A symbol had been carved into each thigh and another painted with woad on the stomachs. For the women, a twig of mistletoe pierced the symbol on their stomachs. They all had a stone in their mouths and a section of skin removed from their backs.