Sebastian said, “Maya went to throw out her clothes and saw it peeking out from underneath the insole of her shoe.”

Ron looked up from the picture. “Her shoe?”

Sebastian nodded. “She must’ve used a knife, something sharp, to cut out a space so she could hide it.”

“I know she doesn’t have any siblings. She’s an only child.”

“What about cousins?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t dig that deep. But I can, if you want me to.” Then, when Sebastian didn’t answer: “Do you want me to?”

Sebastian had made his living being able to read people. It had made him a lot of money in the real estate business, and it had kept him alive, safe, and well protected from his competitors in the blood world. His initial instincts about Paul had been correct, but he had allowed Paul to enter the business as a promise to Trixie, and he had paid for that dearly.

But he didn’t need to consult his instincts on Faye. The only reason someone went to great lengths to hide things was to keep a secret about their true, inner self from being discovered. It was basic human nature. So why was Faye hiding a picture, of all things, inside her shoe? More important, why was carrying around this picture so important to her?

What are you hiding from me, Faye?

“Dig deep,” Sebastian said. “As deep as you can without putting us at risk.”

Ron nodded. “I’ll also work my LAPD contacts, see if I can find anything.”

“Be discreet. We don’t want to tip our hand.”

Ron slid the photo into his shirt pocket. “What are you going to do with her?”

“She’s already on our side of the fence. Let’s keep her in the fold.”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

Something Frank would have said. Frank had loved all that Sun Tzu Art of War shit. “Paul has a driver. Why shouldn’t I?”

Sebastian got to his feet and took one last look at Faye. Her secrets would come out eventually. In his experience, they always did.

In Heaven as It Is on Earth

CHAPTER 32

A FEW MINUTES shy of eleven, Grace decided to call it a night. She said goodbye to her girlfriends, all of them drunk and happy and begging her to stay. Grace held firm. She didn’t want to drive home drunk. Delirium, one of LA’s hottest nightclubs, was one of the safest places to party. You didn’t have to worry about someone pricking you to find out if you were a carrier, and you didn’t have to worry about a bunch of wackos trying to storm the place to take a carrier. The club was, as one reviewer called it, “a maximum-security prison featuring outrageously overpriced drinks and outrageously beautiful people doing outrageously uninhibited things.”

The security line was long, Grace wishing she could just leave. While she appreciated the security measures the club took so everyone could party in safety, they were still a major pain in the ass. You wanted to party at Delirium, the first thing you had to do was submit an application for a background check. If it came back clean, you were then placed in a lottery where people were (supposedly) picked at random and assigned a night. If you were willing to attend on said night and could cough up a ridiculously high cover charge, you were brought inside to the security center, where you handed over your phone, wallet, and purse. There, you were given a special electronic bracelet that was hooked up to the credit or debit card you had on file. The bracelet also acted as a GPS, tracking your movements inside the club in case someone had to find you.