“Is there anything else you’d like to know about me?” Ellie asked.

She waited, relaxed, hands folded on her lap.

“I need you to reach out to someone this morning,” Sebastian said. “Her name is Candice Jackson. She’s slightly older than you—mid-thirties—and worked as a contracts lawyer for some prominent firm downtown. She had a short-term romantic relationship with Paul.”

“When was this?”

“Sometime last year. I don’t know the particulars—don’t know anything, quite frankly. What I need you to do is talk to her, find out if she knows anything about where Paul might be. Or Bradley Guidry.”

Sebastian handed her a photo of a twenty-something guy wearing a bathing suit and smiling at the camera. He had a blond crew cut and a tan, and while he was nowhere near as tall or as muscular as Paul, the guy had almost no body fat and looked, to use one of Cody’s terms, “absolutely shredded.”

“How does Paul know him?” Ellie asked.

“They worked together overseas. Contract work. Military. They were both Marines.”

Ellie leaned back in her chair and studied him.

“Something on your mind?” he asked.

“I know about you and Ava Lewis,” Ellie said. “I looked you up online. She was mentioned in the article about your sentencing years ago.”

Sebastian said nothing.

“And I know about what happened to her daughter, Grace,” Ellie said. “Paul has her, doesn’t he?”

“He does. Which is why I need you to make contact with Candice Jackson.”

Sebastian, Ellie felt, was grasping at straws. After all these months of being hunted, Paul still kept eluding him. “Why did it end? Their relationship.”

“It’s my understanding that something happened between them—something, I’m told, that scared her. She came back to LA last night, after a long time away.”

“Have your people spoken to her about Paul?”

“No. No one has. But I’m willing to bet she’ll talk to you.”

“Because I’m a woman.”

Sebastian nodded. “You’re going to approach her under the guise that you were, until recently, romantically involved with Paul—in a serious relationship, possibly talking about marriage. You’re reaching out to her because Paul has disappeared and won’t return your phone calls or texts, and you’re heartbroken.”

“And when Jackson asks how I got her name?”

“You’ll tell her Paul had talked about her—you and Paul had discussed past relationships—and you wanted to reach out to her because you’re desperate, wanting to know where he went, why he left you high and dry.”

“I’ll tell her I’m seeing a therapist—a female therapist. That she recommended I reach out to her to seek closure. I need to move on but can’t, not until I find and confront Paul.”

Sebastian pursed his lips, nodded. “I like that,” he said. “I’ll give you her home address. She’s there right now.”

So Sebastian had people watching her. Ellie said, “You don’t expect me to just show up on her doorstep unannounced, do you?”

“Under normal circumstances, I’d tell you to take your time—follow her for a bit, see what you can find out about her, approach her when the time feels right. But these aren’t normal circumstances, for reasons you now know. Why are you shaking your head?”