“I’m not checking up on you,” I snapped, but actually, I hadn’t realized it until just that moment, maybe I kind of was. I adopted an aloof tone, to try to play it off. “Besides, if I was, it would be fair payback, don’t you think? You’ve checked on me until I wanted to jump off a bridge just to get rid of you, if I wasn’t afraid you’d follow me down.”

He winced. “Ouch.”

“Just a joke,” I mumbled, still feeling awkward. I hated having to explain my feelings. Gross. “Actually, it is kind of a new thing. I know you don’t remember much, but we were kind of working as a team. I’m used to you, is all. You’re like a . . . purse. Or a pair of shoes that I’ve broken in.”

“I’m remembering more every day, just like they said I would,” he said, ignoring the last. He set the coffee on the hood of my car and crossed his arms, staring intensely at the asphalt while he talked. “This morning, out of nowhere, I remembered doing some kind of photo shoot with you. And I remember being in a warehouse with you, and a safe full of cash.” His brow furrowed. “And I remember you wearing a sexy black formal, but I don’t know why.”

I felt my face blush at the word sexy, the gravel around our feet rippling with violet. “Estate auction,” I said. “Same one where I bought the painting. We were looking for the cane that killed Peyton.”

He nodded. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. I think I remember that, too. You dropped the painting in the parking lot.”

“Sort of.” I hesitated, but then decided to go on. “I dropped it when Jones tried to run us over.”

“And he’s the one who owned the truck Luna got away in.”

“Right. But he definitely wasn’t the one driving. She was using him,” I said. “Which is why it’s so important to me to find her now. If she’s using my own people against me, who knows what she’s capable of?” I thought of poor Jones, crumpling to the floor in Tesori Antico. “And she needs to pay for what she’s done. I want this to be over. She should be in prison.”

He nodded again, turning back to the asphalt, deep in thought. “So why are you here this morning, then?”

Albany.

What was it about Albany?

I took a breath. “So listen, the notepad I found in the truck.”

He shook his head, stopping me. “You don’t even know if it belonged to her.”

“But I don’t know that it didn’t.”

“There was nothing on it.”