“I’ve got an idea,” Keegan said jovially. “Let’s drop this one off at the cottage and go get some dinner. We’ll come back when your uncle’s home.”

He heard Eve let out the breath she was holding. “Yes, let’s,” she said, a clear note of relief in her voice.

KEEGAN TOOK EVE to the Regency Café. Back when he was covering crime for The Times, this was where the day-shift LAPD detectives went after work for drinks or to smoke those Upmann cigars that were a cop-house fad then. It had been a few years since Keegan had been there. The new hostess was a young redhead with her hair in a ponytail and a lofty, distant stare that seemed to be expecting someone more important coming through the door behind them.

As she led them to a table, menus in the crook of her arm, Keegan looked around the room for any familiar face. The place was nearly full—at least for a Tuesday night—but the only person he recognized was the bartender, who had grown plump and bald in the intervening years. He gave Keegan a vague, noncommittal nod as he passed, as if not quite sure how to place him. Perhaps he wondered if Keegan were famous.

The hostess led them past two empty tables to a dark corner booth away from the bar’s cheerful hubbub. Keegan wanted to ask her for another table, but he couldn’t seem to catch her eye. She scurried away as soon as the menus hit the table—off, no doubt, to more momentous tasks.

While Eve read the menu, Keegan tried to account for the sense of disappointment he felt that there was no one in the restaurant he knew. Why had he thought to bring Eve here, a place he hadn’t been to in years? The answer was both obvious and pathetic: he wanted to be seen with her. The realization rocked him back in his chair. He thought of Ormsby and his bevy of young ‘nieces’, and the comparison made him squirm.

He ordered a Jameson, neat, to wash away the sour taste in his mouth, and sipped it, watching Eve pore over the menu. The dim tabletop lamp bathed the smooth contours of her face and glinted in her eyes as they roamed back and forth across her menu. He cringed. Who was he kidding? This woman was too young and beautiful for anyone who glanced at them from another table to think there might be anything romantic between them.

“You know,” Keegan said when the waiter had taken their orders, “there isn’t really a job in all this for me.”

Eve nodded and realigned the silverware on the tablecloth in front of her. “I didn’t think you’d believe me.”