“Now?” Keegan said. “Nothing. Nothing has changed.” He was still holding her shoulders, but her breathing seemed to be gradually coming faster, clearly struggling to keep herself together.

“Easy,” Keegan told her. “Everything’s going to be fine. We just need to stick to the plan.”

She shook her head and looked beyond him. Her eyes seemed to be searching the darkening garden for any solace it might offer. “Can’t we just come clean?” she said. “It can’t be too late to just tell the truth.” Her voice had a slight quiver in it, and that made Keegan worry. Maybe he’d misjudged her. She could ride horses and steal wine with aplomb, but was she really up for what she’d gotten them into? It would be too much for most people.

“You shot a man,” Keegan reminded her. He tried to speak evenly, reasonably—in a voice he might use to explain something to a child. “You killed him with my gun. We’re stuck in this together.” He searched her eyes for comprehension. “You don’t know this town like I do,” he told her. “Guilt or innocence mean jack squat when there are headlines to be got. I know. I used to write them.” He squeezed her shoulders with both hands. “It was too late for us the moment you pulled the trigger.” That much Keegan knew to be true, but was it too late when he’d handed her the gun outside Ormsby’s back gate? Was it too late when Catling pulled up outside the Grand Central Market in his absurd limo? When, in a long chain of cause and effect, did a catastrophe move from possible to destined?

“It was an accident,” Eve told him. “He wasn’t supposed to be there. Why can’t we just tell them that?”

He shook his head. “There’s no way back,” he said. But it was more than that, Keegan now knew, though this was not the time to bring it all up. This was an accident that netted Eve and her mother a fortune. It was one thing to tell the truth and another to convince a jury to disregard a few million good reasons to assume that you’re lying. And then there were the headlines. With a case like this, some ambitious DA could jump up a few rungs on the career ladder. There were so many stories he could tell her, so many old clippings, under his own byline, he could give her to read. In Los Angeles, the criminal justice system was barely acquainted with justice. It couldn’t pick fairness out of a lineup.

“But I didn’t want to lie,” Eve said. “I couldn’t think for myself last night. It was those pills they make me take.” She stirred one hand in front of her face. “I was all… all foggy.” She looked like she was about to cry now, and Keegan wanted to shake her hard—but how would that look through a set of binoculars or a telephoto lens?