He stuck his fork into a piece of sausage and pushed it across his plate before answering. “I would have liked to hear it from you, but I understand your reasoning, and I believe my reaction showed that your presumptions were correct. I handled it poorly.” He cleared his throat. “What I said about the visions, that you were hallucinating. I didn’t mean that. I—”

“I know.”

He nodded. More sausage pushing. Another throat clearing. “The rest. When you said we were friends, and I laughed. I was angry. We are. I hope you know that.”

He didn’t say We are friends. Just “We are,” as if the word itself was too difficult. But it was enough, and I nodded, and he changed the subject quickly, as if relieved to push past and move on.

We were friends. I’ve always said that being more than friends with Gabriel would be a very bad idea. That I was certain other women had hoped to break through his wall, and I wouldn’t fall into that trap. That I’d be happy with friendship. But there’s a difference between knowing a thing and accepting it. Now I accepted it.

—

The police dropped the charges against Gabriel. They’d lost Jon Childs when he vanished from jail a few days after being arrested. He hadn’t escaped. He’d been “dealt with,” as the Cwn Annwn promised. But his incarceration, however brief, had been enough for the police to decide Gabriel wasn’t responsible. They’d even dropped James’s assault charges—a little hard to pursue now that their chief witness was dead. So Gabriel was free and on his way to overturning Todd’s life sentence, which meant business was booming, with a dozen new client hopefuls for every one he’d lost.

—

Two weeks later, I was getting ready to leave work early. I wore jeans, an old T-shirt, and an equally old denim jacket. Even my new ankle boots, while gorgeous, did not make the outfit business-friendly, or even business-casual. I’d only popped in for some job-tidying before Ricky picked me up for our trip.

Gabriel and I had come up with a “schedule of availability”—times when he could contact me on my vacation. Telling him not to wouldn’t work. As I waited for Ricky’s arrival text, I showed off my tattoo to Lydia, having just removed the bandage that morning. I had my foot up on her desk as she inspected it.

“Hurt?” she asked.

“Like a son of a bitch.”

She laughed.

“Apparently, the closer you ink to bone, the more it hurts, but the less likely it is to look like crap in twenty years. Above the ankle seemed a good choice. Easily hidden, but not always hidden.”

She took a closer look. “Ricky has the same one?”

“Matching tattoos would be a bit much. His is similar but different.”