But Hope didn’t have the luxury of that option. Her explanation for not having a license (at all) or a registration (in her name, at least) could lead to worse allegations—intoxication, insanity, a stolen car, something. So Hope maintained a perfect forty-five miles per hour through Manorville, waiting for the cop to pass.

The police car was two lengths behind her before she realized that what she had assumed were overhead lights was actually a luggage rack, mounted on a regular old Chevy sedan. “Jerk,” she whispered to herself. There should be a law against strapping stuff to white cars.

Jeep Guy finally turned off the main road once they hit Westhampton. All that worry for nothing. How many times had her imagination gotten carried away during the last fifteen years? She was so relieved that she didn’t give a thought to the white pickup truck that replaced the Jeep in her rearview mirror.

Hope had been to the house only once previously, and that was when Evan had been pitching himself to get the broker gig. He only brought her along to make his one-man outfit appear bigger than it was, but she promised when he gave her the job that she was willing to take on any assignment he’d entrust to her—even today’s last-minute drive to Manhattan and back because one of his renters ran off with a set of keys.

The listing was a five-bedroom, four-bath in Sagaponack, on the south side (aka, the good side) of the Montauk Highway. Asking price: $2,999,900, to keep it from hitting the $3 million mark. It would never sell for that, but Evan dangled a high number to lure the owners into hiring him. Hope knew from the math the realtor had scribbled on the back of an envelope after the initial visit that he planned to push the couple to accept any all-cash offer over two-point-five. With an all-cash offer, Evan would write up the deal on paper as $2 million, and then put five hundred grand in the owners’ hands tax-free, using a point of his commission as necessary to sweeten the deal. The Stansfields—Stan and Robin, the couple that owned the house—had struck Hope as much too nice and normal to accept that kind of arrangement, but according to Evan, everyone out here did it. Sure, Evan—just like every legit realtor is willing to hire a former waitress who doesn’t have a social security number and needs to get paid in cash.

Evan was shady, no doubt, but he’d proven himself to be a good coach since she moved to town the month before. She had watched him set up open houses before, and he had taught her exactly how a property should look and feel and even smell to reel in a buyer right away.