He stormed off, leaving her alone in the middle of a tranquil courtyard that smelled of oranges and lemongrass.

17

The drinks in the sports bar were cheap, the tourists few, and the locals uninterested in a woman sitting in the corner staring blindly at a televised soccer game being played somewhere in the world. It was two in the morning. A few men had approached her, but Piper had turned such blank eyes on them that they’d quickly left her alone.

She was lower than low, and now she was doing what all messed-up detectives did when they were lost. She was getting drunk.

She should never have taken his ring. She wouldn’t have if she’d been smart enough to come up with another plan. But she hadn’t been smart enough—not as smart as he’d been. Some detective she was turning out to be. And now here she sat, drowning her ineptitude in liquor.

She polished off her third drink. Ordered a fourth. She was swilling old-fashioneds, but with no cherry, no orange, straight bourbon whiskey, extra hard on the bitters.

Duke Dove would never have done anything so half-brained. But then, Duke had been a pro, while she was still an amateur.

Her fresh drink arrived. She thought she might be getting double vision, but she sipped it anyway. The ice cubes clinked against the side of her glass as the chair next to her squeaked on the wooden floor. She didn’t look up. “Get lost.”

A familiar hand—a familiar, ringless hand—plunked a bottle of Sam Adams on the table. Another mistake on her part—asking the hotel doorman for directions to the nearest cheap bar. She’d never thought Coop would follow her.

She stared up at the soccer game. “I’m not a team player,” she finally said, her speech only slightly slurred.

“I’ve noticed.” The words crackled with hostility.

Her fresh glass sported a waxy lipstick imprint that hadn’t come from her. She took a sip from the other side. “I don’ know how to be.”

“You against the world, right?”

“Tha’s the way it’s always been.” She stuck her index finger in her drink and shifted around the ice cubes. “Today I hit the downside.”

“Way down.”

“I’m not looking for a pass, if tha’s what you’re thinking. I did something stupid because I din’t have a better idea. I’ll figure out how to pay you back.”

He scraped his thumbnail down the middle of the beer label, ripping it in two. “Like you said. Not a team player.”

She couldn’t take it any longer, and she began to stand so she could escape to the ladies’ room. When she wobbled, he caught her arm and steered her back into her chair.

“Do not be nice to me,” she said fiercely. “I screwed up, and I know it.”