“For what? Sexual harassment? I can tell you that you have a great ass, too, before I off myself if you’d like?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t. What I do need from you is to find out this name for us. You said you could.”

“Sure. Luther will be able to tell me.”

“You sound confident about that.”

“No reason not to be.”

Lars runs his eyes over me, but not in the sexy way St. Clare does. More in the can’t believe I’m real way. I’m taking it as a compliment. “No reason other than the fact the guy takes money to facilitate crime.”

“Yeah, but he owns a labradoodle.”

“And?”

Now, I’m struggling to believe Lars is for real. And it’s not a compliment. I explain slowly. “He owns a labradoodle. One of the purest pooches on earth. No one who owns a labradoodle is a bad person. It’s, like, the law.”

“The law.”

“Never happened.”

“And you’ve seen to this personally, have you?”

“Don’t believe me. You’ll see.”

“Well, considering you’re doing it tomorrow, at least if you die, it means I won’t have a chance to get attached.”

If I die.

Well, that’s one way to smack me in the face with it, I guess.

Full confidence in Luther, obviously, but also … what if I’m wrong? Could I actually fucking die? What if St. Clare is right and they really were targeting me?

That means I actually almost died today, and I have to say, being on the other side of things isn’t a great feeling. What would Margot think if I suddenly died? Just … never came back to her? Would she be searching for me the way St. Clare has been searching for his brother?

Would she finally get a moment to relax then?

It would be easy enough to be like, “nah, not gonna do it,” but we don’t have any other options. Either try to get Luther to spill the info or play hopscotch between housing until these guys finally catch up with us.

All I can do is hope that Luther is the doodle-daddy I think he is.

Being reminded that the big D could be coming your way helps put things into perspective though. Does it matter if I’m attracted to St. Clare? Or other guys? If something happens to me tomorrow, no one will know much of anything about that.

At least then I won’t need answers to the millions of incessant questions I have.

I force a grin Lars’s way. “Guess I better not die, then,” I tell him. “I can’t let you get out of liking me that easily.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

ST. CLARE