Tilting her chin up to give him a smirk, she taunted, “I’m talking about three-card monte and blackjack. I’ve seen you fleecing those stupid people. I saw you in Milan and in London. But I didn’t tell. Now, I want to come, too.”

“I can’t bring a child with me,” he argued in a low, furious voice. Part of his anger was at himself. He thought he’d been so careful. How was he going to be a professional snoop if a kid could catch him? Still, he consoled himself, Analise wasn’t your average kid. He told her as much. “Plus, you’re too famous. All the adults recognize you from that dumb-ass show you did. Queen of the geeks.”

Analise flushed. “That was last year. I look older now.”

He rolled his eyes. “Look like the same snot-nosed know-it-all to me. The freak-geek.”

As soon as he’d said it, he wished he could take the words back. Huge tears filled the brown eyes too wide for the narrow face. Analise dipped her head and turned around. The slippery knob refused to twist, and she jerked at the door. When it mercifully opened, she whispered, “I won’t tell Mrs. Cain.”

Sebastian pushed the door closed. “Go put on some clothes, kid clothes,” he warned, “and meet me at the fire escape in ten minutes.” Gruffly he wiped at the tear that had trickled down her face. “And you’re not a freak-geek, okay? Just a pain in my ass.”

NATHAN’S BETRAYAL HAD reminded her of who she’d once been. Not an experiment, but a woman of flesh and feelings.

Now someone was determined to force her to hide again, to flee emotions and feelings she’d thought weren’t possible for her.

But Gabriel also called to her, demanding she come from the shadows. Become the whole woman, filled with desires and longings and wants. To emerge.

She made her way to the front door. The sun had risen fully, and a glance at the clock showed that morning had begun in earnest. She opened the door to the hallway and retrieved the paper from the landing.

Inside, she bolted the door and flipped past the headlines to the Chronicle’s obituaries. Tired eyes skimmed over natural deaths, hoping to see only those who had met a timely end. No one jumped out at her.

Grimly satisfied, she returned to the first pages of the news and read quickly through the stale recitations the Chronicle pretended were headlines. On the last page, in a narrow column of ink, a local story had made it past the banal national news.

A mechanic had been found murdered on Locust Street, an offshoot of Canal. Her breath hitched. The body had been left near an alley, discovered by a wandering pet. Police suspected a crime of passion, given that the head had been nearly severed from the body.