“I warned her. She didn’t listen. The lure of fame . . . it can cloud your judgment, and I’m sure Kingsley promised her the world.” Johan appeared to ponder this, then cleared his throat and continued. “Kitty called me last week. She said that Luke came on to her—that he’d been pretty rough. She was scared, she said, and was starting to believe that he really did kill his wife. I told her to go to the police. I don’t know if she did, but that was the last time I heard from her.”

Tera had no idea how much of this was true. Certainly not all of it. Johan was slick, a cobra more than a Viking, who could beguile and strike. He came from elitist wealth and moved in all the right circles. His social media activity was a master class in privilege. It was also a veil. Every police department in L.A. knew he was into some crooked shit. They were just waiting for him to irrefutably trip up. And guys like Johan, they always did.

Perhaps sensing her skepticism, Xander ventured, “I found Kitty’s clothes, too. The ones she’s wearing in the photos.”

“Did you handle them?” Tera asked.

“Handle?”

“Did you tamper with evidence?”

“They were in the trash can,” Xander said, and yanked his earlobe again. “I just pulled them out.”

Tera pressed a hand to her forehead, trying to restructure her shaky emotions into an efficient strip of resolve. The taste in her mouth was cordite and rage.

“You know what?” she said. “It doesn’t matter. Kitty’s clothes and those photos of her corpse are incriminating, but they don’t prove anything.”

“No?” Johan cocked one eyebrow.

“He had his wife’s blood all over his shirt last time and still walked.”

“Okay. So what puts him away?”

“A bullet,” Tera replied corrosively, holding up her Beretta. “It’s no less than he deserves. Son of a bitch needs to pay for what he’s done. Not just to one woman, but two.”

“Two that we know of.”

“Right.”

“Like I said, we’re on the same side.”

Tera lifted her lip, stood rigidly. She didn’t like Johan, but they wanted the same thing here, and it occurred to her that she could use him and his knuckleheaded accomplices to do the heavy lifting. In effect, she could put a hit on Luke Kingsley—exact the retribution she’d promised—and keep the blood off her hands.

“He can’t get away with this,” she said, holstering her pistol. “Not again.”

“I agree,” Johan said.

“He needs to go down.”

“Absolutely.”

They exchanged tight, knowing smiles. Tera stepped toward Johan. He was three inches taller, but her hair flashed brighter.