When she saw them, she furrowed her eyes so fiercely that the bindi disappeared, and she curled an arm protectively around the pound cake.

“No way, Shaw.”

“I didn’t even ask.”

“Buy your own goddamn pound cake.”

“Is it from La Petite Boulangerie?”

Grabbing the bread knife—his bread knife, Shaw realized with chagrin—Pari stabbed straight down through the loaf and met his eyes from under dark, thick lashes. “You know what happened to the last person who said ‘Let them eat cake?’”

“I didn’t say—”

“She got her head chopped off.” Pari drew the blade out of the loaf with gruesome slowness and then mimed it across her own throat.

Shaw kept moving into the inner office, doing his best to project an air of wounded innocence. When North closed the door behind them and dropped into his chair in the corner, he said, “Let them eat cake?”

“I think she’s got her World Civ 2 final next week.”

“How much is it going to cost—”

“Please don’t start this.”

“—to get an exterminator in here,” North continued, “to get rid of the rats that are having a banquet off the crumbs and dirty plates and whatever else she’s got decomposing inside that desk?”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Why haven’t we fired her?”

Shaw gave him a pointed look.

North, shrugging, said, “She’s not going to change her mind about the cake. No matter how nice you are to her.”

“I know.”

“If you want some pound cake, just run out right now and buy some.”

“I don’t want pound cake.”

“Jesus Lord, if you try to nick some while she’s in the bathroom or something, I’m not getting into it this time. You’re going to be on your own.”

Shaw concentrated on amplifying that aura of wounded innocence as he dug through the bottom drawer for his MacBook. “Oh. A Ding Dong.” He tossed the snack cake on the desk and fixed North with his best puppy-dog eyes. “Too bad there’s only one.”

“You’re a fucking Ding Dong,” North muttered as he pulled out his phone and started typing.

“I heard that.”

“Did you have it mixed in with the rat poison?”

“My desk is very organized. You just don’t understand the system.”

“That’s the same system where you keep the silly string for your birthday party—remember, you were turning twenty-six, not six—in the same drawer as your pepper spray. Is that right?”

“I told you: you just don’t understand the system. But there is most definitely a system.”

North flipped a lazy bird, already lost in whatever he was searching for on his phone.

It was easy to focus on Matty’s case because they didn’t have any other paying clients, so Shaw opened up Chrome and surfed his way over to Facebook. He polished off the Ding Dong and smoothed the wrapper flat and pinned it to the desk with his elbow—he didn’t want to forget about it. Then he searched for Mark Sevcik.

A surprising number of men shared that name, although only one of them had a shared friend: Teddi Larsen. Mark’s picture showed the same man as the security footage from Allure. Even wearing a Cardinals jersey and a backward hat, Mark looked like he’d come straight off the standard businessman rack with only minor alterations. He probably could have plunked down in any sales office or car dealership or HR department without anybody blinking. Shaw sent a friend request. He wasn’t exactly anticipating a quick confirmation, but it never hurt to try.