“Is there anything in particular you want me to find out for you?”

“Yes,” he said. “In addition to keeping them out of trouble, I want you to simply observe them. They’re not just attracting media attention—they’re attracting attention from my superiors.” Ah, yeah. Hell could get pissy about that kind of thing. “If someone’s purposely manipulating them, I want to know.”

“Okay.”

He gave me a narrow-eyed look. “And I hope it’s not Jerome.”

He still had that mild, businesslike exterior, but I heard the stern note in his voice. I shivered but gave him a smile anyway, trying not to think about misdirection.

“I hope not either.”

I was a bit surprised at how short my meeting with Cedric had been. I was more surprised still that after all the grief Jerome had given me about the urgency of this trip, I now had nothing to do. Of course, if he was trying to get rid of me, this was as good a way as any. My bad attitude and I were out of Seattle.

It was dinnertime when I got back to Robson Street, so I found food at an Ethiopian restaurant a few blocks from my hotel and lingered over the remains of my meal with a novel I’d picked up a few days ago. Afterward, I wandered up and down the street, looking at various shops and designers, but eventually had to stop after passing two T-shirt stores. One sold retro stuff and had a dark purple Quiet Riot shirt in their window. Another sold Canadian souvenirs and displayed a shirt showing a map of Canada in red with a map of the U.S. below it in blue. The caption read: “Canada Likes It on Top.” If I’d still been dating Seth, I would have bought him both. He would have shaken his head and given me a slight quirk of the lips as he tried to hide his smile.

The thought depressed me, and I found myself growing sadder and sadder as I walked back to my hotel. In that moment, I would have given anything to be with Seth again, to right the wrongs we’d done to each other back around Christmastime. Losing him was losing a part of me that—

Searing, white-hot anger suddenly shot through me. What the fuck was I whining about? Why should I miss him? Why should I pine for someone who’d betrayed me and hurt me with my friend, of all people? Seth didn’t deserve my longing or my love, and as I continued walking, that dark despair within me transformed to rage and spite—just as it had done nearly every day for the past four months.

When I got back to the hotel, I was no longer sad. I was pissed. I hated everyone and everything, but especially Seth. I wanted to make him pay. Unfortunately, there was no way to do that, not here in Vancouver. Passing near the hotel’s bar on my way through the lobby, I paused and surveyed the patrons. It was a veritable smorgasbord of men, most of them lone travelers making transient friends over their drinks. My succubus lust sprang up in me, and suddenly, all I wanted was to get drunk and go to bed with some guy. I wanted to lose myself in the haze of alcohol and fucking, in the hopes that it might all dull the pain that lay buried under my anger.