“No,” she said, but the word didn’t quite ring true, and her fingers reached out to curl around the glass and bring it once again to her lips. When her eyes came back to the horizon, Emily noticed a young woman had appeared at Tyler’s side, with jet black hair cut in an asymmetric bob and a mouth painted a deep shade of red. She was curling herself around him like a cat, two dark eyes that swept over Emily then turned back to their prey.

“Emily,” Tyler said as he stepped away from the bar and took hold of Emily’s arm. “This is Agnes. She works at Shakespeare & Company.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Agnes said in heavily accented English, although her face seemed to be anything but pleased at discovering Tyler had not come to the bar alone. “What are you going to sing?”

“Sing?” Emily cursed herself for lisping the “s,” hated the small twitch of lips as Agnes looked a moment too long at her scar.

“Oui, why would you come to a karaoke bar if you do not sing?” Agnes collected a tray of drinks from the bar, the various glasses chattering together as she went to walk away, then turned back to Emily with a challenge. “Or perhaps you cannot?”

“Let’s just go and join the others, shall we?” Tyler handed Emily a beer, and she scratched one fingernail around its neck as she followed him to the back of the bar and down an industrial staircase that led to a corridor with three doors on both sides. Above each of them was a lightbulb, five of which were shining red, but Agnes stopped outside the one with a white bulb overhead and kicked the door with her shoe. A moment later it opened and another young woman stuck her head out, this one with long, peroxide-blond hair, whose gaze moved past Agnes to Tyler, then Emily. She said something to Agnes, then came forward to kiss Emily on both cheeks.

“Enchanté,” she said with a smile that reached all the way up to her eyes. “Je suis Clementine.” Emily liked her immediately, not least because she was wearing a tank top and jeans and had paint underneath her fingernails. It made Emily feel a little less self-conscious about her own khaki shorts and plain white T-shirt, a little less aware of how polished, how very French, Agnes was.

Clementine introduced herself to Tyler, then stepped aside to let them into the private karaoke box. Emily had been expecting some kind of padded cell, but the space inside was like a very small, windowless living room, with green seating wrapped around three of the walls, low-level lighting, and an enormous screen next to the door. There was a man fiddling with the control panel just below the screen, muttering to himself. He was wearing tight leather trousers and a shirt emblazoned with flowers, unbuttoned nearly to his navel and showing off the edge of a tattoo. He looked up as they entered, with a frown that turned to a smile as his attention fell on Emily.