I sneered at him. Regret was wasted after the fact—I knew that better than anyone. “Good luck finding another boss who’ll set you up with a monthly poker stipend.”

Jackal’s brow folded like an accordion. “You think I want that? You think that was my idea?” He shook his head, his lip curling. “You ever notice how hard the Lady works to keep us tied to our vices, Jo?”

“Name your price. And then once you help me with Carrigan, you can leave town forever if you’re so goddamn ready to be gone.”

In the end, it didn’t take him long to come up with a number. It wasn’t even as high as I’d expected. Money eyes. We shook on it and he invited me to stay, but I didn’t even dignify that with a response. He didn’t speak again until I was almost out the door.

“Jo, look at me.” I half turned, could see him out of the corner of my eye. On another man, I would’ve thought the look on his face was tenderness. He reached a hand out, almost touching me. “Even if you don’t leave with me, you should still leave. This job isn’t a home, it’s a prison. Somewhere, some part of you knows it.” I looked down at his hand, still hovering near my waist, then up at his face. He spread his arms. It might’ve been an invitation for me to step into them. “Look at you. You’re drinking yourself to death,” he said.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said, and I shut the door on him.

Chapter 25

The anklet was overkill. I decided it as I turned back and forth in the mirror, watching the honey-gold catch the light and wink at me. I liked the way it sliced my leg in two, separating foot from calf, and I liked that it would make Carrigan think of fingers encircling my ankle, the way you only got to do with a person when you had special, intimate access to them.

But it was trying too hard. No woman wears an anklet without an agenda. And I did not want to appear to be a woman with an agenda. I unsnapped it and set it on my bureau, glittering hard in the dying evening light.

I’d dredged out things to warm up my apartment, to seem more like the woman Carrigan was expecting me to be: books, a vase, a few throw pillows I’d bought for cheap that morning. A framed picture of me and Lou, my favorite one: Lou’s eyes squinched tight because she was laughing, and I was giving Jackal, perpetually behind the camera, my best tousled-hair go fuck yourself glare. A woman with friends, an easy social life.