I’d finished the first gin martini while I was still working on my face, and I told myself that was for the best anyway: it would loosen me up. I made another before Carrigan arrived, and as I slurped at the salty olive juice, I thought: Piece of cake. Only the rest of your life depends on how this goes.

Ellen’s first night with Klein, I’d gotten her a little drunk, too. “I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” I’d told her. “Even this,” I’d said. “It’s still early. You can leave, if you want. I can find someone else.” And it was true, I told myself. I would’ve let her go. I would’ve driven her home and never seen her again. I wouldn’t have forced her to do anything, right?

Carrigan’s knock at the door was strong and straightforward. I nodded at Jackal, who crept up the stairs to the loft and hid behind the boxes of “books from storage” we’d set up earlier in the afternoon. A perfect direct angle to catch us in the act—so long as we stayed in the living room. So long as I actually could seduce him.

I checked my reflection one last time, turning back and forth. When the lamp caught me in the right way, my white cotton dress was completely see-through. I’d picked one with buttons all the way down the front, and I’d pulled my hair up, stitching it in place with a handful of bobby pins. I wanted to give him the illusion of undoing me.

I swung the door open. Carrigan was wearing a fedora, the brim pulled low over his eyes, his hands in his pockets. Incognito verging on ridiculous. He didn’t make any move to touch me, not even a friendly handshake hello. Instead, he plucked the bracelet out of his pocket and held it out to me, extending it by two fingers like he was afraid he might accidentally touch me.

“Yours,” he said.

I didn’t take it. “Come in. Have a drink or something.”

“No.” His fingers clenched around the bracelet. “Take it.”

“A drink, to thank you,” I said, “not for any other reason. Please.”

He glared at me from under the fedora. A man trying so hard to be good.

“Please,” I said again, my voice feather-soft. I reached for the bracelet and put my hand on his, let it rest there. “You’ve come all this way. Even friends have drinks.”

One tug and he was through my apartment door.