I’d picked the hotel for the sting because the bar had one hell of a happy hour—if you liked your drinks cheap and strong, the glasses washed maybe once in the last week. It was down the street from the studios, the right type of place to entice a movie man to meet an obliging blonde for a quick afternoon pick-me-up.

And not the least of my calculations: the St. Leo let me have my choice of adjoining rooms whenever I checked in, and didn’t mind early arrangements or a quick redecoration, for the right price.

By my second drink, the apricot-tinted windows were purpling with twilight—happening so early these days—turning the light in the bar a good soft color for sloppy bad decisions. I was waiting on my third when I saw Ellen escorting the mark through the lobby to the elevator.

She stayed cool, didn’t toss me so much as a backward glance. It was harder to do than it looked. But Ellen kept her eyes firmly on the mark’s face, fingers curled around the patched elbow of his tweed blazer—a gift from one of his grandkids, no doubt, or one of the grown children benefitting from his production company’s rampant nepotism. When I’d researched him for Lou and our shadowy employer, the Lady Upstairs, it had been one of the things that sold me: he kept his grabby sons on set, even after numerous complaints had been filed. I’d read that and thought: This one’s perfect.

He looked at me—a swoop of terror in my stomach, but it was no more than the passing glance of a man surveying the room. I met his eyes and looked away without smiling, letting my gaze go through him.

Once they got upstairs: showtime.

Even on a Saturday afternoon, prime drinking hours, the bar was nearly empty. It was big business when a young couple sat down by the windows, and I watched them as I waited for the mark to reappear. Distracting myself. Her long honey-brown hair was ironed straight and scissored over her face, while his fingers plucked at the neck of his sweat-splotched shirt. They ignored each other and the fact that neither one of them was having any fun. She’d ordered something clear—vodka soda, I bet, unfussy and low-calorie, See how low maintenance I am?—and watched it melt all over her napkin.

They hadn’t slept together yet, I was positive. Perhaps tonight was the night. Another bet: between the heat and the poor hotel accommodations and the fact that they were working hard to ignore each other, it wouldn’t be a night to remember.

Making up stories about strangers is not usually in my nature.