I took another sip of the warm night air, pondering it. Outside, the low rumble of the planes overhead set the glass in the window trembling. When I’d first moved to Los Angeles, I’d hated everything about the city, the traffic, the people. Everything. Los Angeles was an endless appetite, ninety-two smaller cities stapled together and consuming everything in its path. Even with my doors locked tight, I could feel the city trying to make its way in—the Santa Anas sweeping through freshly soldered seams, pale afternoon light spilling through blinds zipped shut, the sight of beautiful people on every corner turning you inside out against yourself. In the beginning, living in Los Angeles was like having a constant spotlight shining on you and at the same time like being invisible.

It had taken Lou, and the Lady, and even Jackal, for me to understand that the best part of the city was its artifice. Use the spotlight as a weapon. Wear the con like a coat. That’s when Los Angeles became my city.

Somewhere a cat yowled, and I turned my back on the window. I’d never asked myself—I’d never wanted to ask myself—if there had been other girls before me. I’d never wondered what would happen if I didn’t want the job anymore. How impossible it would be for the Lady to let someone with so much knowledge about her business leave it. It had seemed we could go on indefinitely, the three of us, carrying out the Lady’s orders, making this little corner of the city our own.

Little pinpricks of cold danced down my arms, into my stomach. When I’d been fired from my last job, I’d been sure I’d never put my life back together. But then I’d met Lou—or, rather, Lou had found me. There were other cities in the world, but there weren’t other Lous.

Even if I didn’t close Klein and somehow managed to escape the Lady, I’d have to leave Los Angeles. Maybe even California. I’d have to leave Lou, and Jackal. I’d be back to square one: no references, no work history. Not as Jo. Not as the woman I’d been before Lou and the Lady, either. I’d made something of myself by Lou’s side. If that was gone . . .

I turned off the lights and walked to the cupboard and grabbed a bottle of gin and poured myself a nightcap.

I fell asleep that night on top of my bed, sheets pulled up to my neck, sweating through the cotton. If I had dreams worth remembering, they were ghosts by the time I woke.

Chapter 8

Lou and I were outside Carrigan’s office before noon. She’d picked me up on time, for once, and called me from outside my apartment building chirping, “Let’s go, let’s go!”