Ellen shrugged. “Same as before,” she said. “A few slaps, during. A bit harder today for the video. I told him to prove he was a real man.” Ellen rubbed her jaw and a little squeak came out of her. I hissed in sympathy—it was easy to be kind with the chorus of mon-ey, mon-ey, mon-ey galloping through my veins. I tapped on the adjoining door, eager for Jackal’s playback.

No answer.

I had a bad feeling. I tried to ignore it. Maybe he was in the bathroom. I looked over my shoulder at Ellen, who was slowly combing her fingers through her pillow-fluffed hair. “Was the room already set up when you got here?”

She nodded. I tested the door for myself and it opened. I pushed at its mirror twin to reveal a bed and a bathroom. No light on. No sign of anyone. Not Robert Jackal, not the recording equipment he should’ve set up to catch Mr. Casting Couch in flagrante delicto, not even a note.

I didn’t bother to close the door before I climbed up on the dresser, grappling the Kinkade down from the wall. I threw it on the bed, narrowly missing Ellen, who shrieked. The whale’s eye was empty. Just an eye.

I let fly a string of expletives that came out of me twisted and nonsensical—“Fuck, fuck, fuck, that asshole!” A perfect goddamn opportunity and Jackal had wasted it.

“What’s wrong?” Ellen asked. “He didn’t get it?” Her voice took on a slight hysterical edge. “That was all for nothing?”

I ignored her and looked more closely around the room. Klein hadn’t left anything behind, not a watch or a button, nothing to prove he’d ever been there.

Goddammit, Jackal. Eleven thousand dollars. That was all I needed. Eleven grand, and he’d fucked me out of it. There were two options I could think of as to why—another woman, a poker table—and neither was a good excuse for fucking me out of the last bit of the money I needed to pay off my debt to our boss.

I pressed my knuckles into my eyes until little comets pinged around my lids. Think, Jo. It was a setback, sure, but as long as Ellen hadn’t blown it with Klein, we still had him on the hook. What was another week when I’d been waiting nearly three years to be clear of the Lady? It was nothing. Absolutely nothing.

As long as I still had Ellen on my side.

I pasted a sympathetic smile on my face and turned toward Ellen on the bed. “You okay?” I asked, my voice sweet enough to maraschino an onion.

“Yeah,” she said, still working her jaw. “Sometimes I almost like it.” She smiled for me, maybe putting on a brave face, maybe not. She’d been a good pick for this particular job.