Hailey heard sirens coming from somewhere beyond the pier, and she knew help would be there soon, but she doubted it’d be soon enough. She needed to help this man, but she didn’t know how. The woman had stuck him with something, some sort of syringe. Hailey looked past Nick, to where the woman had been standing just moments ago—and saw one of the woman’s high heels lying on its side, close to the break in the railing where she’d gone over into the water.

Hailey ran to the shoe. She grabbed it with both hands, flipped it over. Beneath the heel, she saw a little compartment—and a second syringe. There was no way to know for sure. But, Hailey thought to herself, if you were in the business of poisoning people, you were likely to carry an antidote.

She grabbed the syringe and rushed back to the prone FBI agent. Then she unrolled one of his sleeves.

“You’re going to be OK,” she said, praying it was true.

She jammed the needle into his arm.

Several long seconds passed, the sirens from the pier growing louder. Behind Hailey, Nick was trying to sit up, now, looking her way. But Hailey was watching the FBI agent. His gaze had suddenly shifted, the stiffness of his cheeks loosening. He looked back at her, his mouth finally moving.

“The paintings,” he started.

Hailey shook her head.

“Never saw any paintings. Had the eagle for a while, but that’s gone now. Maybe you can fish it out of the water with whatever is left of that woman.”

She stood, then looked toward Nick. There was still blood running from his scalp and the wound in his shoulder, but he was smiling at her, and she smiled back. She knew he could hear the sirens, too, but he made no move to rise. He seemed resigned to the moment. Maybe they’d take him back to jail, maybe they’d let him go. Heck, maybe they’d give him a piece of that reward, for getting so close. A part of her wanted to go to him, again, be by his side for whatever happened next. But she pushed the thought down, into the protective cage she’d built up over her years as a runaway, the cage where she kept most of her feelings.

“It’s been fun,” she said, toward him. “But I think this is where we go our separate ways—at least for a while.”

The last part was hard to say, but there wasn’t much of a choice. That woman, the killer with the sable hair, had known Hailey’s real name, which meant the FBI assuredly had figured out who Hailey was as well. Her carefully crafted house of cards had fallen, which meant it was time to pack it up and start over.

Being Katie again wasn’t an option. Katie was nobody; scared, broken, alone.