Men and women in business suits walk by in a hurry. How long will it take to reach the police station in rush-hour traffic? Without knowing the city, I have no way of estimating drive time. The sooner I leave Seb, the sooner I can ply Valentin for information.

With a sharp cough, I resume staring at the ground. A purple Space Invaders alien is spray-painted on a concrete square. “Thank you for making the trip here. But I think being alone would be the best thing for me now. I’ll see you later.” I turn to leave, but he grabs my arm.

“Please.” Anguish lines his face, around his mouth, beneath his eyes. “Going to the catacombs will be good for us both. You may learn more about what made Angela happy here, and I can finally learn more about my almost sister-in-law.”

His words catch me off guard; all I can do is nod. A tentative smile lessens the tension in his skin. He releases me, and we walk toward the main boulevard. A patina-layered archway, long turned green by the elements, presents a stairwell into the underground transit system. Empty beer cans line the ground twenty feet below, while candy wrappers swirl in a passageway breeze. Seeing the catacombs is a high priority—they’re what Angela devoted herself to here. I can go see Valentin this afternoon, and a visit to Angela’s favorite place will provide more time to figure out what to say to an officer trained in detecting deception.

Almost sister-in-law. The phrase seems to whisper in my ears. Was Angela that deeply in love with Seb? I pause at the railing, bewildered by so much of the last hour.

“Are you coming?” Seb asks. Both his feet are already two steps down.

Crowds of people jostle to their destinations below, their bodies pushing up against each other in the narrow, subterranean hall. There is no metro system in San Diego. There’s the trolley that acts as a quaint subway system aboveground, but this underground network teems with life unknown, harboring blind corners and few exits hundreds of feet beneath fresh air. What if there’s a stampede? What if there’s a fire? Anxiety I didn’t know I carried cuts my breathing short.

Seb watches my face and steps closer. “A taxi might be best,” he murmurs. He heads up the stairs past me and hails one. We climb inside as I try to recall when I began hating tight places. As we merge onto the freeway, two cars collide in a fender-bender, and I flinch; Seb notices.

“How did you sleep?” he asks. The miniature screen on the back of the passenger seat displays a stern woman on a news segment. The ticker along the bottom says something about traffic hurting the city.

Deep breath, Shayna. “Briefly. But I did find something.”