I’m in my Bronco, liberated from the warehouse I’m now going to pretend doesn’t exist, driving back to my apartment.

When I roll past the café, I slow down to only a few miles per hour. All the tables are full now, and not a single one of them holds a broad-shouldered man with tattoos and a piercing stare.

It’s not like I expected him to still be there, but part of me hoped he would be so I could finally get some answers. Like, what the hell he was doing so close to my apartment? Was he watching me?

When I find a rare open spot in front of my place, I park and climb out of the Bronco, taking care to lock the doors.

I don’t know how I got so lucky as to still have my sculpture in the back, untouched, but I did. Probably thanks to Elijah. If not for him, this thing would have been long gone.

It’s apparently the day for thanking him repeatedly.

He actually looked pretty uncomfortable when I told him that, at least until he told me he still expected me to deliver on a favor when he needed it, no questions asked. I don’t want to know what it’s going to be, but it’s not like I could have said no.

I head for the gate and unlock it. With the clang of the wrought iron behind me, I take a half-dozen steps and freeze when my gaze locks on the table in the courtyard.

There’s a newspaper on it. A newspaper I don’t remember seeing there when I left.

I rush to the back door of Harriet’s house and knock on the door. Maybe she came home and I didn’t know it?

I wait, but there’s no answer. I bang harder. “Harriet?”

Still no answer.

With my heart somewhere in the vicinity of my throat, I move toward the newspaper. It’s splattered with what looks like coffee.

He was here.

In the courtyard.

Oh. My. God.

I flip the paper over, and the headline on the front page sends my stomach plummeting to my feet.

Oh. My. Fucking. God.

My knees turn to water and I collapse into the chair.

Standish is dead. But I am not naive enough to believe the newspaper.

Someone killed him.

I have to talk to Keira. She’s the only person who can tell me if I need to freak the fuck out or if I need to calm my overactive imagination. I know what has happened to people who cross Mount, whether knowingly or not, and everything in me says this is another case of I need to pretend I’ve never heard of the man before.

I reach out with trembling fingers and fold the paper closed, but something falls from between the pages.

A black business card. It has the same emblem that was on the other cards the stranger gave me, along with another time and date.

Tonight.

* * *

I can’t do this.

Really, I can’t do this.

I’m pruning in the bathtub, but I add more hot water anyway. I can’t stop staring at the folded newspaper on the edge of the sink, and the black business card on the glass shelf above the basin.

If I stay in the bathtub, I can avoid reality.

If I get out, I have to decide what I’m going to do tonight.

I want answers, but I don’t. I really don’t want to think about what connection the stranger may have to Standish’s death.

I don’t even want to think about the fact that he’s dead.

It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t had an extra sculpture in my office, they couldn’t have screwed up and brought mine up instead of Standish’s. And then he wouldn’t have gone off and smeared Seven Sinners on every social media and advertising platform known to man.

But he did. And now he’s dead.

I can’t believe it.

How am I going to tell Keira? That is, assuming she doesn’t already know. She has to know. Right?

Why am I so shocked by this?

Because it’s death. Death never becomes mundane. It’s always shocking. It should be. That’s what makes me a normal human being.

So does my guilt.

I spend another fifteen minutes tearing myself up over it before I shut it down. It doesn’t matter how long I spend blaming myself. He’s dead. Nothing I do or say is going to change that. My guilt isn’t going to disappear because I had a hand in his death, even if I didn’t order it or pull the trigger.

Because there’s no way Standish did it himself.

It’s with a million contradictory thoughts crashing together in my head that I drive to Noble Art, hoping against hope that after my car debacle, Valentina still wants this sculpture and maybe a few more.

When I’ll have time to create them, I have no idea, but . . . if Valentina says they’re marketable and can produce a profit, wouldn’t it be wrong not to do it?

In some small way, don’t I owe it to Gregor Standish to pursue it? After all, my artwork is part of the reason he’s no longer walking this earth, which is ridiculously morbid to consider.

I pull into an open spot across the street from Noble Art and park my car.

I can do this. I will do this.

“Temperance! You got your car back!”

Valentina’s voice comes from across the street. This time, she has a baby strapped to her front, and I can’t help but smile at how she manages to look stylish with a baby as an accessory. Apparently, that’s the fashionable thing these days, at least with this gorgeous couple.

I open the car door and smile genuinely, maybe for the first time all day. “I sure did, and—”

“You got the sculpture?” Valentina looks like she’s holding her breath.

“I did.”

She claps her hands quietly before checking both directions and crossing the street. “Can we see it?”

I gaze down at the dark-haired little guy. “He slept through that? Wow. Of course.”

Valentina laughs. “He could sleep through a nuclear blast. This one is a trouper. Which is why I said we should stop at one, but Rix disagrees. We’re currently having an argument, and by argument, I mean he’s trying to intimidate me into it. I swear, the man doesn’t realize his intimidation just makes me want to climb him.” She taps her cheek. “Maybe that’s his game? I wonder if it’s reverse psychology. Tricky bastard. Anyway, let’s see it.”

I lead her around the back of the Bronco and open the window, lowering the tailgate before pulling the blanket aside.

“It’s much easier to appreciate when it’s upright, but—”

Valentina interrupts me by holding up a hand. “It’s gorgeous. And look at the materials you used for the base—what is that?”

“Part of an empty keg.”

Her eyes light up. “I love it so much. Seriously, upcycling is so chic lately, and I get requests all the time for more industrial pieces, especially from all the people rehabbing warehouses into offices and condos.” She pulls out her phone and taps in a text. “Rix is going to be swinging by in a bit, so I’ll have him bring some help and we’ll get it inside. In the meantime, you need to tell me what else you have.”

I close up the back of the Bronco, and have a hard time keeping my gaze off it as we cross the street and step into Noble Art.

“I don’t have any other completed pieces at the moment available for sale, but it doesn’t take me too long.”

She studies me. “How would you feel about me commissioning some pieces from you? Making some suggestions. Would that mess with your process? If it does, then we don’t have to—”

“No. Actually, I kind of love that idea. I can’t promise it’ll look exactly like what you’re envisioning, but creating something specific is a fun challenge.”

“I was really hoping you’d say that.” Valentina’s smile grows wider. “Because I have a few ideas in my head that I think would be fabulous, and I’d pretty much have them sold before you even finished.”

She reaches for a sketch pad and starts drawing a few items, and my excitement climbs with every line she leaves behind on the paper.

A bridge. A skyscraper. The scales of justice.

“I know it seems like a random collection, but I have a few interior designers always hounding me for pieces like this. They’d snap these pieces up faster than you could haul them into the gallery. Do you think you could do it?”

I tap the edge of the paper and look up at her. “Of course.”

“Then we have the million-dollar question—how much?”

My brain tells me to go salesman and start high before negotiating to something in the middle, but I decide to take a different tactic with her. “Before the auction, I couldn’t imagine that anyone would pay much for one of these, let alone what they did. I know that’s because it was a charitable donation, which definitely affects generosity, but . . . I’m totally out of my depth here, Valentina. I need you to give me a starting point so I don’t totally screw this up and have you kicking me out the door before we even get the first one in.”

Her smile, genuine and brilliant, reveals her straight white teeth. “I appreciate your honesty. How about I put together a proposal for all five pieces—the one you’ve completed and four others—and then we discuss it?”

“That sounds perfect.”