“Dude, honestly, I don’t have any problems if you want to keep giving me free money, but I’m telling you this as a friend: for the sake of your sanity, stop doing this to yourself,” Sawyer says from across my desk.

My mom would be proud to know someone calls me a friend. She thinks I need friends the way she does, when in fact, I see people by the value they can give me.

Even though the main value of having Sawyer around was originally as a tool of finding Katie, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to call him a friend at this point.

After that talk with Kendra at The Succubus two years ago, I decided to stop going to the club altogether.

I also decided to start using another way to find Katie.

I built a company from the ground up and made it one of the most successful machinery and equipment leasing companies in the city. I can find a girl.

So, I decided to do what I usually do when I’m stumped: I hire someone better than me to do the job.

Obviously, I don’t have any experience finding people. That’s why I hired Sawyer.

But as it turns out, he’s not much better than me either.

“Don’t you have any leads?” I ask.

“Look, I really don’t think you understand what you’re asking me to do.

“You want me to find a woman—there are 125.9 million women in this country. She’s a brunette—guess what? That’s the most common hair color.

“Her name is Katie—a popular name, which can be a form of other names, like Kathleen, Katherine, or Kaitlyn. Hell, my sister’s name is Katie.”

“Your sister?” I frown. He’s never mentioned her before.

Sawyer narrows his eyes at me and points at me with his index finger. “No.”

“What? It’s possible that she’s—”

“No,” he repeats, cutting me off.

“Seriously, how old is—“

“Don’t even.”

I shrug. “Okay.”

“The odds of any one Katie being your Katie is infinitesimally small. Also, you don’t even know if that’s her real name. Most women in that line of work use fake names,” he says.

Here we go again. People keep telling me Katie probably lied to me about her name, but I don’t think she did. There was something genuine about her, something real I don’t often come across.

“You know what? Fine.” I let out a deep sigh.

Of course, I don’t usually talk like this in my office because most people are here for business, but this is Sawyer.

I don’t blame him for not wanting to continue working on this case. I pay him handsomely, but I know it must be frustrating to work on a case that never gets solved.

A guy like Sawyer must have better things to work on. His private investigation company is growing, and he’s been getting more and more clients requesting his help. I’m sure many of them are able and willing to pay him just as well as I do.

If Sawyer doesn’t want to help me anymore, that’s fine. If he doesn’t even know what else to do, his help doesn’t mean much anyway.

“I’m sorry, man. But you don’t even have a picture,” Sawyer says.

“I told you. The club doesn’t allow cameras.”

“Well, I mean, there are always ways to sneak a camera into—”

“Isn’t it too late to be talking about that anyway?” I pause and squint at him. “Wait a minute. Do you have a camera on you right now?”

“Well, I . . .” Sawyer maintains his poker face. But he’s a PI—a good one. He’s supposed to be good at lying.

Nevertheless, the long pause may mean he’s caught off guard. It’s not only me who relaxes my defenses when it’s only the two of us.

“Okay. I could lie here, but I wouldn’t do that to you.” Grinning, Sawyer adds, “Yes, I have a camera with me. And a recorder. But I always do. It’s not personal, man.”

“Turn that shit off.”

“Okay, okay. God, you’re so bossy.” Sawyer twists to grab something that’s stuck to his clothes, something so small I didn’t notice it before.

“Look, Adam, speaking as a PI, I want you to keep looking for her. You’re my biggest client. Thanks to you, I can expand my business and reach new clients. I owe my success to you, and I’ll keep looking as long as you want me to keep looking. I mean, I still like your money.

“But speaking as your friend, I think your obsession with this Katie girl is unhealthy, man.” Sawyer leans back in his chair and relaxes.

He’s giving me advice, but I like that he’s not pushy about it. He doesn’t presume to be right. That’s probably why I like working with him.

“You should get your mind off her once in a while. Maybe you’ll even meet someone else you like more than her,” he says.

“You’re starting to sound like my mom,” I groan.

“Well, you know what they say, mom knows best.” Sawyer shoots me a cheeky grin. “But then again, you may not want to listen to me. I don’t have much experience with moms, unless you count my sister.”

Sawyer’s family, like mine, is incomplete. But where mine was destroyed by my selfish dad wanting to live life like a free bachelor, Sawyer’s parents died in a car accident not long after he turned eighteen. His sister was thirteen at the time.

Thanks to being an adult—at least in the legal sense—Sawyer could adopt his sister and take care of her. Otherwise, she would’ve been stuck in the foster system, which I hear is a nightmare.

I admire that about Sawyer. At eighteen, he was more responsible than my dad was when he had me.

“I don’t know what to say, man. I wish it was that easy,” I say. “You didn’t see this girl. She was perfect.”

“Know what you need?” Sawyer asks. “You need a life.”

“Hey.”

“Seriously, you’re either cooped up working in your office or coming up with crazier and crazier ways to track down this chick. No wonder you’re obsessed.” Sawyer stares at me matter-of-factly. He knows he’s right, and he knows I know it.

“You have a point,” I finally concede.

“A very good one,” he adds proudly. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“I don’t know. Work?”

Sawyer laughs. “See, this is what I mean.”

“I don’t see anything wrong with how I spend my weekends.”

“Okay. I don’t want to get into an entire debate about healthy ways to spend weekends. What I’m trying to tell you is, my sister and I have our family dinners on Saturday. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

I stare at Sawyer. We’re friendly to each other even though this is supposed to be a business relationship, but he’s never invited me to a family dinner before. This is new.

“I’d be honored,” I say when I get over my surprise.

“Okay. I’ll tell my sister there’s going to be an extra guest.” Sawyer gets up from his chair and says, “Oh, warning. There’s going to be a baby.”

“That’s cool,” I say from behind my desk

“Good. You’re going to love my nephew.” Sawyer walks across my office, his shoes tapping on the tiles. When he reaches the door, he says, “Let’s lay off this whole woman-hunt for a while, okay? Take a break. I think it’ll be good for us both. Just think about it, and let me know what you decide.”

“Okay.” I’m pretty sure I’m just going to hire someone else in case I have better luck elsewhere, but it’s probably not a good idea to tell Sawyer now.

Sawyer grins as he pulls the door open. Before he steps outside, he says, “Hey, who knows? After all the work we’ve put into tracking her down, maybe your Katie could really turn out to be my sister.”

He cackles, then shuts the door before I get a word in.

Man, he really gets on my nerves sometimes.