I stared down at the front page spread of the Times-Picayune, my heart in my throat as I sat on my couch.

He’d done it. Asher had actually done it.

Suddenly, the meat-loaf sandwich on the plate before me looked entirely unappetizing. I shoved it away and pulled the newspaper closer. Fingers tracing the words, I skimmed the length of the three columns written up about the third man listed on Asher’s damn list.

Dread sank into my bones, heavy and unforgiving.

Not to mention the guilt—if I had slept with Asher prior to learning about his checklist of the damned that would have been one thing. But, no, I’d jumped his bones after finding it in his desk drawer, like some sort of hussy who couldn’t even maintain her composure around an attractive man.

What did that say about me?

Nothing good, that was for damn sure, especially if I could hook up with a murderer and then still wonder when I’d have the chance to do it all over again.

“That doesn’t look like some light reading.”

And then there was Katie. My step-cousin. A girl who had no idea that she lived with a sort-of relative . . . well, if you factored in that her uncle was my stepfather. Former stepfather? The newspaper crinkled in my grasp.

Man, today was shaping up to be shitty.

Katie plopped down next to me on the sofa. Picking up my rejected meat-loaf sandwich, she set the plate on her lap and then took a huge bite of my store-bought masterpiece. Her face scrunched. “This is horrendous.”

My gaze locked back on the newspaper. “Blame the deli at Rouse’s. I picked it up on the way home.”

“Ooo,” Katie whistled, nudging me in the arm. “Were you with your secret admirer again?”

“No! I—”

“No need to be embarrassed about it, Ave. I mean, I saw him at the club. Can I get an H-O-T, please? Hot damn, he was sex on a stick.”

I shouldn’t have assumed Katie had missed me leaving the club with Asher. Critical error on my part. She hadn’t even been home long enough to pee before she’d shaken me awake with the order to, “Spill, sister. I orgasmed just looking at him looking at you tonight.”

Katie knew nothing about Asher, save that he was a cop, and I planned to keep it that way. In fact, after what I’d just read in today’s newspaper, I figured the less she knew about him, the better. As for me . . .

“Did this guy ever come into the club?” I asked, pointing at Townsend’s name printed in bold on the front page.

Katie’s eyes narrowed in thought as she shoved another bite of the sandwich into her mouth. Around the meat loaf, she said, “Hell if I know. It’s so busy in there I don’t even have time to look at the credit cards as I take them. Unless they look like they’ve never seen the inside of a bar before, I don’t care.”

“When the cops come around for another raid like they did last summer, you’re going to be kicking yourself in the foot for not checking ID’s.”

“All right, Miss I-Have-So-Many-Fake-IDs.” Katie laughed, her blond hair bouncing in its tight ponytail. “Listen, if we get raided, I now have the perfect out.”

“Flashing your boobs didn’t work for you last year . . . you do remember that, right?”

She pointed the meat loaf in my direction, and a dollop of BBQ sauce splattered on the plate. “Good news,” she said, moving her knees so the plate was more evenly balanced, “you’re now hooking up with a cop. Thank you so much for giving me the instant out I never knew I was missing.”

Yeah, definitely not an instant out if he was a serial killer.

My heart lurched at the thought. How many murders constituted serial-killer status, anyway? Two deaths? Three? Thank God I hadn’t even had the chance to take a bite of the meat loaf because I was feeling insanely nauseous now, just with the direction of my thoughts.

“So, no?” I pushed again, completely ignoring Katie’s sneaky methods at getting me to spill my guts about Asher. “The name Townsend doesn’t sound familiar?” I angled the newspaper to better face her, then stabbed a finger at a photo of the man in question. With dark hair and equally dark eyes, he looked like an attorney. Clean and impossibly stuffy. The kind of guy who liked his creature comforts and would never consider leaving them, unless the “leaving” was done involuntary. “Not ringing a bell at all?”

Katie flashed me a considering glance and then trained her attention on the black-and-white image. After a moment, she said, “Maybe he looks a little familiar. I don’t know. I can’t say for certain.” She gave a loose-shouldered shrug. “Unless they look like your hot cop, every guy who waltzes into that place might as well be a copy-and-paste version of the last. So, maybe I’ve seen him. Why does this matter so much to you?”

Because of Tabby.

Because I can’t be attracted to a killer—that sort of irony I couldn’t handle. I wouldn’t live my life in a cycle, and I wouldn’t be blindsided by a fired gun in the middle of the night with my young daughter watching on.

I couldn’t tell Katie any of this, of course, and so I fed her a lie: “No reason. I guess I’m always used to hearing the gossip at the square. You know how everyone knows everything about everyone there. But yeah, there’s been nothing about this and it’s Thursday. Just odd, that’s all.” Folding the newspaper back in half along its crisp line, I jumped up to my feet. “I’m going to head down to Jackson Square now, actually. Get in a few extra hours.”

“Want some company?” Katie asked. “I don’t have to go into work until second shift tonight.”

On any other night, I would have said yes.

Tonight, I just wanted answers.

“I might be stopping to see you-know-who beforehand.”

Katie’s blue eyes lit with excitement for me, and the knife of guilt twisted a little deeper. “Want a condom or two to take with you?” She tapped her forehead, then pointed at me. “Just thinking proactively.”

“What? No!” Heat rushed up my neck. “No condoms are necessary.”

“No condoms, eh? If you get pregnant, can I be the godmother?”

Waaaayyy too close to home for comfort there.

Stuffing the newspaper into my backpack, I slung the bag over my shoulder and stepped into my boots. “And on that note, I think it’s time for me to head out.”

“Is that a no?” Katie hollered at my back.

Hand on the doorknob, I cast a glance back. Katie half hung over the side of the couch, looking up at me while she was upside down. Her grin tipped the scale of shit-eating, and I laughed.

“You’re insane.”

“Nothing new there,” she said, still grinning, “but is it a no?”

“It’s a maybe.”

When I shut the door, it was only to hear her exclaim, “I’ll take it!”