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“For the moment.”

“That’s convenient.” I take my hand back. “What was that? Why did the walls light up? What’s wrong with my hand, and what the hell was wrong with his face?”

“Your name first.”

“Tara Iverson. I got an invitation, and a lawyer called and told me my uncle died. Desmond Hale.”

I see his face change at the name.

“He said Dez left me part of this place,” I go on, “and I had to be here by tonight.”

“You’re Desmond’s niece.”

“Apparently I own part of your bar.”

“It isn’t a bar,” he says. Then he glances around the room, at all the people pretending not to watch us, and lowers his voice. “Not here. Come upstairs with me. I’m not having this conversation out in the open.”

I look at my palm, then at him. I’ve been awake for twenty hours, and my hand is on fire. “I’m not going upstairs with a stranger tonight.”

He considers that, and nods as though it’s a reasonable position. “Then tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

It isn’t a question, but at least it’s polite.

He holds the front door open for me, and the cold air hits my face. On the sidewalk, I stop and turn around.

“Who are you, exactly? Do you work here?”

“I own it.” He pauses. “Most of it. As of tonight, a little less.”

“Oh.” I don’t know what to do with that, so I hold up my hand instead. The silver is fading, but I can still see it. “Did my uncle know about this?”

Lenart looks at the marks for a long moment. When he lifts his eyes to mine again, his face is grim.

“Desmond wore that same mark for fifty years, Ms. Iverson,” he says. “And he never once mentioned having a niece. I would very much like to know why.”

Chapter three

Tara

I wake up freezing, but my feet are warm. Billy Bob, my personal foot warmer, is sound asleep and snoring.

When I try to sit up, he groans without opening his eyes.

“I hear ya, buddy.” I roll my neck, trying to work out the stiffness. It cracks.

He sighs and doesn’t move.

The windshield is fogged. The car smells like dog and the gas station burrito I had for dinner, and when I wipe a hole in the condensation, I can see the back of the Monster Club across the lot, a wall of dark brick with a loading dock and a row of dumpsters. I moved the car here last night after Lenart went back inside, into the far corner behind a delivery van, where nobody would notice a Corolla with fogged windows.

He’d walked me as far as the sidewalk before two of his security people came out looking for him. Before he went, he put his number in my phone and asked whether I had somewhere to stay.

I told him I did.

I check the time on my phone. Eight forty-seven. Plenty of time to make myself look like someone who slept in an actual bed.