Addison Stern glares at me from the doorway. Sleek black hair reaches her elbows, and she wears a satin shirt and pencil skirt that probably cost as much as the first-class flight I asked Genevieve to book for me out of Vegas. With the dusk behind her adding a fiery glow, Addison looks every bit the goddess of wrath.

“You made a key to my home?” She seethes.

I can’t help gloating. “You’re not the only one double-crossing people at night.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Exactly what you think. You stole my password and hacked into my phone while I was dead asleep. I made a copy of your house key in case I ever needed it.”

“Why? Why are you here, Connor?”

I lean an elbow against her granite counter. “An old friend can’t pop in for a visit?”

“Old friends could do that, if I had any.”

A fringe of hair falls into my eyeline. I make no move to brush it back. “C’mon, Addison,” I purr. “Is that any way to greet me?”

A smile plays on her mouth. “You have five seconds to explain yourself or I’m uncapping the pepper spray.”

“Fine. Fact is, I’m feeling generous. I have a business proposition for…”

Before I can finish the sentence, she’s smirking. “You? What could you offer me?”

I arch an eyebrow. “We both know I used to offer you a lot of things, Add. In a few different places.”

This kitchen, for one. Her back porch. The carport. Griffith Park. A bathroom stall at the Viper Room.

“Is that what this is about?” she asks. “You’re broke and have taken up selling your wares door-to-door?”

“I’m proposing a partnership. You’ve got a dead client—oh, don’t make that face, everyone knows by now—and could use someone on your side. While the police are still searching for the killer, or a name to pin this on, you might want someone away from Ovid Blackwell to watch out for you.”

Addison rolls her eyes. She nudges the door closed with a stilettoed toe, then throws her purse on the counter. She places the small canister of pepper spray to the side. A warning.

“Please. The firm doesn’t want me to go to jail. I make too much money for them.”

I tap my chin. “Wait, remind me. Wasn’t I the one living in a desert mirage the last three years?”

Addison doesn’t say anything, which means she knows I’m right. She strides to the wraparound kitchen counter, past bare walls, then uncorks a half-empty bottle of Merlot.

I lean toward her. Soften my stance. “Despite everything that happened between us, we always worked well together.”

She snorts. Red wine sloshes inside a deep glass that’s all set and ready on the counter like this is her routine. “Okay, you’ve outlined half your partnership. What’s in it for you?”

“Not much.” I shrug. “Just some information.”

“On?”

“Devon Lim. He was your client a few years back. I’m betting he still is.”

She tosses a sheet of black hair over her shoulder. That’s a yes. “You know I would never betray my clients, past or present. My answer is no.”

“Really? Even after the way we parted?”

Addison lifts both eyebrows, as if I just asked where to find the local Food4Less. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Oh no? Quick recap: You seduced me to get what you want—like always, to benefit your career—then royally screwed me out of my own.”

She shakes her head. “I was involved there, but you left LA by yourself.”

“Addison, everyone believed I was the source of the information leak against my client when you stole the information from my phone. Just to give yourself another leg up—clout with Ovid Blackwell.”

She bats her eyes. “It wasn’t all in the name of ambition, Connor.”

“Cut the shit, Addison,” I snap. “It’s been three years. If you think I don’t see you now for exactly who you are, you’re a worse publicist than I thought.”

She dips her chin. “So, now that you have my answer, should I call the cops to report a B and E, or will you leave on your own?”

Zero remorse. Of course. Addison doesn’t give a rat’s anything about the damage she causes or the lives she ruins. Least of all mine.

“It’s not breaking and entering when you have a key, Addison.”

“Let’s see what the police think about that.”

Anger grinds my jaw, my calm splintering. “Devon Lim hasn’t been to his Bel-Air home for the last week, and no one knows where he is.”

Addison swirls her drink. She leans against wood-trimmed cabinets along the kitchen’s back wall. “You mean none of your former contacts knows where he is. Or maybe they know but they won’t share with you because you can’t be trusted.”

“Addison. You are the reason no one trusts me.”

“If I recall correctly, you car-dialed the president of the American Federation of Labor—”

“That’s not what happened.”

“—while we were getting intimate in your back seat because you wanted to humiliate me to an Ovid Blackwell client. No one trusts you, because you’re a pompous show horse, constantly trying to mount the next goal.”

“I told you, I don’t know how the AFL president was called. I swear. My foot must have hit the touchscreen, then scrolled to my contacts list. And besides, that wouldn’t justify you hacking into my phone and stealing—”

Addison huffs. “This song and dance again? Look, Connor. Devon is a very important leader in the tech industry. He’s always up to some new project at some undisclosed location. I don’t have that information on hand.”

“You know more than a simplistic rundown I could get from Google. And I can’t do my job unless I have consistent tabs on him.”

She takes a long, slow glug of wine. “Do you really think I’d help you sabotage one of mine?”

“Who said I was—”

“You were a private investigator, Connor. And a pretty good one. The only reason a client of yours would be interested in Devon Lim is to smear his good name and all the hard work I’ve put into maintaining it. If you really came here presuming I’d help you, you are rusty.”

Hope drains from me like a poolside cocktail in the hands of a preteen. “Addison. This is my shot to get my life back.”

“I see that.” She stands upright, as if gaining strength from my show of weakness, exuding grace and hunger. “But why would I hurt my career to jump-start yours? No, I think I’ll watch and see how this plays out on its own.”

I sneer at this woman’s indifference. A person I thought I loved, albeit a long time ago. “Fine. Have it your way. But when we meet again, you’re going to wish you had helped me without hesitating.”

Pale pink lipstick parts in a smile. “I doubt that very much, babe. In our world, Connor—the world of ulterior motives—it’s survival of the fittest; you know that. And from where I’m poised, it looks like the hyenas are circling your carcass. Again. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have bodies to bury for a certain Chinese architect.”

She stares pointedly at the door, unwilling to spend another second with me.

“Fine. I’ll go. Before I do, remind me. When did you take that life-changing trip to Fiji? Was it 2006 or 2007?”

Addison pauses. Her hand twitches toward the counter where she abandoned the pepper spray in favor of the Merlot. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, that’s right. It was 2010,” I muse. “You kept talking about it the night we got all-you-can-eat sushi with bottomless sake bombs. You remember that? You were raving about the food, the culture, the scenic views of the islands.”

Tension cuts deep across Addison’s face. Her eyes dart to the bedroom, to where she keeps her personal laptop hooked to the charger on the nightstand.

I take my time. “No, you know what? It was 2012. A good year for travel. And an embarrassingly simple combination for a password—Fiji2012—considering you have folders on all past and present clients on your desktop, accessible to anyone who’s been paying attention. Who am I to judge, though? My password is my childhood dog’s name. But then, you knew that.”

Addison Stern is speechless.

“Oh, don’t worry, babe.” I cross to the front door, relishing the moment. “As soon as I catch up to Devon Lim in his vacation home in Santa Barbara, I’ll be sure to let him know you told me where to find him.”

I toss the house key I used to get in here to the floor like discarded trash. It clatters on the hardwood as the door slams shut behind me. It was a good litmus test; I had the Santa Barbara address when she walked through the door, but there’s a stupid, naïve part of me that needed to see her in all her ruthless, unyielding glory—to have her reject any semblance of aiding me, a person she once said she had feelings for. As I march to where my rental Rover is parked on the street, I know I got both the information and the closure I needed.

Addison Stern was the driving force behind my last three years of pain. It’s time the debt was repaid.