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glass curved so sharply? A buoy, maybe, blown in from the lake but smaller. Something to fit in a man’s palm. Something egg-sized.
    Eggs hatch, she thought grimly. For the first time, she considered his claim seriously. But if this had been an egg, it had been broken before it hit him. She reached out, unreasonably intrigued by the gap in the curve, the absence more fascinating than that smooth scar, the shape provoking.
    He lowered his shirt, twitched away from her fingers. “Anyway,” he said. “Woke up in the hospital. Some stitches. Some memory loss. They said I’d be fine. But then I started hearing voices in my head. That’s not ‘fine.’ That’s my story. What’s this one?”
    Sylvie blinked. He gestured out the windshield. “Shopping mall. Stakeout. What for?”
    His story? He’d barely scratched the surface of it. Survival wasn’t a story in itself. How your life changed afterward was. And his, by his own admission, had changed. She studied him for a long moment, aided by his refusal to notice it.
    He stared determinedly ahead of him, brow lowering, squinting, as if by concentrating, he could will an answer out of the distantly lit mall. The night outside the windshield stayed quiet, the breeze a gentle murmur in the palm trees, a ruffled wave on the sea.
    Usually, given an audience, people fighting the Magicus Mundi wouldn’t shut up about it. So grateful to know they hadn’t slipped from sanity. Not talking about it . . . Sylvie wondered how much of his fidgeting, his nervousness, might be due to his own doubts about his story. Maybe he was crazy, knew it, and was just latching onto an idea, any idea, that absolved him of fault. If it came from the outside, he couldn’t be held responsible for it.
    “You have to talk if you want help,” Sylvie said. “I’m not a mind reader, and I’m not patient. I’m trying, but it’s a bad fit.”
    “Not tonight,” he said. “Just—not tonight.”
    Exhaustion burred his voice, gave it a cat-rasp.
    She nodded, and he slumped forward, hands spidering over the dash restlessly, a release of some tight-held tension. It was for more than backing off the topic; it was for the thought that she was going to help him, make it all better. He looked at her with trust and hope, and they settled heavily on her shoulders. Michael Demalion had trusted her with his life, and Rafael Suarez before him. They were both dead now. Dead of trusting her.
    “Theft,” she said.
    He shot her a puzzled glance for the non sequitur, then nodded as understanding caught up with him. “Internal or break-in?” The rough edge to his voice smoothed as he continued. “This place been hit before, or they expecting it to be hit? Pretty ritzy clients for you, huh?”
    “The Bayside merchants are not my clients,” Sylvie said. “And don’t ask me who is; I won’t tell you.”
    “I can keep a secret,” he said. He found a shaky grin, drew a looping X over his heart. “Hope to die.”
    “So not cute,” she said, though her lips tugged upward. She reached up, adjusted the dome light switch to off, and opened her door, letting her leg dangle out the crack. The swirl of cooler air felt good; her stretched-out leg muscle felt even better. She wiggled her toes in her sneaker—mindless bliss. She checked her watch again. Just headed toward midnight. Three hours left that she owed her client. It was the biz; for whatever reason, most crime happened before 3:00 a.m.
    Even bad guys had bedtimes.
    “You don’t need to wait,” Sylvie said. “I’ll be here for a while longer. Go on to your hotel. Alex’ll start working your case in the morning.”
    It was going to be a research nightmare. If he was crazy, they would be chasing their tails, and if the ghost was real? Identifying a single ghost from Chicago? After the gods had stirred everything up? Wright would have to talk.
    He slumped farther into his seat, looked up at her through sandy lashes. “I’d rather have you on the