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two.”
    â€œAnd what if I have something better to do?”
    â€œYou don’t.”
    â€œHow would you know?”
    â€œDo you?”
    I ignore the question. “You don’t actually know me at all.”
    â€œJane,” he says, grinning. “Come on.”
    The irony of him not even knowing my real name hangs between us, unappreciated.
    â€œI’ve spent dozens of hours examining you,” he says. “You don’t have an expression I haven’t seen. I know every curve of your body. I know the exact difference between the color of the skin on the backs of your legs and the skin at your throat.” He reaches out and pets my cheek with the back of his finger.
    I swallow my shudder.
    â€œI’m leaving Montreal,” I say.
    He pulls his hand back and drops it by his side. “Going where?”
    â€œSpain.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œSoon.” He can’t know that it’s not possible yet, that I need more money, that I need more from him.
    â€œWhy Spain?”
    â€œI have family there.” There’s truth to this lie.
    â€œI’ll triple your fee.”
    A crow caws, and a wave of dizziness rolls through me. Three hundred dollars an hour. It’s too much to turn down.
    â€œNot just for the grim reaper,” I say, and hold my breath while the numbers multiply in my brain. Three more portraits, around six hours apiece, three hundred an hour, plus a few more hours for the flapper girl. That’s . . . thousands. “I’m going to need that much for all the portraits still left to do.”
    He grins. He knows he has me. I’m greedy, and it makes me his. “Three hundred an hour for the grim reaper and the last three portraits.”
    â€œDeal,” I say, and hold my hand out for him to shake. He takes it, pulls it to his mouth, presses wet lips against my frozen skin.
    That seals it. My feet are weighted, cemented to the eggshell snow and ice while the sea of headstones reels around me. The impulse to get away is overwhelming, to get away from Lucien, go back into the cathedral, and find a confession box to pour my guilt into. I need absolution. Absolution for making deals with a devil. Absolution for being the daughter of somebody evil. Absolution for falling in love with a murderer.
    Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................
FIVE       
    S even minutes.
    I’m under my synthetic blanket, fully clothed, still shivering even though I’ve been back from the cemetery for over an hour.
    I could show up at Soupe au Chocolate late. Jacques will wait, pretending to be just locking up whether I’m there right at midnight or twenty minutes after. He gave himself away with the box of chocolate; he doesn’t hate me. He might even be nice.
    Lola says niceness is a liability, which explains why she rarely attempts it. She’s catty with friends and cruel to guys, who are revoltingly eager to lick up whatever garbage she tosses their way. She treats them like scum and they love her for it, until she’s done with them, and then they love Ana, who thinks she’s won because she ends up with the prize, until even the nice guys get tired of her neediness and slink away. Poor Ana.
    Lola probably doesn’t miss me—she’s too self-consumed to miss anybody—but Ana might.
    I pull the blanket over my head, but that doesn’t help. It’s thick but weightless, so I can’t breathe and I’m not any warmer. It was a dollar at the thrift shop where I bought everything I own. The only other blanket cost four dollars, and I needed that extra three bucks for the boots fund.
    Six minutes.
    Leaving Key West with nothing but a stolen mandolin and my passport was stupid. I see that now. But I had rage and terror to grapple with, and I’d never felt so