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see you around.”
    He was still chuckling to himself as he crossed the bar and pushed open the door to the stairs. What a girl. He might’ve been interested if he hadn’t just had to shoot a man. He’d head to the Crimson Curtain and stake the place out. If it’d been Roy Williams sending a clumsy hitman after him, the casino seemed a good a place as any to investigate. And if it wasn’t Williams, well, Eddie wanted to find out why the hell he’d had to leave that damn kid lying in an alley with a hole clean through his neck.
    He rolled the chip between his thumb and forefinger in his pocket as he descended the stairs.
    Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the vid screens flicker to a new advertisement. He went two more steps, then froze. No. It wasn’t. That’s not possible.
    He licked his lips, staring straight ahead at the door at the bottom of the stairs. No point looking. He was mistaken. He hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen. And even if he had—which he hadn’t, because it was impossible—what did it matter? He had enough on his plate. That was the last thing he needed. No need to dig into the past. Not now. Not ever. So keep walking.
    But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not until he was sure. He turned and looked at the vid screen.
    Grime had gathered around the edges of the screen, bordering the garish rainbow background of the image. The words Lady Luck Gentlemen’s Club scrolled along the bottom of the picture. In the centre of the screen, three bare-chested women waved enticingly at him from between the busted pixels. The image was grainy and the figures jittered as they moved, the old vid file long corrupted. Two of the women meant nothing to him. Just tits and vacant smiles. But the third woman, the third woman was different.
    Eddie leaned close to the screen, straining his eyes to study the woman. Rust-brown hair fell in curls around her narrow face. Longer than she’d ever worn it when Eddie knew her. Her nose was upturned and her eyes were half-closed and smeared with makeup, but he could see the flash of green in a couple of pixels. She was older, she’d filled out a little, become a woman. But it was her.
    The screen labelled her Daisy. That was a lie. Her name was Cassandra Diaz. And she was supposed to be dead.
    He’d mourned her. He’d almost forgotten her. Except those occasions, maybe once every couple of months. Those times when she’d stray into his head, linger for a moment, and leave, as if she’d never been there.
    But none of that mattered now. As soon as he saw that vid, all the feelings came rushing back. She was alive. She’d escaped. She was on Temperance.
    A city that was about to die.
    His mind was racing so fast he didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the stairs after him.
    “Oh, you’re still here,” the voice said.
    He blinked and turned and found Meryl watching him, her handbag dangling from her shoulder. A stray lock of hair had fallen across the corner of her left eye.
    Her eyes rounded. “What is it?” she asked.
    He took two steps back up the stairs, wrapped his hands around her cheeks, and pressed his lips against hers in a bruising kiss.
    For half a second, she was stiff. Then she melted into him and he pressed her against the stairway wall and tasted her lips and dragged his hands down her side and sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her shoulder while Cassandra Diaz’s face flickered on the vid screens around him.
    He broke the kiss. “Your room. Where’s your room?”
    She took his hand and dragged him onto the street and into the hotel opposite. As they rode the elevator up she told him exactly what she needed, every movement and sigh and sweet hurt. And when they got to her room he did it all, and more.
    Afterwards, when he untied the necktie that bound her wrists to the bedpost and massaged the glowing pink handprints from the flesh of her bottom, she traced the scratch marks on his chest with her lips and asked him what had changed