“I know, right?”

“No good deed goes unpunished.” Stacy stared a little too hard at her beer. She started peeling off the label.

“What is it?” Kat asked.

“I, uh, took the liberty of doing some of my own investigating on this.”

“Meaning?”

“I ran a full check on your old fiancé, Jeff Raynes.”

Kat took a quick swallow. “What did you find?”

“Not much.”

“Meaning?”

“After you two broke up, do you know where he went?”

“No.”

“You weren’t curious?”

“I was curious,” Kat said. “But he dumped my ass.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“So where did he go?”

“Cincinnati.”

Kat stared straight ahead. “That makes sense. He was from Cincinnati.”

“Right. So anyway, about three months after you two broke up, he got into a bar fight.”

“Jeff did?”

“Yes.”

“In Cincinnati?”

Stacy nodded. “I don’t know the details. The cops came. He was arrested for a misdemeanor. He paid a fine and that was that.”

“Okay. And then?”

“And then nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is nothing else on Jeff Raynes. No credit card charges. No passport. No bank accounts. Nothing.”

“Wait, this is preliminary, right?”

Stacy shook her head. “I ran it all. He’s gone in the wind.”

“That can’t be. He’s on YouAreJustMyType.”

“But didn’t your friend Brandon say he used a different name?”

“Jack. And you know what?” Kat slapped her hands down on top of the bar. “I don’t really care anymore. That’s in my past.”

Stacy smiled. “Good for you.”

“I’ve had enough of old ghosts for one night.”

“Hear, hear.”

They clinked beer bottles. Kat tried her best to dismiss it.

“His profile said he was a widower,” Kat said. “That he had a kid.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“But you didn’t find that.”

“I didn’t find anything after that bar fight almost eighteen years ago.”

Kat shook her head. “I don’t get it.”

“But you don’t care, right?”

Kat gave a firm nod. “Right.”

Stacy glanced around the bar. “Is it me or is this place extra douchey tonight?”

She was trying to distract me, Kat thought, but that was okay. And no, it wasn’t just Stacy. O’Malley’s seemed to be a verifiable United Nations of Douche Baggery on this fine evening. A guy in a cowboy hat tipped the brim toward them and actually muttered, in a Brooklyn accent no less, “Howdy, ma’am.” Dancing guy—there is one in every bar who has to do the robot or moonwalk while his buddies egg him on—was working his stuff by the jukebox. One guy wore a football jersey, a look Kat disliked on men but loathed on women, especially the ones who cheer too loudly, trying too hard to prove their fandom is legitimate. It always came off as too desperate. Two steroid-inflated, overwaxed muscleheads preened in the bar’s center—those guys never went to the dark corners. They wanted to be seen. Their shirts were always the same size—Too Small. There were hipster hopefuls who smelled like pot. There were guys with tattoo sleeves. There was the sloppy drunk who had his arm over another guy he’d just met, telling him that he loved him and that even though they had just met that night, they’d be best friends forever.

One biker wannabe wearing black leather and a red bandanna—always a no—made his approach. He had a quarter in his palm. “Hey, babe,” he said, looking directly between the two women. Kat figured that this was a take-two-shots-with-one-line type deal.

“If I flip a coin,” Bandanna continued, arching an eyebrow, “will I get head?”

Stacy looked at Kat. “We have to find a new place to hang out.”

Kat nodded. “It’s dinnertime anyway. Let’s eat someplace good.”

“How about Telepan?”

“Yum.”

“We’ll get the tasting menu.”

“With the wine pairing.”

“Let’s hurry.”

They were outside and walking fast when Kat’s cell phone sounded. The call was coming from Brandon’s regular cell phone now—no need for disposables anymore. She debated letting it go—right now, all she wanted was Telepan’s tasting menu with wine pairings—but she answered it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” Brandon asked. “We need to talk.”

“No, Brandon, we don’t. Guess where I went today?”

“Uh, where?”

“The Greenwich police station. I had a little chat with our friend Detective Schwartz. He told me about a text you received.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“You lied.”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you about the texts. But I can explain that.”

“No need. I’m out of this, Brandon. Nice meeting you and all. Good luck in the future.”

She was about to thumb the END button, when she heard Brandon say, “I found out something about Jeff.”

She put the phone to her ear. “That he got in a bar fight eighteen years ago?”

“What? No. This is more recent.”

“Look, I don’t really care.” Then: “Is he with your mother?”

“It’s not what we thought.”

“What isn’t what we thought?”

“None of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jeff, for one thing.”

“What about him?”

“He isn’t what you think. We need to talk, Kat. I need to show this to you.”

• • •

Reynaldo made sure that the blond woman—he didn’t need to know any of their names—was secure before he headed up to the same path toward the farmhouse. Night had fallen. He used his flashlight to find his way.

Reynaldo had discovered out here, at the age of nineteen, that he was afraid of the dark. The dark dark. Real dark. In the city, there was no real dark. If you were outside, there were always streetlights or lights from windows or storefronts kept alit. You never knew pure black darkness. Here, out in the woods, you could not see your hand in front of your face. Anything could be out there. Anything could be lurking.