I blinked, feeling like a semi truck had just plowed into me at highway speeds. Love? Where had that thought come from? As quickly as I wondered, I realized: He still looked like Mark. He was Mark, in a way. A do-over of something I should've never needed a second chance at. And if this man couldn't find something redeemable in me, a shadow of someone he'd once pledged his life to, then Mark never would.

I clenched my jaw, forcing my face into a collected mask. I was a shell over an empty void, and maybe it made me brittle and easily broken, but it didn't matter. There was nothing in there to protect anyway.

Donovan eyed me, shifting warily. He'd stopped nearly five feet away, a distance that for some reason insulted me.

"Never mind," I muttered, turning back inside.

"Wait!"

I didn't know how he covered the distance so fast, only that as his fingertips brushed my shoulder, goosebumps rose in their wake like the tide at the moon's behest.

"I'm sorry," he said, his hand still hovering over my skin. "I only know what she told me. Please don't go."

A tingle graced my spine at those three words. Please don't go. The one phrase I'd been too proud to say to Mark, the plea I'd bit back for months every time I saw him. But I had wished it, with all my heart.

Please don't go.

And maybe that was why I couldn't deny it when someone else asked.

His face softened, lips pulling up a little at the corners as he saw my decision solidifying. He nodded, his hand finally closing around my arm, and guided me back toward the railing.

"Watch the sunset with me?" he suggested.

A flood of warmth and need and safety stole my voice, so I nodded. As I leaned on the railing beside him, our elbows brushing, I tried to remind myself of everything Clarissa had said.

He killed those women. What if he killed Tilda? What if he wants to kill me?

I didn't believe it. Not with the way he inspected my profile as I focused intently on the skyline. He had loved her more than anyone should ever love another person. He'd loved her the way I'd loved Mark.

The way I still did.

We stood in silence until the last streaks of pink over the Hancock had faded to black, and then I heard him shift.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Maisye."

He nodded once, and my face heated up as I remembered responding to Tilda's name on the bridge. I couldn't tell if he believed me now, and I certainly couldn't blame the guy for being wary. I'd already lied to him once. Our entire meeting tonight was a lie, if we wanted to get technical.

"Maisye Tucker." He tested the name out, and I looked up.

"Haywood," I corrected.

He frowned, his eyebrows pulling together, and then his mouth popped open as horror etched itself into his face. His eyes dropped to my hands, searching. "Are you married? Oh, god, I didn't know, I...."

"Divorced," I said loudly, eager to plow past the reminder. "But I never changed my name."

Apparently, Tilda had. Why? Once again, her posthumous surprises left me speechless. I couldn't help taking it personally, like maybe she'd done all this to spite me. The unread texts, the fact that she'd told her own fiancé she didn't have a sister—even him, because I couldn't help recognizing the similarities to my own husband, and now I had to wonder how much of that was actually a coincidence.

Had she done exactly what I was doing now? Built herself my life, in another part of the country? Pretended I'd never existed and become me?

Except she hadn't gotten it right. Somewhere along the way, things had gone sideways, and she'd ended up in the Mystic instead of a chapel exchanging her vows.

Tillie Tucker. It rang like Peter Parker. A superhero in the making. The way Donovan talked about her, that wasn't far off. She had been a goddess to him—perfect, unknowable, a quiet kind of seductress who worked her way into his heart.

"Are you okay?" he asked, startling me in the quiet.

I clamped my hands around each other and sighed. "I'm just...realizing that she wasn't who I thought she was."

"Yeah, I guess you're not alone."

We stood there, the lied-to and the lied-about, commiserating in an empty collision of worlds. Mine and hers. Hers and his.

His and mine.

A tinkle of glass from inside brought the rest of the world rushing back, and I knew we had to return to the party. Appearances still held their weight.

"We should meet again sometime," Donovan said, running a hand through his hair. "You can tell me about your Tillie, and I'll tell you about mine."

I let out a breath and nodded, forcing a smile. He offered me his arm, and I took it, strolling back inside beside him. It felt like a promise—an offer of support and guidance that extended beyond just this night—and I had to remind myself that this was business.

You're reading too much into it. You're desperate. You're alone and that's fine. You don't need anyone.

I had myself mostly convinced as we re-entered the party, but the second his arm fell away, the vacuum of space where my heart had once been threatened to crush my chest from the inside.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

As hard as I tried to keep Donovan at the edges of my vision, I lost him in the crowd of flowing gowns and suits. When the party started to dwindle and his blond hair was nowhere to be found, I had to accept that he'd slipped out sometime during the night.

Around ten o'clock, Clarissa caught my eye and motioned toward the door with an almost imperceptible tilt of her head. I followed her lead, somewhere between relief and emptiness, and she leaned close in the shadows of the parking lot's overhang.

"Good job tonight, kid," she murmured. "It's late. I'll see you tomorrow."

I frowned at the word "kid," and then the rest of her statement sank in. "Tomorrow?"

She nodded. "Debrief."

I stopped as we reached my car, and she continued across the lot as if we'd never been talking. I stared after her as she slipped into her big black SUV, but didn't turn it on.

I knew she was waiting for me to leave first, so I unlocked my car and plopped into the driver's seat. I tried not to think about the fancy cars trickling out of the lot and how the little red Golf looked like a teenager's first ride in comparison. Sighing, I turned the key.

Nothing happened.

I tried again, and then again, pressing and releasing the brake at random intervals as if that would help anything. Across the lot, I heard a car door slam, and seconds later Clarissa's heels clicked up to my window.

"It won't start," I stated the obvious, turning the key yet again to demonstrate. "Can you give me a ride? I'll have it towed in the morning."

She shot a furtive glance out over the roof of my car, scanning the stragglers still making their way out of the building. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Clarissa! Come on, it's late and I'm exhausted—"

"And I don't want to jeopardize this investigation," she interrupted firmly. "I'll wait until the truck comes, but after that you're on your own."

I gaped at her back as she walked away. On my own? This whole thing was her idea in the first place. This entire night, orchestrated by her—from the outfit to the venue to the supposedly "chance" meeting between me and Donovan Cosgrave. The least she could do was offer a little assistance.

What was she so afraid of? Did she really think Donovan was waiting in the bushes, spying on us? He'd left hours ago.

Unless he hadn't. Maybe she knew something I didn't. She was the one who'd been studying him for years, after all.

I shivered, pulled out my phone, and googled the nearest repair garage open at this hour. It was up in East Cambridge, just across the Charles—about halfway between the gallery and my new apartment. The guy who answered told me he'd have someone there in ten minutes, and I hunkered down in my seat to wait.

Was Donovan a cold-blooded killer? He didn't seem like a cold-blooded anything tonight. I saw the pain in his eyes as he spoke of Tilda, the tenderness in his voice as he remembered her, and the hurt as he realized she'd lied to him. He was too torn up and vulnerable to be a killer.

Then again, wasn't that how it worked in movies? The one no one suspected always ended up being the culprit. Maybe it was all an act to lure me in as his next victim.

I saw Clarissa's tail lights in the rearview before I noticed the tow truck. As her car slid out of its spot and pulled into the street, the wrecker swung to a stop behind me, diesel engine idling.

With a sigh, I stepped out, slamming the door unnecessarily hard behind me. The party and Donovan's admissions had frayed my nerves, and the fancy champagne didn't have nearly enough kick to it. All I wanted was my bed and a glass of wine. Maybe two.

Instead I was meeting some stranger in a dark parking lot like a drug deal.

I was halfway to the tow truck when he jumped down from the driver's seat and shut the door. He wiped his hands on oil-streaked pants, striding out to meet me, but after three steps he froze.

I froze.

Ciar Cosgrave's icy blue eyes glittered back at me from the glare of the tow truck's headlights.