The bright lights of Bourbon Street stretched into a kaleidoscope of blurring colors. Emily forced herself not to squint. Her contacts were still in her bag, drying out in the trunk of Nikki's car. If she had any idea that helping Amy would lead her further east instead back home, Emily would have slipped them into her purse before they entered the marina.

It was far from ideal to work half blind but it probably helped her look as drunk as she was pretending to be—so long as she didn't squint too much. Keeping her glasses on wasn't considered. The old rules were too ingrained. She had to occupy her role completely. So her glasses were in her purse and she was dressed ten years younger than she should be.

When she'd left the hotel, Emily had been self-conscious about her bare midriff, but the outlandish and horrific dress of the other revelers put her at ease. Compared to some of the people out that night, she was practically prudish.

The street was filled with bodies staggering from inebriation. Many clung to plain plastic cups or silly neon colored vessels a yard long or shaped like a hand-grenade. The buzz of music spilling out from the clubs and screamed conversations created a tinnitus rattle in Emily's ears. You'd think it was some big event. New Year's Eve. D-Day. The Saint's winning the Super Bowl. But it was just an ordinary Saturday night. This was why Emily had always loved New Orleans and why she chose to ditch the stolen car she'd picked up in Houston here and stop for a couple of days. She was nearly out of money and on Bourbon the pickings were easy. These tourists came here from their dull, straight-laced lives and threw all the rules away. They behaved with total abandon and were the perfect low lying fruit to scrape together some quick cash.

She'd already lifted eighty bucks from a conventioneer on the corner of Toulouse and an uncounted money clip from a shitfaced hipster who plowed into her nearly knocking her over. He did it so it looked like a drunken accident, but by the time he steadied himself, he had managed to cop a feel. It had caught her by such surprise she almost slapped him instead of rooting through his pockets while he was distracted. Almost. So long as it wasn't only a wad of ones, the pervy grope would be worth it.

She approached a group of middle-aged men outside a club smoking and asked if they could spare a cigarette.

Doing this alone was risky. If she had a partner she could slip him the loot so she'd never be holding the evidence. Each stash she tucked away was a time bomb. And only going for cash would move things along dreadfully slow. But she had no leads on a fence, so watches and jewelry did her no good at all.

Emily figured they'd need a few hundred before they could hit the road again. Living on the run as often as she had, she knew the math. A few hundred meant a thousand or two. The longer she took to collect the money, the more food and accommodations would eat away at the earnings.

Rooms weren't cheap. Not even the shithole they were staying in. Amy was pretty disgusted by it. Said the smell was unbearable. Pretty damn picky for someone raised in a metal box, Emily thought.

The tension between her and Amy was higher than she expected. The whole sulky, angst ridden teenager act had grown tiresome fast. It made her dread what she'd face with Aaron in a few years. Amy had been happy and well-adjusted in The Music Box—well, as well-adjusted as one could expect, anyway. Out here, she just seemed miserable. Maybe she was better off in confinement. Perhaps she'd be happier if they just returned to the underground lab. But that wasn't an option.

But there was more to it than that.

Emily was growing increasingly uneasy about being out there. What was supposed to be a couple of days away from Aaron was turning into a week. Lauren was getting bitchy about the extended babysitting stint too. Part of Emily wanted to hop on the next plane back home. But something tied her to that girl.

And that was beginning to worry her.

Maxwell had warned her. Said how dangerous Amy was. And she had dismissed it. Everyone was always saying how dangerous the girl was. And a couple of nights a month she could be. But most of the time she was a sweet child.

So then, why did Emily feel used? Why was she actually letting that sociopath Lauren look after her precious boy?

Emily knew she had to do everything she could to help Amy. Amy was as much family as anyone Emily had ever had in her life. But why the hell did she take precedence over Aaron?

These moments of doubt came in stomach turning flickers, hard to hold onto. Just a gut wrenching feeling that something wasn't right, then it was gone. They were nothing individually but pieced together, it was making her paranoid that she wasn't acting rationally and Amy had something to do with it.

She should have listened to Max. Wasn't he always looking out for her? When things went to hell in Vegas, he was the only one there for her.

It had happened on Emily's second night in the hotel room with Antonio. On the first night with him, there was the pitch and sway of new lover butterflies and guilt over betraying Max. Emily tried to soften the guilt by telling herself it was only business. But those butterflies reminded her it wasn't completely business. Antonio was a handsome man, with his toned body and olive skin, his wolfish smile and fierce eyes.

But on the second night, she was nervous for whole different reasons.

Guilt and attraction no longer mattered. They were left behind like fanciful dreams of youth. Now she knew how rough it was going to get.

Sure she had been through worst. Although judging things by her worst experiences was setting the bar pretty low—practically laying it on the ground and letting everything else walk over it. Beneath Antonio's exotic good looks lurked something dark and ugly. It scared the shit out of her.

Even repeating Lauren's mantra—it's almost over. Just one more day—couldn't loosen the tension in her body or her mind that night.

Antonio took her distance as challenge. It wasn't long before he had her pinned against the glass, pressing her against the floor to ceiling windows overlooking The Strip, her feet strained to touch the carpet. He held her tight with his fingers bruising her biceps and those sensuous lips of his ripping against her neck.

"I don't want it this way," she squealed, panic getting the better of her.

He just grinned, that perfect, mother-fucking charming smile of his. It showed more pleasure than Emily had ever seen him express before. It was a pure lust for his power and her fear.

Antonio clamped a hand over her jaw. The nail of his thumb cut into her cheek.

"I do not believe I asked," he said. "You're going to do everything I—" He broke off with a yelp as she bit down on the webbing between his thumb and index finger hard enough to break skin.

"Bitch," he screamed and cracked her head against the glass. The world exploded into brilliant fireworks and she fell forward stumbling into empty air. Then a fist caught her and sent her off on a different trajectory like a tetherless object in outer space. Emily crashed into the nightstand. She felt the heat of his body a second before a hand took hold on her throat.

Desperately, she clutched for something solid to cling to. Her fingers found the hefty glass lamp. Emily wasn't even aware of her own actions as she brought it up against his temple. The room darkened as the cord snapped free and Antonio stumbled away from her. Emily pursued, hitting him again and bringing him to the ground.

Rage poured up out of her. Disappointment, regret, and fear had been settling under the surface since childhood, slowly transforming like dinosaur carcasses into oil, until deep pools of fury sat there waiting for their release. These reserves burst forward and fueled her arms as she heaved the lamp down like a piston.

On the sixth blow there was a crack. By the twelfth, there was nothing but a sickening splatter sound repeating itself over and over.

The clear glass of the lamp's base dripped with a deep, almost black scarlet. Emily dropped it and stumbled back to the bed quivering with shock.

What had she done?

Time faded into another dimension and it was at least an hour before she moved again. She did the only thing she could think of: she picked up the phone and called Lauren.

Who turned out to be no help at fucking all.

Lauren was staying in the same hotel, three floors down and it didn't take her long to get there. She looked at the corpse with its head caved in and said, "Well, you sure fucked this up."

Emily tried to explain what had happened through a stuttering bird language that didn't make any sense even to her own ears. But it didn't matter, Lauren wasn't listening. She was opening the room safe using the combination Emily had gotten for her yesterday.

"Were you trying to screw me over?" Lauren asked grumbling as she dug through the safe and stuffed cash into her purse. "This will barely cover my costs. You had one goddamn job to do. What the hell was I thinking bringing you on board?"

Before she left, Emily asked her, "What should I do?"

"Don't talk, if the police pick you up. Not a word. But if his friends should get to you first, beg them to make it quick."

Emily stayed in the room with her corpse lover, raiding the minibar until she had the courage to call Max.

He fixed everything. He flew in, comforted her, disposed of the body, and got her home to Aaron. But that one phone call had ruined everything between them.

He never looked at her the same way again. How could he after cleaning up her murder? After she made him dispose of the body she had cheated on him with?

In the hustle of Bourbon Street, Emily moved onto her next mark. If she was lucky she'd make a big score tonight and wouldn't have to come out here again tomorrow. She could get Amy on that boat and then get home to Aaron—back to where she was supposed to be. Back to where she seemed to always be trying to get.