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“Flint?”

“Yes! You had to have seen him. He was sitting here on the patio. He went inside right after you and your friend left to talk.”

For one startled instant, Zach wondered if Flint was indeed playing double agent.

How ironic if Zach was paying him to do what Flint had already been hired for. Was it possible?

Second by horrified second, he relived every word of every conversation he’d had with Flint over the past twenty-four hours.

But no. That was too hard to swallow.

Flint reallyhadn’twanted to take this job. He really had seemed tired and out of sorts. Whereas, if he’d already been hired by Zora, he’d surely have jumped at the opportunity.

Flint was not devious.

At least…Zach didn’t think so. In all honesty, he didn’t know Flint well enough to know if he was devious or not. If he was, he was really good at concealing it—and what could be more devious than that?

“Are you all right? Your eyes are glazed,” Alton observed.

“Hm? Oh. No. I just… Yes, I saw Flint earlier. But is he the kind of person Zora would hire?”

“I suppose he has a certain animal magnetism.” Alton’s tone was grudging.

Yes. Flint definitely had a certain…something.

Zach remembered that little silent toast Flint had made as Zora passed him in the doorway.

Wasit possible?

His heart sank.

Yes. It was possible.

The waiter arrived with their elegantly packaged meals. Alton scrawled his signature on the check. “Ready?” he asked Zach.

Zach was already on his feet, shrugging into his coat.

They moved toward the restaurant entryway, Alton’s hand resting possessively on Zach’s back.

“Why don’t we drive to the beach house,” Alton was saying. “We can finish our meal in private and consider our next move.”

“Isthere a next move?” Zach scanned the crowded interior of the restaurant, but there was no sign of Flint.

Was he in the gents? Had he left to follow Zora? The job was to keep an eye on Alton. Zach tried unsuccessfully to smother his rising anxiety.

“Of course there’s a next move. What do you mean?” Alton ushered Zach through the front doors.

The crisp night had that vaguely melancholy, earthy autumn scent. A smell of sugary decay, as though all the pumpkin-spice candles in the world had been pinched out in one fell heartless swoop. The Bentley, rain-glittered in the lamplight, sat idling on the cobbled street. Chico stood at attention beside the car.

Had Flint been wrong about Chico speeding away earlier? Would there be any advantage in lying about such a thing? Hard to imagine. More likely Chico had just been in a hurry to have his dinner and return before Alton was ready to leave the restaurant.

Trails of exhaust wound ghostlike through the herb garden and around their ankles as they walked down the steps.

Chico held the door as Alton—his hand still plastered to Zach’s back—guided him in.

“We’re going to the beach house,” Alton informed Chico.

“Yessir.”