She’d shot off an email to Brenda last night before crawling into bed to cry herself silly—perhaps, along with her crusty mascara, her dried tears had a little to do with the whole eye-goop-glue thing she had going. Then, shockingly, because she hadn’t really thought she would or could, she’d fallen into an exhausted, nearly catatonic sleep.

Unfortunately, instead of feeling better this morning, she just felt worse. Her limbs weighed a cool thousand pounds each. Her head was one giant throbbing ache. Her right nostril was completely clogged with…something she didn’t want to think about. And, to top it all off, she’d forgotten to brush her teeth before bed. So now, her mouth tasted like a combo of used kitty litter and fresh road kill. Blech…

“Heh—” Okay, used kitty litter and fresh road kill all wrapped up in cotton, because she had to swallow twice, her dry throat sticking both times, before she could talk without sounding like Joe Cocker. “Hey, Brenda. That was quick.” She blinked at the glowing red numbers on her digital alarm clock.

“When I got your email last night, I decided to head to the office early this morning. Personal business, eh?” Brenda’s voice sounded perky, as always. And Delilah could not understand people who were cheerful in the morning. It’s like they were aliens that came down from planet Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed. “That sounds interesting. Although,” Brenda’s tone darkened, “if you’re thinking of investing with these guys or something, I’d think twice. They’re in it up to their eyeballs.”

“No, no,” Delilah assured the woman. “It’s not that. It’s—” And then she stopped herself. Because how the hell was she supposed to explain all of yesterday in two sentences? Which was really about the uppermost limit of any conversational energy she had in her. So, she finished lamely with, “It-it’s something else.”

“Mmm,” Brenda purred. “More and more intriguing. Color me curious.”

“I’ll tell you all about it,” Delilah promised, because she really did like Brenda despite the whole evil-alien-morning-person shtick. “But right now, I need to know what you found.”

“The usual,” Brenda said. “Three rich guys go into a highly speculative business together and then lose their pants.”

“Wait…” Delilah sat up in the bed, throwing the autumnal-colored comforter aside and realizing she’d put her polka dot pajama bottoms on both inside out and backward. Maybe it was a good thing Mac hadn’t let her go home with him. She’d obviously been a wreck last night, not fit for company. “Three rich guys? I thought the business was founded by two men, Patrick Edens and Blake Parish.”

“Nope,” Brenda said just as Delilah caught sight of her reflection in her dresser mirror. Sonofa— She looked like she was the fresh road kill. Lifting a hand, she tried unsuccessfully to pat some of her hair into place. “There was a third guy, a minor partner, and a silent one at that. I can’t remember his name, but it’s in the files I emailed you. I think it’s spelled out somewhere in the articles of incorporation.”

Another partner? Perhaps another man who’d have reason to see Eve dead? Delilah’s hand halted mid-pat then she lowered it shakily to her throat.

“Brenda,” her heart was a hammer in her chest, “I’ve got to go. But I owe you. Big time. Next time you come into the bar—” the bar where Buzzard had died, the bar she needed to get back up and running, the bar she wasn’t going to think about right now, “—drinks are on me. All night.”

“Deal,” Brenda said, adding, “and toodles,” before clicking off.

Delilah opened up her email account straight from her phone. Quickly scrolling through the files Brenda sent her, she stopped on the one titled “Articles of Incorporation.” Her brain buzzing with curiosity and a weird sense of dread, she opened the document. One name jumped off the page.

“Oh, shit,” she breathed, the room around her dissolving into a blur as she stared down at the email for one heartbeat, then two.

Then she shook herself, shook off the momentary shock, and dialed Information. After impatiently going through the rigmarole of saying what city and state she was in and which business’s phone number she was looking for, she listened as the connection was made. A series of rings sounded. “Come on, Mac,” she growled. “Pick up the damned phone.”

No such luck. She was forwarded to a voice mail explaining that if she was interested in speaking to someone about a custom bike, she should email them at blah, blah, blah.

“Damnit!” She stabbed a finger onto her phone’s screen, catapulting herself from bed and stumbling over to the dresser. Hopping out of her PJs, she wrenched open a drawer, dragged on a pair of jeans, shrugged into a sports bra, and pulled an old KISS T-shirt over her head. Slipping her feet—sans socks—into a grungy pair of red Converse sneakers, she hesitated in front of the mirror, contemplating whether to take the time to wash her face and comb her hair.

Whatever, she decided, waving a hand at her reflection before grabbing her purse and her keys. She wrenched open the back door only to run face-first into a curtain of driving rain. Cursing, she instinctively threw an arm over her head. But then she realized she was trying to protect…what? Her crazy, uncombed hair? Muttering obscenities to herself, she lowered her arm and raced down the metal stairway. Splashing through the puddles of water that’d gathered in the alley and the bar’s tiny parking lot, she skidded to a stop at the corner, hand lifted in an attempt to hail a taxi.

And, praise be to the higher powers, if her rain-logged eyeballs weren’t deceiving her, that was a red cab with a busted tailpipe pulling up to the curb. A mammoth bolt of lightning ripped open the sky, and a gust of wind blasted down the street between the buildings. Delilah’s drenched hair plastered itself against her face as she heaved open the taxi’s door. Sliding into the faux-leather seat, she gave the cabbie the address for Black Knights Inc. and finished with, “And there’s an extra twenty in it for you if you get me there in under ten minutes.”

* * *

Black Knights Inc. Headquarters

8:55 a.m.

“Yo, asshole. Get up.”

Mac growled into the cushion of the shop’s leather sofa, his face occupying the spot usually reserved for someone’s ass. But he wasn’t going to think about that. Not until after he’d had his first cup of coffee. And certainly not until after he’d gifted whichever Connelly brother was barking orders at him with a witty rebuttal that began with the word “fuck” and ended with the word “you.”

Unfortunately, his witty rebuttal didn’t quite have the oomph he was going for because it was muffled by the couch cushion. He flipped over to see Geralt Connelly scowling down at him. The Connelly brothers were the quartet of red-haired, freckled, built-like-linebacker native Chicagoans who took turns manning BKI’s front gate. They were Irish Catholic to the core, rowdy as children, a slap-stick act when they all got together, and Mac usually liked them immensely. That is, when they weren’t waking him up…he checked his watch…just three hours after he’d managed to finally fall asleep.

After he arrived home last night, thoughts of Delilah, thoughts of how he should’ve been kinder to her, should’ve stayed with her, had swirled around and around in his head until he’d damn near driven himself crazy. So, he’d worked on his cycle, cleaning the fuel lines, replacing the oil, polishing the chrome, until the wee hours of the morning when the previous day finally caught up with him and he passed out face-first on the sofa.

“Fuck me?” Geralt asked incredulously, his big, ruddy face wrinkling. “No, thank you. I don’t go in for dick gymnastics.”

“Come on now,” Mac snorted a laugh. “I’m not even sure I know what that means.”

“You know exactly what it means,” Geralt replied in his thick Chicago accent. “Besides,” the man reached up to scrub a huge mitt over his buzzed, carrot-top head. “I like redheads. In fact, I’m an easy mark for redheads. Especially busty ones.”

Mac narrowed his eyes, pushing up into a sitting position. “And you’re tellin’ me this because…” He made a rolling motion with his hand, until it occurred to him that Geralt wasn’t at his post. “Why the hell aren’t you mannin’ the gate? Did those goddamned reporters out there do somethin’?”

“Those goddamned reporters hightailed it home when this god-awful storm broke,” Geralt said as a crash of lightning sizzled overhead. The resulting boom of thunder rattled the tall, leaded windows of the shop, and Mac suddenly realized the dull roar he’d been hearing wasn’t a result of his own headache, but was, in fact, the sound of a deluge pounding on the roof of the warehouse. “And I’m not manning the gate because I couldn’t get ahold of you.” Geralt folded his arms over his massive chest, scowling fiercely. “Either your damned phone is off, or it’s out of juice.”

Mac dug in his hip pocket, pulled out his cell phone, and realized he was dealing with scenario numero dos. He usually plugged his phone into the charger on his nightstand before catching some Zs. Not the case last night.

He cursed, frowning up at Geralt. “So what did you need?” But as soon as he asked the question, Geralt’s comment about being an easy mark for redheads, especially busty ones, had trepidation biting him in the ass like his father’s cranky old ranch dog used to do.

And, yeah, just as he suspected…“The always lovely and terribly overripe Delilah Fairchild is here,” Geralt announced gleefully, wiggling his nearly nonexistent eyebrows. Okay, so the dude’s eyebrows weren’t nonexistent. They were just so blond they appeared that way and—