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A buzzer sounds. It’s a smoke alarm. Ryan finally breaks his statue impersonation and jabs his index finger into a button on the hood above the stove. A fan starts to suck the smoke from the burning bacon into a vent, lifting it in eerie, ghostly whorls. It reminds me of the way the smoke rose over the avocado fields the night my parents were murdered. I can’t sit any longer. I jolt from the chair and start to pace around the table, chewing my thumbnail as I go. Reynard says flatly, “You have forty-eight hours to get that diamond and get back to London. Capo’s expecting you. If you don’t arrive, he’ll kill me. That’s not so alarming, I’ve been expecting it for years, but what should alarm you is that he will hunt you down, using all his considerable reach and power to find you. And when
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