“I don’t know, Syl—”
“Excellent, I’m glad we’re in agreement.”
“It’s not that simple! I can’t just—” Through the phone, I heard the swooshing sound of her computer sending an email. A moment later, a notification beeped on my phone.
“I’m sending you the revised terms, and I negotiated a few extras for you. Your editor thinks you should go out under a new pen name. We’re thinking Fiona Donahue has a nice ring to it. I told her you were thrilled. She’s already sent it to her people, and we should have the revised contract and the balance of your advance in a few weeks. You’ve got thirty days to get her a draft, so get to work. I’ll call you in a few days to check in.”
Sylvia disconnected. Numb, I fell back against the pillows.
Suddenly, I was rolling in money. More money than I ever could have imagined. Enough for a full-time sitter and a pricey attorney. Enough to fix my car, and, most important, save my kids. Enough to get Steven and Theresa off my back.
I didn’t know which was worse. That I was actually proud of myself for the first time in my life, or that every single penny I’d earned could put me in prison for the rest of it.
* * *
I was still hungover the next morning when Steven came to pick up the kids. Vero had insisted on celebrating the sale of the book over a bottle of champagne after Delia and Zach had gone to sleep, and there hadn’t been a drop left when we’d finished. She’d been so excited (and drunk) she hadn’t even minded when I told her I was going to contact Irina Borovkov and arrange to give back the advance. The champagne fog was the only explanation for the fact that I didn’t hear Steven slide his key into the lock and let himself in. By the time I made it downstairs, he was already stuffing Delia and Zach into their coats. I intercepted them, stealing quick hugs that made my insides ache.
“The doorbell works, you know.” I glared at Steven over the heads of our children.
“It’s cold outside and I didn’t feel like waiting.” He opened the door for Delia and Zach, nudging them through it. “Go out and wait in Daddy’s truck with Theresa and Aunt Amy. I’ll be there in a minute.” We both clamped down our arguments as they waddled out in their puffy coats.
“It’s my house, Steven,” I said as soon as the door closed behind them. “You can’t just barge in anytime you feel like it.”
“Sure I can. My name’s on the deed.”
Vero appeared in the opening to the kitchen behind him. She reached around him, snatched the keys from his hand, and promptly began unwinding my house key from the ring. Steven’s mouth fell open as she popped it off with a flourish. She carried it to the powder room, opened the door, and dropped it in the Diaper Genie with a satisfied smirk. His face turned a hideous shade of red as she turned the crank, making a poop sausage of his only copy of my key.
“What the hell is she doing here?” he hissed at me as she wiped her hands together and closed the lid. “I told you I’m not paying for your babysitter.”
“I happen to be Ms. Donovan’s accountant and business manager,” Vero interrupted, cocking a hip. “And your rent is already in the mail.”
“Not all of it,” Steven said smugly.
“All of it,” Vero fired back. “And let’s get something straight, Landlordy McLandlord. Just because your name is on the deed, it doesn’t give you the right to bust in here anytime you feel like it. Maybe you should read your rental agreement, specifically paragraph four, clause b, which explicitly states you have to notify your tenant of your intent to enter the property. Next time you come waltzing in here unannounced, you might accidentally walk in on something you wished you hadn’t seen.”
“Like what?”
Please don’t say a corpse. Please don’t say a corpse.
“Like Finlay’s hot new underwear model boyfriend.”
Steven’s eyes flew wide. I pinched Vero in the elbow.
“He’s not an underwear model,” I said.
“He just looks like one—”
“And he’s not my—”
“He’s really an attorney,” she finished. I felt a headache coming on. Or maybe that was the hangover. “I suggest next time you adhere to the terms of your lease, or I might have to hire him to provide Ms. Donovan with his full range of services.” Vero let her eyes trail down Steven’s body, unimpressed. “And if you have a problem with that, you can stick it up your arrogant, cheating—”
I pressed my fingers into my temple. “Vero is living with us, Steven.” Steven’s attention snapped to me, his face a mask of disbelief. Before he could open his mouth to speak, I said, “I’m paying her.”
“You’re paying her?”
“Let’s just say neither one of us was happy with your terms.”
Silence fell like a hammer. Vero batted her eyelashes at him with a closed-lipped triumphant smile. A vein bulged in Steven’s forehead.
“Paying her with what?” he asked, looking at us like we’d both lost our minds. “You have no money, Finn. You’re months behind on all of your bills. There’s no way you can afford that.”
“Ms. Donovan has plenty of money,” Vero quipped. “And matters of her financial solvency, beyond the rent she no longer owes you, are none of your concern.”
“What is she talking about?”
I glared at Vero. She scrutinized her manicure, picking at the polish as she pretended not to notice. Steven had me penned in. I had to tell him something, or he’d take his burning questions about my assets straight to Guy. “I sold a book.”
“Two books,” Vero corrected me. A lump formed in my throat at the pride I saw in her fierce dark eyes. No one had ever treated my job as … well … a job. No one had ever defended it, been proud of it, boasted about it. It had always been me, alone behind my desk.
“So what’d that get you? Three thousand dollars?” Steven’s lip curled, the implication dripping so thickly with sarcasm I could have lubed my van with it. “What about the maxed-out credit cards? And the van payments? And her…” he said, hooking a thumb to Vero. “She must be costing you—”
“Ms. Donovan’s revenue is also none of your business,” Vero said, getting up in his face.
“Bullshit!” Steven glared down at her as he pointed at me. “There is no possible way she made enough money from those crappy books to pay down all that debt.” The blow hit me square in the chest. It knocked me back with the same suffocating shame I’d felt every time I opened an advance check in front of him. He’d placate me with a pat on the back, making backhanded remarks about how we might have enough to pay for a few boxes of diapers, or, if we were lucky, maybe some groceries. He gesticulated behind him to the front porch, where all the unopened mail had been stacked. “Those bills have been piling up for months. She owes me a lot more than…” His face fell. His forehead creased and his arm sagged, his eyes swinging through the house like searchlights. “Where are the bills?” He shouldered his way past us into the kitchen and rifled through the thin stack of leaflets and coupons on the counter with Vero tight on his heels. I could hear them bickering as I bounded up the stairs to my office.
I was done being belittled and made to feel like what I did wasn’t important. That I couldn’t take care of myself or our children. I was done being made to feel like I didn’t belong on the top shelf with people like Steven and Theresa. I opened my email, shoved a piece of paper in the printer, and silently cursed Steven as it started humming. When it finished, I snatched the paper off the tray and stormed downstairs, where Vero and Steven were nose to nose, ready to claw each other’s faces off.
I reached between them, slamming the paper down on the table.
Vero eased back and folded her arms, the painted edge of her smile so sharp it was practically cutting as she raised her eyebrow at Steven, daring him to look at it.
“What’s this?” he asked, reluctant to pick it up.
“My offer letter. You want to know what my crappy books are worth? See for yourself.”
Steven s
wiped the paper off the table. His blue eyes skimmed it like a laser, and I felt a flutter of satisfaction when they burned a hole through the dollar sign somewhere in the middle.
“What’s that number?” he asked.
“That’s the amount of my advance.”
His mouth moved, but his tongue was slow to follow. It might have been the first time I’d ever seen him speechless. He handed it back to me as he cleared his throat. “It’s about time they paid you a reasonable wage. But it’s still not enough to—”
“Keep reading,” Vero said, shoving it back in his face. “It’s a two-book deal. She makes double that, plus extra when she sells media, film options, and translation rights. That’s all before she collects her royalties. Do you want to do the math, or would you like me to help you with that?”
Steven dropped the offer on the table. He glared at Vero and shouldered past her for the door. He didn’t look at me. Maybe because he couldn’t. He hadn’t been able to see me as anything other than a failure in years. It was as if he had forgotten how to see me as anything else.
“I’ll be back on Sunday with the kids,” he mumbled.
“Ring the doorbell next time,” Vero called after him.
He flipped her off without bothering to look back, and his dismissal of her pissed me off more than all the rest of it.
“Steven.” The command in my own tone surprised me. His feet paused just before the door. “You and Theresa might want to reconsider your custody suit. According to my accountant, we have the resources to fight it.”
The stubble on Steven’s jaw worked. He threw open the front door and slammed it behind him.
Vero put a hand on my shoulder as I watched Steven go. I heard the steps creak under her as she headed up to her room. “Why did you do it?” I asked.
She paused. “Do what?”
“That night. With Harris. You could have left me in the garage. Why did you bury him with me?”
Vero shrugged. “I liked your odds.” At my puzzled look, she said, “I did the math when you first hired me. I needed to know what I’d sacrificed that bank job for. As far as I can figure, your chances of landing an agent were about ten thousand to one. And your odds of landing a book deal were even worse. Somehow, you’d managed to pull off both. Getting away with murder had to be easier than that, right?” She started back up the stairs, then paused again, turning to look at me over her shoulder. “My mom was a single mother. She was resourceful and gutsy … like you. If I had to pick a partner to stake my future earnings on—and maybe my freedom,” she added with a wry smile, “I figured it was a safe bet to put my money on you.” She retreated up the stairs to her room, and for the first time in a long time, I knew when I sat down in front of a blank screen later that night, I wouldn’t be facing it alone.
CHAPTER 24
“What do we do with it?” I asked on Sunday afternoon as I held the bag up to my eye.
“He’s not an it. He has a name,” Delia said. I bit back all the arguments swimming up my throat. If we named it, it was more than a fish. It was a pet. And my track record for keeping things alive these last few weeks wasn’t exactly stellar. “His name is Christopher.”
“Christopher? Seriously?”
With a scowl, she reached to snatch away the bag, and I held it out of reach. “Daddy liked it.”
“Christopher is a lovely name,” I conceded. “I was just thinking he looks exactly like a Christopher. Christopher’s parents must be very proud.”
Vero smirked at me from the hallway, one shoulder leaning against the doorframe of Delia’s room, her body language daring me not to kill it.
I unwound the rubber band and poured Christopher into the glass punch bowl—a forgotten wedding-day relic from Steven’s grandmother that I’d dug out of a box in the garage. Delia put her face close to the glass, her forehead creased with worry as she watched Christopher wobble and list to one side, his bulging eyes wide and his mouth gulping. Great, it wouldn’t be the first creature I’d starved for oxygen within minutes of bringing it home. At least this one would be easier to bury.
With a bright orange shimmy of scales, Christopher rallied. Zach squealed as the fish zipped around in circles inside the glass bowl.
The doorbell rang downstairs. “I’ll get it,” I told Vero. “Steven must have forgotten something.” She rolled her eyes. “Hey, at least he used the doorbell this time.”
“Some animals can be trained.” She followed me down the stairs. My feet dug into the bottom step when I caught a glimpse of the car in the driveway through the window. A plain, navy-blue Chevy sedan, with several antennas on the trunk lid and a dome light on the dashboard, was parked in front of my house.
Not Steven.
Vero slammed into my back, nearly knocking me down the last step. She swore, falling silent as she followed my line of sight to the figure standing with his back to the front door. Tall, dark hair, broad shoulders. He even stood like a cop, feet spread to shoulder width apart and his hands planted on his hips. He looked up and down the street before turning slowly toward the door. As he did, his sidearm peeked from the holster inside his jacket and a badge glinted at his belt.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Vero moved around my frozen body and tiptoed into the kitchen, peering through the slit in the curtains. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she whispered. “What do we do?”
The house closed in around me until all I could see was the cop on the other side of the window. My options narrowed with it, and I was seized by a sudden clarity. “We’re going to answer the door,” I said with a forced calm, “and we’re not going to say anything without an attorney. If he’s here to arrest me, you’re going to stay here with Delia and Zach. Then you’re going to call my sister and tell her to meet me at booking and bail me out.”
Vero paled. Nodded.
I moved to the door and commanded my hands to stop shaking as I twisted the knob.
The door cracked open. The plainclothes officer on the other side smiled.
“Jesus, he’s hot,” Vero said over my shoulder.
I threw an elbow into her ribs. Cleared my throat. “Can I help you, Officer?”
A deep dimple cut into his five o’clock shadow. He extended a hand, forcing me to open the door wider to shake it.
“My name’s Detective Nick Anthony and I’m with the Fairfax County police. I’m looking for Finlay Donovan.” My knees threatened to buckle, and I held fast to the door. The officer’s brow creased. “If it’s a bad time, I could come back.” His voice had the rough edges of someone who spent his days barking orders, but his dark eyes were soft under thick, long lashes, and my name had come out more like a question than an order.
“I’m Finlay,” I said cautiously, looking behind him for his partner. If he was here to arrest me on suspicion of murder, he probably hadn’t come alone.
His hesitant smile warmed, stretching to the sun-deepened creases around his eyes. “I’m a friend of your sister’s. I’m working a case you might be interested in, and Georgia thought it might be a good idea if I talk to you.”
“Me? Why me?” I asked, my body half-hidden by the door as Vero listened behind it.
The detective scratched the back of his head, his smile becoming almost sheepish. “I hit a wall, and she thought you might be able to help me.” He glanced over his shoulder at Mrs. Haggerty’s window. “Mind if I come in?”
He wasn’t flashing a warrant or reading me my Miranda rights. It didn’t seem like he was here to arrest me. I held open the door, hoping it wasn’t a mistake. “Sure. Okay.”
Vero raised an eyebrow, appraising his long legs as they stepped into the foyer. I jerked my chin toward the stairs, but she shook her head. Detective Anthony stopped short when he saw her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you had company. I probably should have called first.” He hitched a thumb at the door. “I can come back later—”
“No,” Vero and I said at the same time. If he walked out now, I’d spend the rest of the day panicki
ng over why he’d come here in the first place. Better to get this over with and rip it off like a Band-Aid.
“This is Vero, my nanny—”
“Accountant,” Vero interjected, shaking his hand.
“Vero lives with us. And she was just going upstairs.” I threw her a pointed look. “We can talk in here,” I said, steering Detective Anthony into the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, soda, or anything?”
“Soda would be great.” He slid off his windbreaker as I opened the fridge. I watched him over the refrigerator door. A brown leather holster crisscrossed his back, and the black grip of his gun seemed to point at me as he took a seat at my table.
My throat bobbed with my hard swallow. “So … Detective Anthony—”
“Please, call me Nick.”
“Nick.” If he was here to arrest me, he wouldn’t be so informal, right? And he probably wouldn’t be smiling. Or maybe he would. My sister said some cops were assholes that way. “You know Georgia?” Ice rattled in the glass as I set his Coke on the table in front of him.
“Yeah, we were in the Academy together years ago.” He didn’t look much older than my sister. The thick stubble coating his jaw was free of gray, and dark hair peppered the corded muscles of his forearms below the rolled sleeves of his Henley. “We go out for beers once in a while. So you’re the writer. She’s told me a lot about you. You and the kids.”
I casually pulled my chair a few inches farther away before I sat down, keeping some distance between us. “Really?”
“Don’t worry. It’s all good.”
I choked on a nervous laugh. He laughed, too. But I felt his keen eyes taking in every detail of me, and it made me squirm a little. “So … you’re working a case?”
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