Sylvia answered with a “Meh.”
“As it’s crashing into shark-infested waters?”
“Better.”
“Fine,” I snapped. “I’ll rework a few scenes.”
“While you’re at it, rewrite the ending,” Sylvia said.
I gripped the phone tighter to keep myself from throwing it. “What’s wrong with the ending?”
“Your heroine can’t ride off into the sunset with her sidekick. This is a romance novel, not Thelma and Louise.”
“Thelma and Louise won an Academy Award.”
“They held hands and drove off a cliff, Finlay.” I bit my tongue through her exasperated sigh. “The assassin and the cop are good together. Give your heroine the happy ending she deserves. And do it quickly,” she added. “I, for one, would like to get paid.”
“Me, too,” the driver and Vero said in unison.
“Great. I’ll tell your editor you’re on board with the changes.” Sylvia disconnected before I managed to respond.
I handed my phone to Vero. “Happy?”
She shook her head as she took my cell and dropped it in the diaper bag. “I don’t understand your hesitation with the cop.”
“Because whenever the cop and the assassin get together, somebody dies.”
“Only because you make them.”
“Way to rub it in.” I checked the time and turned my cart toward the front of the store.
“How hard can it be to write a happy ending? Just pretend your characters are Delia’s Barbie dolls. Take off all their clothes and mash their faces together.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You’re absolutely right,” she conceded. “The cop should ask for the assassin’s consent first. Then, when she soberly, mutually, and enthusiastically agrees, they can jump each other like jackrabbits and you can write a bestseller.”
“Any other brilliant revision advice?”
She looked at me sideways as we pushed our carts toward the register. “Maybe this time, try not to kill anybody.”
CHAPTER 3
After dinner that night, Vero put the kids in a bath while I cleared the dishes and took the recycling out to the bin beside the garage. Glass smacked against glass as I emptied the contents of my tote. A wine bottle bounced off the lip of the bin and shattered against the ground. I cringed, hoping my elderly neighbor hadn’t heard the crash. I glanced across the street at Mrs. Haggerty’s house, but the windows in her kitchen were dark and her TV flickered between the drapes in her living room.
I knelt to gather the broken glass, gasping when a hand clamped over my mouth. My shouts were muffled by a thick leather glove as someone yanked me backward into the hedges. I threw my head back into my attacker’s face. He yelped, hissing at me in sharp whispers as I kicked out blindly with my heels.
“Ow! What the hell? Jesus, lady!”
I sunk my teeth through the fingers of his glove and drove an elbow into his ribs. Ripping myself free of his arms, I stumbled out from the hedges and made a run for the house, triggering the motion-sensing lights by the back door. I turned to get a look at him as light flooded the yard. My attacker reared away, shielding his face against the glare. I jolted to a stop as a familiar pair of cynical gray eyes blinked at me.
“Cam?” I asked between pants.
The teenager bent over his knees, cradling his sore ribs. “Who the hell did you think?” He wiped his bloody nose on his glove, looking insulted as he peeled it off to inspect the damage to his finger. “Did you seriously have to bite me? These hands are worth a lot of money and they aren’t insured. You could have permanently maimed me.”
“What are you doing here after dark on a school night?” He flinched at my mom voice. If Cam was any other high school student, he’d be at home texting his girlfriend or doing his homework, harassing his grandmother instead of me. Until a few weeks ago, Cam had been a confidential informant for the police, working to keep himself out of juvie, but his talent for hacking hadn’t gone unnoticed by Feliks Zhirov. He’d been offered a position on Feliks’s payroll, and I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly why Cam was here.
“I came to deliver a message.” Cam’s hand froze halfway to his pocket. His spine stiffened until it was ramrod straight. Slowly, he lifted his chin, his eyes wide as the broken neck of a wine bottle glimmered against his throat.
A low voice behind him issued a warning. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“We’re cool, man. It’s cool.” Cam laced his fingers behind his head as the man behind him patted down his pockets. I released a held breath as Vero’s childhood friend Javier peered around Cam’s shoulder. His raven-black hair was tied back from his face, a few loose strands falling over his forehead as his dark eyes raked over me. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, swatting pine needles from my shirt as Javi pulled a cream-colored envelope from Cam’s coat and held it out to me.
“See? I told you,” Cam said, angling his head away from the broken bottle, “I only came to deliver a message.”
I took the envelope and folded it into my pocket, hoping Javi hadn’t noticed the crimson wax seal. “You couldn’t have called?” I asked, glaring at Cam. I hadn’t seen him since he’d last come to deliver a message from Feliks, and while it hadn’t been a welcome surprise then either, at least he’d shown me the courtesy of knocking on my door rather than dragging me into the bushes.
Cam dared a glance over his shoulder at Javi. “Boss told me to make sure I delivered it with the appropriate amount of gravitas, whatever that means.”
“I’m pretty sure both Merriam and Webster would tell you it doesn’t mean abducting an unarmed woman while she’s taking out her trash!” At his puzzled look, I muttered, “Never mind.”
I rubbed the throbbing lump on the back of my head. “It’s okay, Javi. You can let him go. He’s just a kid.”
“I’m not a kid,” Cam argued, jerking against Javi’s grip. “I’ll be eighteen in a month.”
Javi’s grin was wry as he held stubbornly to the back of Cam’s collar. “Want to use my phone to call the cops? I can babysit him until they get here.”
“No!” Cam and I answered in unison.
I cleared my throat. “Thanks, but we’re fine,” I insisted. “Vero’s putting the kids to bed. There’s a pot of soup on the stove. Why don’t you let yourself in and have something to eat while you wait for her.”
Javi gave Cam one last searing look before letting him go. Cam and I waited to speak until Javi’s sneakers disappeared around the house.
“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” Cam insisted as he prodded his swollen lip. “That’s the god’s honest truth. I was only trying to get you someplace where no one would see me talking to you. That nosy old lady across the street’s always peeking out her window. She gives me the creeps.”
Mrs. Haggerty was the community busybody and the self-appointed head of the neighborhood watch, but I was pretty sure she was just bored, lonely, and wanted to feel important. I’d resented her for it after she’d told me （and everyone else on the street） that she’d spotted our real estate agent sneaking out of my house after a midday tryst with my then husband. But in the twenty months since Steven moved out （and our subsequent divorce）， I’d come to realize it wasn’t always a terrible thing to have someone—even an annoying, opinionated someone—looking out for you. I just had to be cautious about the kinds of things Mrs. Haggerty saw, since every detail inevitably made it into the notebook she kept on the table beside her front door. An after-dark visit by a leather-clad teenager with a criminal record would definitely raise some eyebrows at a neighborhood watch meeting. Or worse, at the police station downtown.