Because Jessica is definitely dying—right here before me, she’s bleeding. Travis has used insults to cut open every artery.

I shift my weight awkwardly from foot to foot, my eyes bouncing between Travis and Jessica before settling on the latter. “I really look forward to working with you, Mrs. Gable,” I say softly, as if my own feeble words might serve as gauze and Band-Aids. I then turn to Travis and add, “And for you, Mr. Gable.”

Before either of them can delay me longer I back out of the room and then rush to the door. Hopefully they’ll attribute my haste to a desire to escape an uncomfortable situation.

“Bell!”

I turn to see Travis standing in the hall. “Please remember, this job pays very well. It will be worth it.”

Really? Worth watching you demean and humiliate your wife for your amusement? But then, there will be other rewards, I remind myself. Rewards that have nothing to do with money. Yes, it will be worth it.

“Don’t disappoint me, Bell.”

“Oh, Mr. Gable,” I say solemnly, “I may be many things, but I’m never a disappointment.”

And I mean it. To Travis I won’t be a disappointment at all.

To him? I’ll be a disaster.

chapter seven

Last time I saw Jessica she wasn’t more than nineteen and I wasn’t even in middle school yet, not nearly on Jessica’s radar. Jessica hadn’t been quite so . . . strained back then. Her voice, now so thin, was rich and robust as she bemoaned Nick Foley’s fate from the witness stand.

And Jessica had been such a perfect witness. A sweet-faced girl from a good family, what could she gain from testifying against my mom?

Nothing. That’s what everyone thought.

But isn’t it interesting that only six months after my mother’s sentencing, Jessica was engaged to a man no one even knew she was dating: Travis Gable, a man who knew Nick Foley quite well.

I tuck the memory away as I walk past the line of coops on Travis’s block, my eyes quick, looking for any sign of Lander. But he’s not here. I got out in time. Pulling my phone out of my handbag, I make a quick call to him, but it goes directly to voice mail.

“Hi, I’m sorry I had to cut you off before. I just finished a job interview not too far from you—right across the park in fact, and I was hoping you had a few minutes to catch up. Call me before I head out of here.”