“I didn’t kill him.” For the first time, I caught exasperation in her voice. “I didn’t know where to go. I said Boston. He brought me here. It’s crowded. I’m blending in.”

“Cops?”

“Not bad.”

Most likely because they were currently focusing their efforts elsewhere.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” I told my sister. “I’ll find you at the Starbucks. That’s the coffeehouse at the end of the food court.”

“I know what Starbucks is,” she said, exasperated again.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were such a connoisseur of nonprison foods.”

“Fuck off,” she said, but her voice lacked heat.

I couldn’t help myself; I smiled. For a moment, we sounded almost like sisters. I hung up the phone, retrieved the largest sunglasses I could find to help disguise my savaged face, then went downstairs to hail a cab.

• • •

I WALKED RIGHT BY Shana the first time. Slender, middle-aged guy in jeans and a plaid shirt sitting casually at a table. No reason for a second glance. It wasn’t until I’d perused the entire crowded space that I realized my error. Why that one person stuck out from all the others I’d seen.

When I returned to the table, Shana was smiling at me.

“I did good,” she said, with a trace of genuine pride.

She had done good. She’d done great. Gone were the long, lank locks. She’d shorn her hair right off, a boyish cut that changed the lines of her face, made her appear more youthful as well as masculine, given her slightly broader shoulders, flat chest and nonexistent hips. I’d packed sweats, but she must have used some of the money to buy new clothes, because she sported a pair of distressed jeans as well as a button-up flannel shirt. She could’ve been an ad for Gap or Old Navy. The earth-tone plaid suited her complexion better than bright orange ever did, but she’d also played with the makeup. Foundation, I would guess. Maybe some powder. Enough to even out her skin, take years off her age.

I felt as if I was in some perverse makeover show. How to look twenty years younger and no longer incarcerated!

She had a baseball cap in front of her on the table, as well as a cup of coffee; the duffel bag I’d left for her in my car decorated her feet.

I took a seat across from her, feeling dowdy in my hastily thrown-on clothes, conspicuous with my injured hand and face. We wouldn’t be able to linger here. We wouldn’t be able to linger anywhere without commanding attention.

My sister took a sip of coffee. On the table, she was rhythmically tapping the fingers of her left hand, a sign she wasn’t as calm as she was trying to appear.

“How is it?” I asked, gesturing toward her drink.