“Faith Jacobson. 580 Flatbush Avenue. Brooklyn.” His voice was relaxed, casual, because murder was casual to him.

She didn’t want to stereotype, but a nicely dressed Italian man in Brooklyn standing over a dead body required no leaps of logic. This guy had mob written all over him. Letting go of the purse had been necessary to save herself, but now he knew who she was and where she lived. For a moment she continued to pretend he didn’t know she was in the dumpster. She tried to think about where she could go, how she could stay safe from someone who would no doubt relentlessly pursue the only witness to his crime.

“Pretty. Brunette, though. Too bad.” He must be looking at her driver’s license photo. She’d dyed her hair right before that was taken. Now it was back to her natural red. She didn’t know what he meant about her hair color, why it should matter one way or the other.

He let out a heavy sigh. “All right, come on out. If you make me come get you, I might have to play with you first.”

That was it. She’d held it together as long as she could, been quiet as long as she could manage. “Please, let me go.”

“Sorry, I can’t do that. You’ve got too much information in that pretty head.”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t know who you are. I don’t care. I won’t get involved. I swear to God. Walk away. Please. Whatever happened back there, it’s not my business. I don’t care about it.” All Faith wanted was to be safe in her bed at home with her cat.

The silence stretched on like he was considering it.

“Sorry. Your number’s up tonight.”

Although he’d made vague reference to torturing her first if she inconvenienced him, she couldn’t make any part of her body move. Everything had shut down. How could a person step outside their hiding place, knowing a bullet was waiting on the other side?

Faith was frozen between a rotting burger and a bag of empty beer bottles. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to be in her cozy apartment.

The lid of the dumpster flew back, and she screamed for a savior she knew wasn’t coming.

The Italian aimed the gun at her. “Shut up. You want to be responsible for someone else’s death, too? I can shoot witnesses all night.”

No one would reach her before he pulled the trigger. “Please don’t hurt me. I swear I don’t care what happened back there. I just want to go home.”

“Fuck it. I shoot you in the dumpster, and I don’t have clean up. Works for me.” He took a step to the side, lining up his shot as a light from the opposite wall hit her in the face. Instead of pulling the trigger, he just stared. “If you want to live, get out here right now.”

“I thought you said …”

“What I said was to get your pretty ass out of the dumpster before I change my mind.”