“Yeah, except that I lied about that. I kept our names out of it. I had just enough information to get Internal Affairs involved and they opened a case on Art. To protect his own ass, Art turned on him, of course.”

“So…that whole manhunt that they have on him, that’s because of you?”

He nods and laughs.

“But why? He helped you so much.”

“He was informing on me, Olive. To the fucking FBI! Or did you forget that?”

“Of course not, but we did that job together. He helped you a lot. He set us up with all of that money.”

“Oh, please,” Owen says, waving his hand. “I don’t care about that. That guy killed my girlfriend and he almost stole you from me. I’m glad that I did what I did.”

I walk over to him.

My mind goes blank.

My mouth goes dry.

My hand forms into a fist and I punch him straight in his nose.

When he yells out and wraps his hands around his head, I punch again.

As hard as I can.

My hand starts to throb, sending little shockwaves of pain up my arm but that just makes me even more angry.

He betrayed me just like Nicholas betrayed me but he did it out of spite.

His betrayal was worse.

“Get out of my fucking life!” I say on my way out.

19

Olive

When I disengage…

On the way home, my hand feels incredibly hot. My fingers become sausages and it feels like they’re about to blow up.

I turn up the air conditioner and hold them up in the vents.

At the stop light, I take a closer look and realize that they’re not actually as big as they feel. But they definitely need some ice.

A few minutes later, I pull up to my driveway, but something stops me from actually going inside the garage.

The door opens and I wait.

Then I press the button on the sun shield and pull back out.

No, tonight I’m going out.

I need a drink and I’m not going to drink alone.

What I need even more than a drink is someone to talk to and a little bit of a distraction.

I don’t know of any bars around here but I really liked the restaurant where I met with Josephine so I drive there.

There’s a large parking lot in the back with not too many available spaces.

It’s early fall and the snowbirds are just starting to come back to the desert.

I grab a seat on the edge of the bar so that I can see the beautiful vertical garden right across from me and ask the bartender for some ice in a bag.

“Had a bit of an accident,” I lie.

He gives me a nod that says that he doesn’t quite believe me so I don’t bother elaborating.