But after everything, it was too much to have him sit across a table and shrug off the admission that he had, as far as he knew, let Marcelline die like a dog in the road for his own convenience.

Owen wasn’t forgiving enough to let that sort of thing go—losing years to an error of thinking, and falling out of standing with the worthless people who paid him. The Anningers had made Owen’s days about regaining what they’d lost and then some.

He had ended up dangling at the whim and greed of an overreaching, underwitted asshole who didn’t know what to do with a stroke of good luck. And that just wouldn’t cut it.

So Owen’s schedule for the day had been to first get the painting off the Anningers’ shopping list, then to get right on with removing Jonathan’s heartbeat from his chest. That was the plan.

But his certainty had started shedding.

Jonathan had Owen convinced that he really did think she was dead. But then all of a sudden, Jonathan revealed that he knew she wasn’t. He claimed that the two of them had even spoken in the last day or so. Then Jonathan changed the deal. He dangled the chance to talk to Marcelline as some sort of condition of doing what he’d already agreed to do.

And now Samantha, the closest thing Owen had to a colleague, to someone who could imagine what it was like to be him and to have his life, had the bad manners to reveal that she’d known the whole time; that she had played monkey-in-the-middle with his peace of mind for years. She’d threatened him over Marcelline’s disappearance.

He paced the shallow carpet between the bed and the dresser. The spilled water squished under his shoe.

He didn’t know what to think.

In an essentially desire-free existence, a single want had so much room to grow. And had it ever. It crowded out everything to the point he was kicking desks. Had Marcelline thrown in her lot with that smarmy little fuck? Or had she struck out on her own, saying and doing anything to make Owen useful to her goals? He’d never been good at reading her. Obviously.

Jonathan, though, was pretty easy.

•  •  •

Owen wasn’t sure that Jonathan wouldn’t let the call just ring through to his voice mail. But he answered it, somewhere near the last possible moment.

“Yeah?” Jonathan was trying hard for a neutral tone, but there was a hint of lava in his voice.

“I understand you’re having a rough morning,” Owen said.

To his credit, Jonathan didn’t make a big deal out of how Owen might know this. They were a bit beyond the smaller details.

“I’m straightening it out.”