Owen sat on the unmade bed and leaned back on the headboard. “No, I don’t know what happened. Let’s just say that, tomorrow, when this is all over—for the second time—I’d like to be able to reflect on your candor in this particular moment. I’d like to see how it matches up to what bullshit story she’s going to tell me when I see her. Then I’ll know how to feel about this. I’ll know if I’m done with this whole thing. Or not.”

Jonathan took a moment to decide what to say. The maid blotted water from the carpet with a folded towel.

Jonathan sighed. “My stepdaughter took it.”

The housekeeper jumped at the laugh that broke from Owen. “You can’t be serious.”

Jonathan’s confirming silence only made Owen laugh harder.

“Carly again? Well, isn’t she just karma’s own little spatula.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Five minutes after Marcelline was sure she couldn’t take on another worry, positive that her head hadn’t a square inch of real estate for another problem, Carly spoke up from the passenger seat.

They’d been quiet, driving in the opposite direction from where they’d end up meeting Owen in a little while. Marcelline wanted to stop looking over her shoulder in the time she had between now and then. If she couldn’t sleep, she could at least breathe easy for a bit. And find a place to wash her face.

“What happens after you’re done talking to whatshisname?” Carly asked.

“I don’t really know. It’s not afterward that bothers me so much. It’s what happens during.”

“I know, but what do you think you’re going to do?”

“Well, if he believes me or gets past being pissed in some other way, and he takes the painting to set things right, I guess that’s that. It’s over. You and your mom are safe. I’m safe. If he doesn’t want it, or if he doesn’t believe me, there’s not much I can do, or if he . . . I don’t know.”

“But no matter what, you’ll go back to where you live today?”

Carly’s no matter what included things about Owen that Marcelline didn’t particularly want to tell her. Or think about at all.

“I guess. I hadn’t really thought about it.” Marcelline hadn’t gotten around to envisioning the actual journey back, how it would start, and under what conditions. She still had the fantasy she always had: Bethany meeting her at the airport. With her cat.

“What happens to me?”

Carly’s question, small and worried and gently delivered, landed like a slap.

“What do you mean?” But Marcelline knew very well what she meant, although it hadn’t occurred to her to picture that part either until it had been laid out in a single quiet, scared question.