The look on Lou’s face made me grin. I stretched my arms over my head—pretty, pretty princess. My blouse was slicked to me like it had been painted on, but I felt in control of the conversation for the first time, even with the softness of the booze in my veins.

“I bet you’re jealous I met her and I didn’t need you to do it.”

“What was she doing in the office?”

That question knocked me close to sober. “I’m not sure. Looking for you. She said she’d find you.”

“The two of you spoke?”

“Uh-huh. Blue tattoo on her wrist. Not even a nice blue, like a navy. Ugly blue, ugly, ugly.”

“What did she say to you? Did you mention anything about Ellen? Even her name?”

Lou tucked her lips between her teeth and glared at me, staring intently at my face. I liked having an effect on her.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Jo . . . !”

“Temper, temper,” I chided. “I didn’t mention Ellen. I did not believe that Ms. Howard was relevant at that time.” I unfurled each word carefully from my tongue. “Should we mention her now?”

Lou shot me a what are you, crazy? look. “You better hope she never finds out.” She punched out her cigarette. “Jo, this isn’t a joke. She’ll say you’ve gotten lazy, that I’ve gotten soft. That I should’ve put you in that car with Ellen. Or at least left the two of you for the cops to find. She has a business to run.”

The bar door swung open, and Robert stood there, framed in light. It was still bright outside, still daytime. That was surprising. It felt like we’d been in the dark for hours, underwater.

Lou turned to him, and she was standing now, smiling for him, absolutely nothing wrong, nothing weighing heavy on her mind. She leaned forward as he stepped closer, and I noticed crow’s feet starting to tug at the corner of her eyes, gone when she didn’t smile or laugh. And I couldn’t help myself, him walking toward us, it slipped out, I said: “I’m glad, Lou. I’m glad it’s going to always be there between the two of us. Forever. Just you and me.”

Chapter 18

If there was more to Robert Jackal than met the eye, he did an awfully good job of hiding it, although truthfully I never tried to dig very deep. My favorite thing about him—besides that face—was that you never felt like you were missing anything. There was never any wondering what he was thinking.

When Lou brought up Ellen—the story abridged so that what had happened was between her and the ghost of Klein, but we’d all have to be careful about what we said to anyone dancing around the office—Jackal didn’t even flinch. He slurped his drink.