To his credit, MacLeish didn’t make excuses for the shakedown. He didn’t pretend to feel bad, and he didn’t pretend it was my fault. “Fifteen large. Should do it.”

I almost laughed in his face. “Sure,” I said. “Would you prefer that in diamonds or gold bricks?”

MacLeish scratched at his chin. He thought for a moment. “I used to think I could help people with this job.” He looked almost sad. Shifting back and forth on his toes like he was getting ready to move. I could feel my heart hammering against my palm. “But people have to want to be helped.” He shook his head again, something almost fatherly in his expression. “This woman you work for, she’ll have something on you now. Always her lapdog.”

The thought had occurred to me, too. I’d be cultivating girls under the Lady’s thumb forever now, seeing Ellen’s face in every new girl I trained. But I didn’t want to admit that to him. “Sounds like my choice is her lapdog or yours.”

“Ellen Howard’s dead, there’s no coming back from that. And whoever killed her was probably acting on orders,” MacLeish said, taking one small step forward. He touched my arm and I flinched. “If she ends up in jail, it doesn’t get to the real problem.”

I counted to five in my head. “What is it you want from me?”

“The chief wants the money, that’s true,” MacLeish said with that hangdog expression. “But we both know that dead bodies tend to pile up. You come to me sometime with information that’ll bring us directly to your boss, I’ll make sure it never rebounds on you. That’s all. Would be worth a lot more than money.”

“That’s never all.”

MacLeish smiled, a little sadly. “Not everyone’s looking to use you. There’s no justice in the world,” he said. “There might as well be friendship. I can help you. I can get you out. Think about it.”

With that, he ambled out the door and down the staircase, taking his time. I watched him walk all the way down, and he knew I watched him. He turned as he unlocked his car and held up one hand, a friendly goodbye.

I closed my eyes. Maybe I reminded him of a daughter, or a woman he’d failed once, or all the women he’d failed all the time in little ways that didn’t matter until you looked back over a lifetime. Maybe I didn’t remind him of anyone. Maybe he wanted to feel like a hero. I wasn’t interested in turning on the Lady—on Lou—but he had a point. No matter what, the Lady owned me now, entirely. This time, the debt was more than money.

Chapter 24