“You’re a goddamn—” I started, but he leaned forward and caught me in a kiss that didn’t end. Finally, he broke the seal between us and took a deep shuddering breath, a serious breath, a one-last-declaration breath, and I thought of what Lou had drilled into me: never get attached, never love someone so much you lose yourself. I ducked my head down, tried to nip at his thumb with my teeth. He jerked his hand away as though it had been scalded. “Everything’s always a joke with you.”

“Goodbye, Robert,” I said.

He walked away, then turned back for one last glance, a hand on the roof of his car. “Think about what I said. You should get out.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said. I could tell he didn’t believe me. “You should go,” I said. “Wherever you’re going has a lot of miles between here and there.”

“I’ll still buy you that last drink sometime.”

“Sure,” I said. “That’ll be nice. I’ll be waiting for it.”

He started the car, the engine loud and whirring. It didn’t sound healthy. It didn’t sound like it could take him far. He rolled down the window and said something to me. I couldn’t hear it, or pretended I couldn’t, and waved one more time and turned and walked back to my apartment.

Chapter 29

Red lipstick looked wrong for the occasion—too celebratory, perhaps—and I couldn’t get the line right. I kept frowning at myself in the mirror, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. This close, my reflection was always choppy, like none of the parts of my face fit together. One arch of my lip was higher than the other, giving me the look of a demented Kewpie doll, and there was a shadow of Hell Hath No Fury beneath my lower lip.

I didn’t have many superstitions, but one thing Lou had taught me was that looking the part was the first step to feeling the part. Had I ever told Ellen that? I couldn’t remember. I hoped I had. Not that it mattered anymore.

When I stepped into the police office with the name of the Lady, the selection of Jackal’s photographs that didn’t showcase Lou, and the phone records, I would be wearing my power lipstick. I would feel confident because I would look confident, and that’s what they would see. Not a murderer, or a working girl, or someone with something to hide.

I grabbed the bullet and tried to even out the lines, but I couldn’t stop my hands shaking, and I realized, quickly, that I was making it worse rather than better. I took a deep breath and stared at myself in the rearview mirror. Now or never, Jo.