I licked my lips, tried to look away from her, and my eyes landed on the still-open luggage, the gun. Fuck. I couldn’t remember if I’d touched it or not. “The police told me you bribed them years ago, when a case went wrong,” I said. “That’s how it started?”

Lou laughed bitterly, taking a step forward, still between me and the door. “That wasn’t half a mess. One of my very first cases—back when I was doing it all myself, you can imagine what a disaster that was—and the mark called my bluff, went to the police with the photos and the note and everything. Said he didn’t care about the photos in the paper, he wasn’t going to let some little cunt run his life.”

Lou laughed again. It sounded like she was gargling glass. Despite everything, my heart ached at the idea of her, alone and scared, trying to run the grift on her own.

“That one had quite the mouth on him. Nasty, nasty man.” She shrugged at me. “So I talked my way out of the situation. I invented a boss, someone powerful, someone who could keep the police from taking advantage of me. Another layer of protection.”

Lou had to have a good reason for keeping the gun. Maybe she didn’t know how to get rid of it without being sure the police would find it. Maybe she’d panicked, thought it was safest to keep it. I could come up with a million excuses for her, in my mind. The twist of my stomach told me something different.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said, my voice cracking. I was surprised how much that one hurt, how that was the thing that hurt most after all. “Did you think I wouldn’t keep your secret?”

Lou’s feet made soft indentations in the carpet as she crossed to her purse, bending over to snag a pack of cigarettes from her bag. She cupped her hand over a cigarette and sparked the lighter with the other.

She took her time with the smoke, luxuriating in it while I shivered and waited. Finally, she said: “You used to be so good at your job, Jo. What happened? All of a sudden, there were so many little slipups. Little things matter. They matter. But you couldn’t stop drinking, you were taking too long on the cases—it shouldn’t have taken you more than a year, tops, to pay me back. And that’s not even the worst part.” She shook her head, disgusted. “I saw so much potential in you. So much. That day at the diner and then . . . after. I knew I couldn’t let you walk away from me.”