When I got back to the office, I stood in the front lobby for a moment, shaking. I made myself take three deep breaths before I moved, before I said anything. “I’m going home,” I called to Jackal. “Remember. The St. Leo. Two thirty tomorrow. Be there or I’ll drag you from the racetrack myself.”

“Take it easy on the bottle tonight,” he retorted.

I slammed the door to the office behind me. It wasn’t bad advice from him, for once, I thought. Only there was no way I was going to follow it. Not tonight.

The phone ringing woke me up. Lou, I assumed, calling to tell me whatever new nugget she’d sussed out about Carrigan. I jabbed the button on my phone without bothering to check the number. “Too early,” I moaned into the receiver. The gin from earlier in the night was sloshing in my gut. I wished I’d thought to set out painkillers and water for myself before I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Past Jo, never looking out for Future Jo. “Can’t you ever call me at a normal hour, f’ fuck’s sake.”

“Jo?”

Not the voice I’d expected. I sat up on the couch, rubbing my face. The TV flickered, an old black-and-white movie nearly muted. A woman dancing, singing, by herself in front of a crowd, a phantom partner she kept repelling and embracing.

“Ellen? What is it, what’s wrong?”

Amado mio, love me forever . . .

I knew without her having to tell me it was bad. But I didn’t know how bad.

“I think you need to come over.”

“Ellen, what—”

 . . . and let forever . . . begin tonight . . .

“I think . . . he might be dead. Klein. He’s not breathing and there’s . . . there’s so much . . . blood. In my apartment, oh God, it’s everywhere. Come over right now.”

Chapter 14

Outside her front door, Ellen had set up a planter filled with fake succulents and a welcome mat that said #BLESSED in big block letters. Ellen didn’t answer the door right away, so I stood on her #BLESSED doormat and made a bloody mess of my cuticles with my teeth. I waited another twenty seconds before I rapped again on the door, harder, not stopping until she swung it open.

“Sorry,” Ellen said. “I was in the bathroom.” She turned away before I could study her face, but the waft of sweat and vomit coming off her let me know she hadn’t been in the bathroom prepping her face for me.

“Well, come in,” she said, sitting down on the couch and staring blankly at the television, which wasn’t on. “He’s in there.” She pointed in the general direction of the bedroom.