“Do what.”

“Pretend. I don’t have time for it. Don’t call me anymore, don’t try to see me, and if you have a passing thought, some weeks or months from now that I might want to hear from you, I’m going ask you to replay this conversation again. I am never going to want to set eyes on you again.”

“So you’ve made up your mind.”

“There was nothing to make up.”

She picked up the remote and turned on the TV across the room just so she could give herself a distraction as a form of disrespect to him. Even though he wouldn’t know it.

“I didn’t fuck Deandra.”

“We all know that’s not true—although it was a surprise to learn from her husband that you had her the night before she walked down the aisle with him. Guess you took what you wanted from her and told her to beat it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m not going to go into it—”

“You better fucking explain yourself.”

Anne bolted up. “Excuse me? What did you just say? You think I have to explain anything to you? Forget what happened between the two of us, I’m just some heart and a hole you played with while you were at work. But Moose was your best friend, Danny. For a decade. And on the night of his rehearsal dinner when he went back to get his tux, he saw you and Deandra in your bedroom at the apartment. Even if Deandra was lying at the stationhouse this morning, which I don’t think she was, there was no heresy involved with Moose seeing his future wife’s dress on the goddamn floor.”

“I didn’t fuck her that night,” came the tight reply.

“Do you really expect me to believe that? Because I don’t. And Jesus, you were with me the next night!” She wanted to throw her phone she was so pissed. “What I was very clear on is that your success rate speaks for itself. You got me good. Two separate times. I’d give you a trophy, but in my current mood, I’d put it up your ass, and I am not going to jail for felony assault with this year’s Best Lying Sack of Shit award.”

“You got this all wrong.”

“Do I? Gaslighting much?” She took a deep breath. “Here’s the way I am going to view what happened between us. It was a movie that started as a comedy, segued awkwardly into a romance, and ended with Anthony Hopkins eating someone’s liver with the fava beans and the fucking Chianti. I sat through it, enjoy a couple of parts, but overall, I’d give it a bad score on Rotten Tomatoes because the narrative didn’t ring true, the credible surprise was credible but no surprise at all, and the male lead was one-dimensional sexual predator. Good-bye, Danny.”

Chapter 50

Anne ended the call, put her phone down, and crossed her arms over her chest. She did not expect Danny to ring again. And he didn’t. Then again, the truth was out and there was nothing left for him to work with, no manipulations at his disposal, no wiggle room around reality. The thing with men like him—people like him—was they required instability and insecurity in their playing field.

Someone with both feet planted on the ground was not a good target.

She would never hear from him again. And he would, unfortunately, go on to find other women to consume, other marks to challenge himself with, other opportunities to exploit.

Too bad scarlet letters were a thing of the past. She would have slapped one on him in a heartbeat with the A being for “ASSHOLE.”

But at least she was on the other side now. Man, he’d gotten her going, though.

She glanced at her prosthesis. Talk about hatchet jobs, har-har, hardy, har-har.

Focusing on the TV, she saw Cher getting out of a boxy yellow cab, red shoes on her feet, a shimmering black coat catching the light as she walked toward a gleaming fountain. And there was Nicolas Cage, turning . . . turning . . .

Pain, unwelcomed and sad, lanced through Anne’s chest as she watched his face change when he saw his woman. And then they were talking in those wonderful New York accents:

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“You look beautiful. Ya hair . . .”

“Yeah, I had it done.”

Anne let her head fall back as they went into the opera house, stared up at the chandelier, went to the cloakroom. Funny that a movie about a man who’d lost a hand was on. On that note, maybe she needed to try and date a Cher.

She nudged Soot. “See, this is where she sees her father out with the other woman. Or shall I say ‘otha woman.’ ”

It was also the part where Ronny Cammareri tells Loretta, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the opera.”

“He’s not talking about the opera, Soot. And I feel you, Ronny. I totally feel you.”

At this point, it appeared that she’d actually never been to the opera, and in her world, the Met was closed permanently, the sopranos and the baritones, the orchestra and conductor all home with head colds.

Closing her eyes, she was lonely. And tired. And very sad.

Tomorrow was a new day, though. She was smarter than she was, and stronger than ever. And what she needed to do was figure out this Ripkin mess.

Danny Maguire was a thing in the past, nothing more than an ugly footnote in a life that was going to continue.

* * *

Disorientation struck as Anne opened her eyes. At first, she went for her gun because she heard the sound of bullets flying—but then she saw it was the movie on the TV, not anything inside or outside of her house.

Picking up her phone, she saw that it was almost seven a.m. Soot was on his back, paws curled in, snoring.

As soon as she got up, he was on his feet, and she turned off the alarm and let him out, standing watch. People were stirring in their houses, making coffee on the first floors, showering and dressing on the second.

She did the same.

When she came back downstairs, she poured herself a cup of java, and realized she’d forgotten to take the phone up with her.

Bracing herself, she checked the thing, expecting to see a picture of herself with her hair a mess on the back porch as Soot piddled in his favorite spot by the corner of the house.

Nope. Nothing.

Which was a relief of a temporary nature.

She was about to put the phone in her bag when she thought about Danny’s stupid-ass voicemail. She hadn’t even gone in to erase it, but on the theory of starting as one means to go on, she opened the phone icon. The “Recents” screen popped up, and she was about to hit the voicemail icon with its red “1” on the lower left corner when something didn’t make sense.

The list of calls started with Danny at the top. There was his name and “(4)” next to it, and the line was black because she’d answered the last call from him. Across the line there was “Yesterday” in gray.

Then there was Jack. In black. With a gray “Yesterday.”

And “World’s Greatest Boss,” which was how she had Don in her contacts. Black. With a gray “Yesterday.”

And under that was “Unknown.” In black. With a gray “Yesterday.”

Scrolling down the list, she found the other Unknown Caller. From when she’d answered the phone just before her window got shot out.

But she’d hadn’t answered a call from an unknown number. Hitting the information button, she frowned. The time stamp was yesterday morning, and it showed a call lasting three minutes—

The world spun and she threw out a hand.

Moose. When he’d called her about Deandra and Danny. That was exactly the date and time he had called her to ask to meet.

So he had to be one who had shot her car window. Put the gun on her doorstep. Texted her and watched her.

Stumbling over to a chair, she sat down and stared at the details. Maybe he had phoned her from . . .

She went through all her recents, all the way back to when he had first called her to go see Danny that night. There, the phone number in her contacts showed up with the entry that read “Moose.”

So he had a regular phone, and had gotten a burner and made sure he was anonymous? Which was what you did when you wanted to threaten someone. But why? What was his tie to Ripkin and Ollie Popper, the warehouse fires and the office equipment—

“The box trailer. Shit. The fucking box trailer!”