We dropped her on a bed in one of the many guest rooms.
“Shut the door on your way out,” Tony said.
As if I needed to be told. Downstairs, I finished up the laundry, mopped the kitchen floor, vacuumed the family room. Anything to keep myself from drifting over to the bottom of the stairs. I prayed Anna would come home and find them. If she told the cops, they’d listen. She might even get Vincent to listen. In the Costello family there are laws you break and laws you don’t, and God help you if you get the two confused. But Anna was babysitting her nephew in Orlando. She wouldn’t be back until after midnight, if she came back that night at all.
An hour later, I heard Tony calling for me again. He didn’t sound agitated or angry or ashamed. He needed me for another chore—that was all. We carried Sarah to the downstairs den, propped her up in an armchair.
“When she comes to,” Tony said, “tell her it was an insulin blackout. You understand? An insulin blackout. Let me hear you say it.”
I repeated the words back to him.
“She’s had them before,” Tony said. “She ought to be grateful: another employer might not put up with the lost time.”
I stayed with her, made sure she kept breathing. Half the night was gone before her eyes opened. I wondered if I’d been unconscious that long, too.
“Whoa,” she said, blinking her eyes as though fighting off a spotlight. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a semi.”
“No,” I told her. “You passed out. Tony says you missed your insulin.”
I stuck to his lie because the truth would have changed Sarah the way it changed me. I couldn’t sleep at night without pushing the dresser in front of my door, without getting up again and again to make sure the windows were locked. I kept a can of pepper spray and an enormous carving knife on the floor beside my bed. I didn’t want any of that for Sarah. I hadn’t protected her against Tony—the least I could do was spare her the constant, gnawing fear.
“Maybe,” she said. “God, what time is it?”
“Late. Just wait here. I’ll be two minutes.”
I ran to the kitchen, fetched a glass of orange juice and a bottle of aspirin. By the time I got back, Sarah had drifted off again. I set the glass and bottle on the coffee table, then stretched out on the floor at her feet. Without meaning to, I fell asleep. When I woke a few hours later, the sun was just coming up. And Sarah was gone.
I sat down in the armchair where she’d been sleeping and told myself that I had to do something. I had to make sure that what had happened to Sarah would never happen again.
That was when I decided to be brave. That was when I decided to kill Anthony Costello.
Chapter 32
“SO YOU’RE confessing?” Haagen said. “You killed Anthony?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“But you wanted to.”
“But I didn’t.”
She brought an open palm down hard on the table, looked at me as if I was a toddler refusing to eat my peas.
“Can you believe this?” she asked Nuñes.
Nuñes just rolled her eyes. I couldn’t tell if the gesture was meant for me or her partner.
“All I’m hearing from you is motive,” Haagen said. “A damn good motive, too. Maybe even self-defense. Hell, if you told this story to a jury, you might get off with a slap on the wrist. Maybe the judge would deport you and let that be the end of it. So why not cut to the confession? What happened in that kitchen? Tell me and I’ll put in a good word with the DA.”
“You aren’t listening to me,” I said.
I wanted to cry—not out of fear or anger or anything like remorse, but out of pure, deep-in-my-bones frustration. Talking with Haagen could do that to you. She’d bat your words around like cat toys, tune out whatever she didn’t want to hear, and keep pushing until you broke. I guess that’s her job, but beneath the hard-nosed facade she seemed to be enjoying herself a little too much.
“Oh, I’m listening,” she said. “And you know what I think? I think somebody hired you to help them kill Anthony Costello. He deserved it, right? He was a bad guy. He did horrible things. To you. To people you cared about. Anyone in your position would have wanted him dead. So who was it you let in the house? Who did the stabbing?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You know, don’t you? You could solve this for us right now.”
I nodded. We’d been squared off on opposite sides of a cold metal table for hours. It was time to bring the day to an end.
“I know,” I said. “But he didn’t pay me, and I didn’t let him in. He did what he did all by himself.”
“Who?”
“You know who.”
“Tell me anyway,” Haagen said. “Tell me all of it.”
I started to look for Sarah, but I knew, I could feel it—something was off in the house. Something very bad was about to happen. Then I heard it: shouting, coming from the kitchen. Tony and another man. They were fighting over what sounded like the end of a business arrangement. It must have been their arguing that woke me.
“Sorry,” Tony said, “but things don’t work that way. They only work the way I want them to work.”
“Oh, that’s all changed,” the other man said. “You’ve played your name for all it’s worth. It’s open season now. Uncle Vincent won’t come to your rescue. Not this time. You’re an embarrassment. You’ll be lucky if you get a shallow grave.”
The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Not at first.
“You think he’ll believe you?” Tony said. “You think you can ruin me without ruining yourself?”
I crept out of the den and tiptoed into the dining room. From there, I could see part of the kitchen through the open doorway—the part
