Page 95 of The Love Bandits

“Can you keep this—”

“You don’t even need to say the words. I’m a therapist. Confidentiality is the name of the game.”

I say it without a stutter, feeling like a real shithead as the words come out. But I need that necklace to save my brother, and no one in his family seems to actually care about it except as a belonging to put in a box—a show of power and money. Besides, I have every intention of giving him solid advice, or as solid as someone who’s been a career criminal for most of their life can offer—unless he’s about to ask me if he should bring the stolen necklace to the play and slip it into his mother’s bag.

“Thank you. I mean it.”

“I’ll see you there in fifteen minutes, man.”

“Thank you,” he repeats, then ends the call.

My heart is thumping hard, because this could be it. This could be over tonight. I could be on a flight back to New York by midnight…

It could all be over.

Suddenly it feels like the ground’s dropping from beneath my feet.I don’t want to leave.I definitely don’t want to leave and not come back, but that’s the preferred method of leaving the scene of a crime.

I slump down, sitting where I was standing, and Professor X stalks up and then curls up in my lap. “I don’t know what to do about any of this,” I tell her.

She gives me the kind of unimpressed look I’m used to getting from her now-owner, then meows.

No one’s ever thought to teach me cat, but a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I know what she’s saying:Yes, you do.

I could trust Elaine and take Damien and Nicole into my confidence. I could tell them everything and let the chips fall as they may. Icoulddo that.

But panic presses in on me again, because this isn’t just about trusting them with my fate and Ryan’s. If I tell them everything, they could throw it down with Roark, and they could lose.

If I tell them, I could be putting them—and especially her—in danger.

Only…based on what she said, she thinks there’s a very strong possibility that Nicole and Damien will learn everything anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to be the one to tell them myself? Maybe, if I do, they’ll allow me a role in deciding what happens next.

Sucking in air slowly, I try to breathe steadily—in and out, in and out—and when I’m no longer dancing on the edge of panic, I text Elaine:

Sounds like the play’s still on, but Anthony asked to move drinks up to tonight. I’m guessing he’s about to tell me something important and probably relevant. Meet you at the spot at 7?

We’ve already discussed the best strategic place to leave her car so we can get in and out of Anthony’s house without being seen. Now, we’ll leave both cars there.

I see a few dots ripple across the screen before disappearing. It happens again, then again, and finally her answer pops up.

OK.

I glance at Professor X, who’s pawing my shirt. “Got any insight into that?”

This time her meow is distinctly just a meow.

I tell myself it’s nothing. Elaine is hopped up on nerves and adrenaline just like I am. But my gut doesn’t like it.

I should probably decide what to do before I leave the house, but I don’t. The only strategy I have is the one that’s gotten me this far in my sorry life—jumping in the deep end and hoping like hell I remember how to swim.

When I getto the peanut bar, Anthony’s already there, sitting in a booth with a couple of beers, which is a first. The last time we were here, he got white wine. I guess it was bad enough that he didn’t want to go in for a second round, which isn’t a shocker. Getting wine from a place like this is like going to a restaurant called Fried Freddies and ordering a salad. In a nod to the holiday, there are a couple of uncarved pumpkins sitting on top of the bar, plus circus peanuts sitting in a skeleton bowl on the counter. Judging from the height of the pile, no one’s gone in for one, and I won’t be the first.

I join Anthony, grinning. “Is one of those for me, or is the situation bad enough that you’re double-fisting on a Thursday?”

His smile is barely a quirk of the lips as he pushes one of the beers across the table. I sit. I drink.

“What’s on your mind?” I ask after he’s silent for a solid thirty seconds.

“It’s about Nina.”

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