Cassie looks at the sign over the restaurant. The word “Angela” is written in beautiful script. Who was Angela? Was Angela someone close to Francesca? A relative she loved or respected? Or just a name she liked?
Cassie suspects she’ll never know the answer to that question, since she will never meet Francesca.
A cold wind whips around the corner and Cassie shivers, hugging herself. She walks closer to the restaurant—close enough that she can see inside at the small establishment that Francesca built in the years before her death. She peers through the glass at the strangers enjoying their meals. Well, they’re not all strangers. There’s one person she recognizes all too well:
Joel. Sitting at a table in the back, his head bowed.
She shouldn’t be surprised. Of course, he’d come here when he’s thinking of Francesca. She remembers catching him here months ago. She wonders how often he comes here. It must comfort him. Remind him of the woman he had loved.
She has a feeling that the characters in his own Wuthering Heights are Joel and Francesca. Certainly not Joel and Cassie. After all, Francesca is the one who haunts him, even after she’s gone.
In any case, she hurries away before he can catch sight of her.
It’s nearly eight by the time Cassie gets off the subway by her apartment building. It’s very dark by now, and the streets are deserted. She walks as quickly as she can down the pavement, trying to push away the feeling that somebody is behind her. She can almost hear footsteps.
If Francesca hasn’t been threatening me, then who is?
Because somebody has been making those calls. Somebody wrote “slut” on her door. It isn’t in her head.
Unless it’s the ghost of Francesca.
No, not too likely. Grandma Bea spent the last several years of her life praying for Grandpa Marv to return as a ghost. If anyone was going to come back as a ghost, it would have been Marv. If there’s a heaven, he was certainly up there, pleading with St. Peter, Let me go down there and be with Bea.
But the fact that Ghost Marv never made any appearances, except in Bea’s imagination, is enough to convince Cassie the afterlife is not a thing.
When Cassie finally reaches her building, she discovers the lights that usually shine right outside the door have burned out. It’s pitch black as she fumbles in her purse for her keys. It’s so dark, anyone could be standing behind her and she’d never know.
Where are those goddamn keys?
When she gets the door to the building open and locked behind her, she breathes a sigh of relief. She can’t shake the feeling someone is watching her. But who? And why?
Now that she’s safe inside the building, she takes the elevator up to her apartment. She leans against the wall, totally spent. She can’t wait to get into her apartment. And then into the bathtub.
She was in her bathtub, her wrists slit and… she was cold by then.
Cassie closes her eyes, trying not to think of Francesca. Is this the way it’s going to be? Is Francesca going to haunt everything she does from now on? Is she literally haunting her right now?
Maybe Joel can’t push the thoughts from his head, but Cassie can. She starts the hot water going in the bathtub and plugs the drain. Then she goes to her bedroom to fetch some warm, cozy clothes. She shuffles through her closet, looking for a nice, warm fleece.
And that’s when she sees the black ink at the back of her closet.
Her heart pounding, she pushes her clothes aside, parting them to get a view of the wall behind them. There’s writing. In the back of her closet.
In black ink, someone has scribbled the word “SLUT.”
Someone was in her apartment. Not a ghost. A human being entered her home when she wasn’t there, picked up a marker, and wrote that word on the wall.
Cassie hears the screaming as she backs away from the closet. It takes her a moment to identify the voice as her own.
Chapter 49: The Ex
I’ve got to do something.
My own jealousy—that was something I could get past. Eventually. But I can’t stand by if Olive is putting someone else’s life in danger. Yes, Joel was an ass to me last time we saw each other, but I can’t pretend he’s some guy I bumped into on the subway. I loved him. I can’t let her destroy his life. Or take his life.
So that’s why I decide to go to Olive’s apartment.
The weather has been especially cold, so I bundle up in my boots and warmest coat before I leave the apartment. And there’s one other thing I do that I can’t quite explain. Something that I know I may later regret.
I take a knife from the kitchen and drop it in my purse.
After all, Olive owes money to very bad people. It isn’t terrible to have some protection, is it?
My heart is thumping audibly the entire subway ride into Manhattan. What am I doing? Why am I going to such lengths to protect Joel? He had no problem walking away from me. If I were in danger, would he do the same for me?
Honestly, I think he would.
Olive’s apartment building is three blocks from the subway. It’s not as nice as the place where Joel and I used to live, but it’s nicer than what she can afford, given her financial woes. Then again, people don’t get deep in debt by spending responsibly.
I approach the locked door to the building just as a middle-aged woman is leaving. I flash a smile at her. “Good evening,” I say brightly.
The woman returns the smile as she holds the door open for me. “Good evening.”
I don’t look like a criminal. If she knew I had a knife in my purse, she might have behaved differently, but she doesn’t know.
I take the stairs up to Olive’s apartment. I know exactly where it is. I’m ashamed to admit, this isn’t the first time I’ve been here.
And then I’m at her door. I’m staring at her peephole, my hands shaking even though the hallway is much warmer than outside. I lift my finger and press it against the doorbell.
Then I wait.
After a few moments, I hear the locks turning. The door swings open, and there she is, dressed in skinny jeans and a sweater. The olive-skinned beauty my ex-boyfriend started dating not long after he said sayonara to me. She won his heart—you might even say she brain-washed him. And now she may claim his life.
“Hello, Francesca,” I say to this woman.
Francesca, aka Olive, stares at me, her eyes unkind. She doesn’t smile. She never smiles, as far as I’ve seen. When I look at her, she radiates evil. I know that sounds crazy, but she does.
I’ve witnessed her in her restaurant, Angela’s Ristorante, bossing around the staff. Their unhappiness shows itself in the food, which is why the restaurant is failing. They hate her, even though she’s beautiful and a great cook. Even better than me—I know my way around the kitchen, but I’m not a culinary school trained chef like she is. My day job is as an office manager. I wonder how much culinary school set her back. No wonder she’s so deep in debt.
Francesca. If I’ve ever had a mortal enemy, it’s her.
I step inside the apartment and she regards me coolly. She folds her arms across her chest and stands up an inch straighter, as if she didn’t already tower over me.
“Hello, Anna,” she says.
Chapter 50: The New Girl
Through her screams, Cassie is dimly aware of a phone ringing. Her phone.
She takes a deep breath, struggling to calm herself. She can’t panic. Yes, someone was inside her apartment and wrote a slur on her wall. Yes, since there are no signs of break-in, it means the person is in possession of a key to her apartment. Yes, she has not changed the locks, which means the person still has a key. Yes, there is a chance the person is in her apartment right this minute…
Okay, this isn’t helping.
Cassie stumbles into the bathroom to turn off the water, then goes to the living room to find her phone. It’s in her purse, where she left it. She looks at the screen, hoping to see a missed call from Joel. But there isn’t a call from Joel. It’s from
Anna.
That’s odd. Why would Anna be calling? She took Anna’s number a bit ago, when they were contemplating having lunch together, but then after the baby, Anna seemed too overwhelmed. Totally understandable, and Cassie didn’t want to be pushy, but why would Anna be calling now?
Cassie presses a button to return the call.
“Cassie?” Anna’s sweet voice instantly comes on the other line. It sounds scratchy, like she’s walking around outside.
“Hi, Anna.” Her own voice sounds strange to her ears. She clears her throat. “What up?”
There’s a long pause on the other line. “Are you okay, Cassie? You sound funny.”
“Yeah, I…” There’s something about Anna that makes Cassie desperate to confide in her. After all, she needs to talk to someone about all this. And Anna knows Francesca. Or knew her. “Someone’s been inside my apartment. They wrote the word ‘slut’ on the wall.”
Anna gasps. “Oh my God! Cassie, that’s horrible! Did you call the police?”
“No.” Cassie bites her lip. She doesn’t want the police in her apartment, but what choice does she have? “I was about to.”
“Yes…”
Cassie pauses. “I should though. Right?”
“I suppose…”
“You don’t think so?”
“Well, what will they do?” Anna says. “Just loads of paperwork, right? And they’ll go through all your stuff.”
Cassie shudders at Anna’s assertion. That’s the last thing she wants.
“I mean, really,” Anna says. “Do the police ever catch burglars?”
“I… I assume they do…”
“They don’t,” Anna assures her. “But listen, I’m just across town, and my husband’s got the baby. Why don’t I come by and help you get everything cleaned up?”
“But…” Cassie thinks back to the other night, when she had the anaphylaxis from her dinner, even though she’d eaten the same food the night before without a problem. “I think the person who broke in might be trying to kill me.”
“Kill you?”
She tells Anna all about the obscene calls she’s been getting. And she explains about the peanuts in her food and how she’d nearly died when she couldn’t find her Epi-pen. She no longer believes the peanuts were just bad luck. And she no longer believes the missing Epi-pen was from her own carelessness.
“Oh my God,” Anna breathes. “That’s… insane. If someone really did that…”
“Yeah,” Cassie manages. “Insane.”
“Listen,” Anna says. “Don’t move. I’ll be there soon… there’s just one thing I need to do first. Okay?”
Cassie is too spent to argue. “Okay.”
After she hangs up with Anna, she’s itching to call Joel. She remembers how comforted he made her feel the night she was scared someone was in her apartment. On a whim, she punches on his number. She grips the phone as she hears ringing on the other line.
But he never picks up.
Chapter 51: The Ex
After Joel broke up with me and started dating Francesca, I hated both of them. But especially her. Because she’s everything I’m not. She’s as tall and beautiful as a model. She’s several years younger than I am. She’s a successful (or so I had thought) restauranteur. But as I step inside Francesca’s apartment, I realize something else about Francesca:
She is frightening.
I don’t know why, but it’s a feeling I’ve always gotten. That’s why I brought the knife tonight. Not because I’m scared of a faceless loan shark, but because I need protection against Francesca herself.
As I said, there’s something about her.
“What do you want?” Francesca growls at me.
I take a deep breath. “I know everything, Francesca. I know the trouble you’re in. I know that you’re putting the lives of everyone you care about in danger.”
She snorts. “You don’t know anything.”
“I tried to warn Joel,” I say. “But he won’t listen. So that’s why I’m appealing to you.”
Francesca arches a finely plucked eyebrow at me. She and I are both Italian women—nobody could say Joel doesn’t have a “type”—but we are so different. She is long-legged and tall with flowing hair. I am short and top-heavy with mousy brown curls. I don’t know how Dean could have said I look like Sophia Loren when Francesca is the dead ringer for her. I heard at Lydia’s Halloween party this year, Francesca dressed as Cleopatra and was absolutely stunning.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Francesca says. “Joel did listen.”
She says his name almost like Nonna does, with more emphasis on the second syllable. Jo-el. I bet he likes it, even though it drove him crazy when Nonna did it.
I frown at her. “Excuse me?”
“Joel came up here,” she says. “Accusing me. Asking all these questions about my financial situation. I knew you were behind it. Who else would put ideas like that in his head?”
I swallow. “So what did you say?”
She smiles at me then. I know I said Francesca never smiles, but that’s inaccurate. Her lips curl up and it looks like a smile, but there’s no joy behind it. “I told him he was being paranoid. Of course.”
“Of course,” I mumble. And surely he believed her. He is absolutely under her spell.
“Do you want a drink, Anna?”
“No, thanks.”
Francesca walks over to her kitchen. She grabs the bottle of wine on her kitchen counter, and I can tell even with my rudimentary knowledge of wine that it’s expensive. She and Lydia both have very expensive taste in wine, but Lydia can afford it while Francesca can’t. That’s Francesca—always spending beyond her means.
Not that I can throw stones.
She pours the wine into a glass, swishes it around for a moment. She takes a practice sip, letting it sit on her tongue for a moment, then she downs the rest of the glass in one gulp. And pours another.
“The problem is,” she says, “Joel did his research before he came here. He already knew exactly how bad things were for me.”
My mouth falls open. Joel listened to me. I can’t believe it.
“He ended it.” She takes another healthy sip of wine. “Told me he couldn’t be involved with someone who would get into this kind of mess and then lie about it. Of course, he didn’t know about the biggest secret of all.”
I shake my head, confused. “What?”
“Anyway,” she says, not answering my question. “Joel is gone. He walked out on me. For good.”
Is she saying what I think she’s saying? Did Joel really break up with Francesca?
“He’s all yours, Anna.” She laughs as she tops off her glass again. “He doesn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore. You can go pick up the pieces now.”
“I’m sure…” I blink at her, watching her drink more wine. “He’ll come back to you. He’s in love with you.”
“No.” She looks off into the distance. “Even if he was, you were right all along. It wasn’t fair of me to drag him into my mess. I’ll deal with it on my own.”
Joel is single again. Single and on the rebound. It would be easy to, as she says, go pick up the pieces.
But as I imagine a life with Joel, I realize that’s not what I want. I was scared for Joel when I found out what Francesca had gotten herself into, but I don’t love him anymore. Not like that.
The truth is, there’s another guy I can’t stop thinking about. And I’ve got to call him before it’s too late. If it isn’t already.
I look up at Francesca. I’ve felt a lot of things for her since that first night I saw her kissing Joel. Hatred. Envy. Fear. But this is the first time I’ve felt sympathy.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask.
Francesca laughs again. “God, you’re too nice. Just like Joel. So nice. It’s no wonder he wanted someone more exciting.”
My face burns. This is the Francesca I’m used to. “Fine. I’ll leave then.”
“P
lease do.”
After I leave Francesca’s apartment, I know exactly where I’m going. I don’t bother with the WhereAmI app—I’m entirely done with that, even if Joel hadn’t deleted it. There’s only one person I want to see right now, and it’s not Joel. I just hope it’s not too late.
One subway ride later, I’m standing outside the glass door to Dean’s cardiology practice, peering at the same blond receptionist who attempted to help me locate Nonna’s glasses. If she’s still here, then Dean would still be here, wouldn’t he? My heart is pounding, and not just because I ran all the way here from the subway.
The bigger question is, does he want to see me?
And then before I can wonder any further, there he is. Emerging from the back office, looking handsome as hell in a white dress shirt and dark blue tie, his dark hair black as ink. He tugs on his coat as he makes conversation with the receptionist. He smiles at her, flashing those white teeth. I remember the dazed smile he had on his face after he kissed me. If I close my eyes, I can still feel his lips on mine.
Before I know what’s happening, Dean is heading toward the exit, right where I’m standing. I quickly back away and flatten myself against the wall. I came here to find him, but I’m suddenly desperate that he doesn’t see me. This was a mistake. I’ve waited too long. I’ve blown it.
My attempt to hide is entirely ineffective. The second Dean swings through the door to his practice, his dark eyes widen when he sees me pressed against the wall. His mouth drops open slightly, but then snaps closed.
“Hello, Anna,” he says.
He’s not calling me Miss Loren anymore. Not a good sign.
“Hi,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows at me. “What are you doing here?”
“I, uh…” I rub at my chest, suddenly conscious of the fact that I hadn’t dressed up prior to coming here. I’m wearing worn jeans and my puffy coat. “I think I’ve been having an irregular heartbeat. So I figured…” Dean is staring at me and my shoulders sag. “Fine. I came here to see you.”
The Ex Page 21
