“Fuck off, Aubrey.” Snapp had already cycled through a dozen female curators who’d quit instead of setting foot in Aubrey’s lair again. The world’s worst human wouldn’t allow Snapp to send him a male curator, and the company pretended it wasn’t enabling sexual harassment. It was all about the customer’s happiness, after all. Instead of responsibly cutting all ties with Aubrey, my boss sent me when he could. I tolerated it because I made triple my usual pay, plus I knew I could kick Aubrey’s ass if I had to. Just don’t turn your back on him was T-Rex’s advice, as if I were dealing with a wild animal.

I stormed into the apartment, dumping the four bags the marathoner had dropped off on the Italian marble floor of the kitchen. Aubrey’s place was a cautionary tale. You could take a gorgeous apartment with towering ceilings, fluted columns, and crown moldings, and slap up some very pricey artwork—a Rothko hung in the living room, giving the city view serious competition for eyeballs—but all it took was the stale smell of sweat, week-old pizza, and pot to give it that overpowering eau de frat house. It didn’t help that dirty towels, old gym clothes, and sporting gear sprouted like toadstools from every flat surface.

“Your cleaning lady quit again?” I asked.

He grunted in response. That was as good as our exchanges ever got. As much as I wanted to run out of there, I had to work. Aubrey stood four feet away from me, arms crossed, trying to make his stringy biceps pop. He was lean and lanky, with the kind of body you might get from being a mildly ambitious gym rat who sampled illegal performance enhancers.

“You got the condoms?” he asked.

“If you ordered them, they’re here.”

“You better not have brought the regular ones. I need the extralarge magnums. Bet you’d love to see why.”

“You just lost that bet.”

“My girlfriends say I’m amazing.”

“I didn’t know inflatable dolls could talk.”

“Bitch,” he muttered.

I slid the fancy gold box of condoms across the countertop. “One box of balloon animals, coming up.”

“Take them out of the box and organize them on my night table.”

“I’m not your condom curator.”

“You’re supposed to do whatever I say.” Aubrey pouted.

“Not even close. I’m here because your mommy and daddy know they screwed up raising you.” I carefully lined up kombucha bottles in his Meneghini fridge. Until I’d started this job, I didn’t know there were refrigerators that cost as much as an average American made in a year. “They know you’re a useless baby.”

“Ha ha. Your parents screwed you up, Deirdre, for you to keep working in a dead-end job like this.”

“Yeah, it’s my fault for failing to be born rich,” I shot back. “Go back to playing Call of Duty or whatever it is you do all day.” I piled a couple of fancy cheeses in the fridge. I swear, this creep ordered random things to keep me captive longer. I was probably his only human contact of the week.

“You’re in a shitty mood today,” he observed. “Who died?”

I put down a six-pack of Sapporo’s Space Barley and stared at him. There was no way Aubrey knew about my sister. He didn’t even know my last name. It would be wrong to lash out at him. He’s just a loser living on an allowance from his father, I reminded myself. He’s nothing.

“Oh, that’s right,” he added. “Your sister died. I read all about it.”

“You can read?” I said, but I felt chilled to the bone. Clients were supposed to be given curators’ first names only. But I should’ve known that rules were just for drones like me.

I tried to work more quickly.

“Are you sad about it?” Aubrey asked.

I didn’t answer.

“I wouldn’t be sad if my sister died,” he went on. “She’s a bitch. Was your sister a bitch like you?”

Tuning him out was the only option. In my haste, I dropped a bottle of tequila on the tile floor. I stared at the flood of dark-red liquid and glass shards in despair. That was Clase Azul Extra Anejo, worth more than I made in two weeks, tips included.

“Shit!” shouted an excited Aubrey, zooming in closer. “You’re in trouble now.”

I was stuck in place, mentally calculating what I would have to do to make up the cash. It was impossible. There was no way to do it.

“You better hope I don’t tell your boss.”

I glanced up. Aubrey’s beady convict eyes were open as wide as I’d ever seen them, and their usual flat, dead aspect had been replaced with something shadier. Without meaning to, I’d misplaced the hard shell I wore like armor. Aubrey had been waiting for this moment. While my brain was processing those facts, he pounced, shoving me back against the stainless-steel fridge, grabbing my breast, and shoving his thick, sour tongue into my mouth.

In a split second, I shifted from anguish to rage. Revolted as I was, there was something akin to joy in the knowledge I had a legit target for my fury. First, I jabbed my fist into his Adam’s apple. When he flinched back, I swung my arm around, striking him in the face with my elbow. He yowled and hunched over in pain, turning away from me. I kicked the back of his kneecap, and he fell onto the fancy tile floor with the soft squish a bag of wet dirt would make.

“I know you tried to pull some creepy shit on the other girls who came here,” I told him. “You’re not going to do that to me.”

I kicked him in the stomach for good measure. He retched like he was about to cough up a hairball and curled into a fetal position.

“Noooo,” he whimpered. His eyes were squeezed shut, but his face was wet with a gross combination of tears and snot that I didn’t look too closely at.

“I’ll let myself out now,” I said. “Word of advice: next time you feel like grabbing a girl, remind yourself she feels like killing you.”

I started out of the kitchen, and thought better of it. I went back to kick Aubrey in the kidneys. Then I left without a backward glance.

CHAPTER 14

DEIRDRE

Leaving Aubrey’s apartment, I felt nothing but shame. No one had ever deserved an ass kicking like that guy, and the look of surprise on his face when he realized he wasn’t going to overpower me was intoxicating. But underneath was a bitter awareness that if I’d been on top of my game, it never would’ve come to that.

I hurried along Beekman Street, unsure where to go next. There was no way I could call T-Rex and tell him what happened. Even in a best-case scenario, with him agreeing that I’d never have to go back to Aubrey’s apartment, I’d be on the hook for a two-thousand-dollar bottle of tequila.

When I saw City Hall Park, I felt a moment of relief. Jude’s office was steps away. It was just after five; there was no doubt she’d still be at her desk. I messaged her and got a response immediately. She was waiting for me at the security post in front of city hall.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered to me after my bag was x-rayed and I was waved through.

“A creep just pounced on me.”

“Someone you know?”

“Yeah. A Snapp client.”

“Did he rip your shirt?”

I glanced down. I was wearing a black shirt over a black tank top, and I hadn’t even noticed it lost a few buttons when Aubrey grabbed me. It didn’t look indecent, but Jude knew me well enough to realize it wasn’t a style choice. “Yeah, he did.”

“We can talk to the police here,” Jude said. “I’ll have an officer come to my office.”

“No, thanks. I already talked to the cops this morning. That’s enough for one day.”

“What happened this morning?”

We were at Jude’s cubbyhole of an office. She ushered me in and closed the door behind me. On the wall behind her was a framed degree from Georgetown University with Judeline Esther Lazare in black calligraphic script. There were a few photographs of Jude with boldface names in politics and entertainment. I spotted a framed coat of arms—the Haitian palmiste, with a lone palm tree and spears and cannons and anchors—and a lone hibiscus plant on her desk with a single flower in bloom. Everywhere, there were books.

“I went to the cops because . . . sorry, I should’ve told you this before.” My mouth was dry. It was hard to get the words out.

“Told me what?”

“I got a message from Caro when I was at her funeral yesterday.”

Jude’s expression was sheer astonishment. “How is that even possible?”

“It was an email she set up in advance.” The cop, Villaverde, had kept the printout I’d given him, so I found the message on my phone. Jude stared at it for a long time, frowning deeply. “I can forward it to you,” I offered.

“I’d say yes, but even my private emails can be subpoenaed.” She handed my phone back. “I can’t believe it. Why wouldn’t Caroline tell me she was in danger?”

“She didn’t say anything to me either.”

“It’s my own fault,” Jude said, wiping her eyes.

“How could it be?”

“I wouldn’t listen to her.” Jude grabbed a tissue and blew her nose. “She told me things—things she swore me to secrecy about—but I . . .” Her voice trailed off as I stared into space. “I didn’t understand how bad it was.”

“What did Caro say?”

“Months ago, we had lunch, and she told me she wanted a divorce from Theo,” Jude said. “I asked why, and she wouldn’t give me a direct answer. Of course, they were apart for much of the pandemic—you remember, right?”

“Sure, Theo stayed in Europe for months.”

“Right, but those were unusual circumstances. I asked Caroline, ‘Is he a good father to Teddy?’ She said he was. I asked if Theo ever hit her . . .” Her eyes teared up again, and she grabbed another tissue.