When Sal was nineteen and a sophomore, he was arrested for selling marijuana. It was minor as far as drug offenses went, but it was his second offense, and his father was pissed. He refused to bail Sal out of jail, so Sal did thirty days before he got a court date, and the judge let him off with time served. This all happened before they met, and Sal never talks about it, which is why she often forgets he was ever incarcerated.
“We kept in touch after we both got out. He talked about you when you guys were together then. Still does,” Julian says. “Says you’re the one that got away.”
“That’s interesting, because he’s never mentioned you at all,” she blurts, and then feels her face turn red. Her words were a lot blunter than she intended.
It doesn’t seem to bother Julian. He shrugs. “I’m not the kind of guy you tell your friends about.”
“He usually tells me everything,” she says.
“Does he?” Julian says with a small smile, and before she can ask him what that means, he adds, “We don’t see each other often. When he needs me, he calls. I specialize in problems that need to be dealt with a certain way.”
“What kind of problems?” She holds her breath, wondering if he’ll say the words.
“Whatever you need, Marin.”
He doesn’t explain, and an awkward silence falls over them until Marin’s phone lights up. It’s a text from Sal, checking in on her. She’s mortified when Julian’s gaze is naturally drawn to the phone screen and McKenzie’s naked body. She grabs the phone from the table. Nobody else but her is ever supposed to see this on her phone.
“It’s Sal.” She can feel the heat from her cheeks spreading down her neck. “Wanting to know if everything’s okay.”
Julian leans back, sips his coffee. “Go ahead and text him back.”
She types quickly, then moves to stick her phone in her purse.
“Sorry, Marin,” Julian says. “I’m going to need that on the table.”
“Really?”
“Unlock it for me, please.” His tone is pleasant, but there’s no mistaking that it’s a demand, not a request.
She presses her thumb to the home button and the phone opens.
He picks it up and starts swiping, meticulously closing all the apps she had open. Then he places the phone back on the table, where McKenzie smiles up at them in all her naked glory until the screen goes black.
“I needed to make sure we’re not being recorded,” Julian says.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
She would have no good reason to record any of this. Whatever happens here tonight, she would never want anyone but Sal to know about it, or that she even thought about it, or that she seriously considered it enough to have a conversation with someone who could actually do something about it.
“Food’s here,” Julian says.
Bets the waitress places oversize plates piled high with food gleaming with grease and butter on the table. She notices Julian has ordered almost the exact same thing she did, right down to the add-on pancake, only with wheat toast instead of sourdough.
“What do you say we eat first, and talk after?” He picks up his fork and uses the side of it to slice into an egg. The yolk runs out all over his hash browns. “Conversations about murder are much easier to have when your stomach is full, don’t you think?”
Chapter 12
For a while Marin can almost pretend they’re two people on a blind date, which in some ways, they are. They were set up by a mutual acquaintance, after all.
Except everything about this is illegal.
“So, that’s her?” Julian finally puts his fork down. “On your phone? Is that the woman your husband is cheating with?”
He’s finished two-thirds of his food and she’s finished half of hers, and it appears they’re both full. Bets sees that they’re done, but she doesn’t approach the table. It’s as if she knows she’s not allowed to come over until Julian signals her, and he’s not looking in that direction. He’s looking straight at Marin, and it feels like his dark eyes see right through her. She doesn’t think she could lie to him about anything if she wanted to.
She starts talking, and it all comes out in one long, rabbity rush. It’s almost as if she finally feels free to say every single awful thing she’s been thinking about, things she’d never say in group, things she might only tell her therapist. Julian is a stranger, maybe that’s why. Maybe it’s because she