Chapter Twenty-One

Justine

THE PERFECT MURDER doesn’t exist, really. Sofia made the statistics very clear the first time I told her my plan.

All you can do is cut the odds. Rent cars under two different assumed names, use a gun with no legal registration and someone else’s fingerprints, leave the dead man out in the cold so time of death breaks down cell by cell, fuzzing a forensic calculation to the point of guesswork. Text your victim on a burner, then throw it away in a different dumpster than the one where your blood and gunpowder-stained clothes were condemned. Every link in the chain of evidence has to be sabotaged because even the rank-and-file crime scene techs get lucky sometimes.

But if you’re not arrested in the first twenty-four hours, the chances of being caught tilt much closer to zero.

I’m at twenty-three and counting now; so far, the FBI has been a no show. Maintaining my alibi is its own chore, a constant clench between boring and tense. After a long, hot shower, I finally did throw up, although it felt more like purging a poison out of myself than fearful reflex. Sleep was chopped into hour-long fragments, full of tossing and turning, but eventually enough time passed for me to get up and buy breakfast from the market around the corner. I found a seat by the window, ate congee with steam curling off the top where everyone passing by could see, and thought a lot about the fact that killing Frank was easy.

But the rest of my time has been at the apartment, making calls and using the internet, placing timestamps as close together as possible. I cook lunch with enough sound and fragrance to disturb my theoretical neighbors if anyone comes up the stairs or through the hallway. Once I’m sure he’s back home, I decide to call Enrico too.

He picks up after the second ring.

“Hey,” I say. “How’s it going over there?”

“Okay.” Despite a long list of impressive traits, Enrico is a terrible liar. “Well, I will be, once the two Xanax I took kick in.”

A safe dosage, at least. “I’m sorry. I know this was really hard on you.”

“I wanted to do it.” Enrico’s chair creaks, followed by a deep sigh. “But man, Campbell made all that sneaking around stuff sound easy. They walked into La Rosa’s estate like it was a shopping mall.”

“Breaking into a federal evidence room would be hard for anyone, I think,” I say. “You had a disguise, a fake ID. Closer to a heist than a day trip.”

“True. And I finally got to test out my card printer.” Enrico starts typing; the resurgence of white noise is more proof he’s relaxing than anything else. “It was pretty funny, seeing them chuck everything into the incinerator. All I did was change a few labels and one signature on the evidence index form.”

Seems only fair since Frank faked the evidence in the first place. “Do the feds know what happened yet?”

“Don’t think so.” The keys clatter even faster. “No one in the registry has tried to check out the gasoline canister.”

Then the prosecution is in for a rude awakening soon. “Probably for the best, right? Less chance of them connecting Frank’s death to some crime scene tech tossing their case into the flames.”

“Yeah. One hell of a plan, Justine.”

The faint glow of pride in my chest is unexpected, but welcome.

“And…it was good to get a little fresh air,” Enrico adds. “My apartment’s really nice, but I don’t even open the windows most of the time.”

Sofia told me as much. “Hard to get therapy on our side of things, isn’t it?”

“Right?” Enrico laughs. “I thought about going a lot, but if I can’t be honest about who I am and what I do, hard to see the point.”

“Are there any online groups? Something anonymous?”

He hums, soft and considerate. “Maybe. Not a bad idea to look.”

After a second, I bite my tongue. “Only if you want to. I’m not trying to act like the only adult in the room. Or your mother.”

“You’re not that much older than me,” Enrico says. “Big sister, maybe. Although Sofia might fight you over the title.”

I wouldn’t bet on myself for that one. “I owe her a spa day after this. Or a vacation on a remote island somewhere.”

“She’d lose her mind with nothing to do. Before Sofia met Campbell, she was working seventy-hour weeks at the office on purpose. I hacked her phone to send alerts after midnight if her GPS hadn’t moved back to the house.”

The things we do for family. “Remind me to commit a felony once every few months so she gets her enrichment.”

Enrico laughs so hard he chokes. After recovering with a wheeze, he says, “Not a bad idea. Keep your crime out of her place though. She’s still a little irked about the tear gas.”

I’ll tell Campbell to get her some flowers once they’re free. The more fragrant the better.

When, not if. The odds are set, and I have to trust that what I’ve done is enough. I put my life—and Sofia’s and Enrico’s—up as collateral for theirs, roping conspiracy like a long red thread around everyone’s throats. Frank is dead. The Galici family will have to choose between sacrificing Cesare or being cut into a thousand pieces by a vengeful Bureau. And if everything else aligns, blame for the murder of both La Rosas falls into the lap of a corpse, closing the loop of culpability for good.

“Does helping kill someone bother you?” I ask.

“Not really,” Enrico says. “Nothing’s more American than first-degree homicide.”

I can’t help myself—I smile. “We do have a knack for it. Even if ‘eye for an eye’ is a little old-fashioned.”

“What else can we do?” His tone shifts, suddenly serious. “Mafia closes ranks, feds do the same. It’s nice to pretend the powers that be will hold the bad guys accountable, but nine times out of ten they get a slap on the wrist. Anyone who isn’t in the club gets strung up for slaughter to make sure the boot stays on the right foot.”

Which is exactly why I hired Campbell to kill Richard. Without them, the choice was between dying from his abuse or ruining myself to try and make anyone—the police, the university, his family—care that the man in their midst was a monster. Women with far more money and influence than I’ll ever possess have tried and failed to do the same, convicted in the court of public opinion before so much as a word leaves their mouth.

But he won’t hurt anyone anymore. I made sure of it.

Who suffers in Richard’s absence? Or Frank’s? Who would tell me to my face to take the fall and give either of them another chance?

Maybe this is simply ego and I’m compelled to justify the violence to myself, but after a decade of misplaced guilt, having none to spare is oddly liberating. My only fear is losing Campbell, and I’ll know soon enough if that’s going to happen.

“Try to look for better opportunities, I guess,” I finally say. “But in the meantime, we keep each other around.”

“Yeah.” He yawns, absurdly loud over the speaker. “Shit, sorry. This stuff always knocks me out. Catch you in a few hours?”

“Get some rest, Enrico. There’s no rush.” If anything, I wish I could fast-forward until the call I’m waiting for comes—for better or worse. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He says goodbye, and I put my phone on the charger before the temptation to doomscroll asserts itself. The apartment is spotless, but I make another sweep of each room on the off chance some last minute inspiration hits me.

Sofia smuggled more of Campbell’s belongings over here earlier in the week. I had the clothes dry-cleaned, then partitioned my closet and drawers accordingly. This may be my place, but I want them to feel welcome the second they walk in the door. I tried with the house in Chicago to no avail. Even if the two of us never lay down deep roots, some small corner of the world should be ours, with lock after lock separating us from everyone else.

My timer buzzes in the distance, rising and falling with a cheerful trill. Twenty-four hours. The number is an average, obviously, and made almost arbitrary by any number of exigent circumstances, but my shoulders still sink an inch.

Now I just have to get lucky.