Page 79 of Girl Anonymous

Owen dashed back into the living room. “He was busy!”

“I was busy, too, but I answered the phone,” Dante said icily.

Maarja stalked out. “If you’d been fully busy the way they were and answered the phone anyway, you’d be here alone. For the rest of your life.”

Both Dante and Connor were white with ceiling plaster and red with blood smeared on their faces, and they stared at Owen and Maarja like two guilty boys.

She and Owen swiveled and marched back into the kitchen.

“Connor just vacuumed.” Owen mourned his formerly pristine living room while he placed the pistol in a kitchen drawer.

“Sorry about the gunshot. I was afraid they were really going to hurt each other.”

“I know. Thanks for the quick thinking.” He poured tea from a stout pitcher and gestured around at the plates and utensils stacked on the countertops. “Pardon the mess. I’m in the middle of renovating the kitchen, I’m a contractor—Rainbow Contractors, you’d be surprised to know the people who actually think that means I’ll color their house—and of course our work comes last.”

“I like the cabinets.” She rubbed her hand on the dark gray highlighted with dark yellow gold. “Unique. And the breakfast table matches!”

“My designer is top-notch.” He headed for the cooking center.

“I have range envy!” She admired the hefty six-burner gas cooktop.

“I like to cook. Hungry?”

Her stomach growled loudly. “Toast if you have some. I haven’t eaten anything today.”

“I can do better than toast.” Owen laid bacon in the fryingpan. “The smell of this will heal the breach and bring in the boys. Bread’s in the box. Knife’s in the drawer.”

Maarja sliced bread and placed it in the toaster, set the table, and chatted with the kind of comradery people experience when they have shared experiences. In the case of Owen and her, the sharing consisted of being partners with two murderous dirtbags.

Within a few minutes of sizzling and scents, Owen’s prediction proved true, and Dante and Connor shoved each other through the door.

“You’re not eating at my table looking like that! Plaster and blood. No, sirs!” Owen pointed toward the back door. “Go use the hose!”

Maarja grinned as Dante and Connor trudged out into the yard.

“You have to be firm,” Owen told her.

“I’m getting that,” Maarja replied.

CHAPTER 38

Outside on the grass, Connor grabbed the hose and adjusted the sprayer. “What are you doing with her, man? She killed your father!”

“Good. Am I allowed to say good?” Dante turned on the water at the faucet. “Or how about…I don’t care. He was a fiend who brutalized my mother and me and your mother and every person around him. A psychopath of the first order, from a family of psychopaths stretching back generations. Someone needed to kill him. Good for Maarja’s mother for planning so meticulously, and let’s show some sensitivity for the poor little girl who was used as a pawn.”

“If you command, my liege.” Connor gave a mocking half bow. “But good luck on getting the rest of the Arundels to cooperate.”

“She triggered the explosion, but she didn’t know, and innocence has to be a shield.”

“That’s not in the code.”

“Show me where it’s written down.”

“It’s not, but we all know it.” Connor waved his arm to indicate the greater family. “Anyway, given a choice, she’d do it again now.”

“So would I. So would you. Give me that.” Dante wrestled the hose away from him. “Do you remember Benoit?”

Connor shook his head. “Not really. Except…he made my mother cry.”

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