“I’m sorry, Tom.”

He nodded, still not looking at her.

“It was stupid. I should have trusted you. I do trust you. It was just… It was stupid.”

He sipped his drink. Shrugged. Said, “Doesn’t matter now.”

“It matters to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Then you want to know the worst moment?” He turned, hit her with an expression hard to read. “It wasn’t when I saw the money was gone. It wasn’t when he stomped on my fingers. It was after all that. I still didn’t believe you’d taken it. Jack told me you had, but I refused to believe it. Until I looked in your eyes and realized he knew you better than I did.”

“That’s not true.”

He raised his eyebrows. Took another swig.

“What about you?” She could feel herself on an emotional tightrope, self-loathing on one side, fury on the other. “How do you know who he is? What have you been doing that you haven’t told me?”

“Trying to save our lives.” His tone was level, uncombative, and it helped steady her on the rope. She said, “What does that mean?”

“Jack isn’t our only problem.” Tom drained the rest of his bourbon, leaned for the bottle. Anna beat him to it and poured into the glass he held. When she finished, he flashed a smile, nothing much, just a quick thank you, more habit and courtesy than anything, but still. “Someone else is after us as well.”

“Who?”

“Genghis Khan.”

“Huh?”

“Just listen,” he said. She opened her mouth, then shut it, leaned back against the headboard, and nodded. He told her about his meeting with the man in the suit, about the threats against them both. About his conversation with the detective, his careful dance of exaggeration and obfuscation. Told her about talking real estate with Jack Witkowski while a knife burned in his pocket. She listened quietly, assembling the larger pattern: thieves that preyed on the Star buying drugs. A betrayal and a murder. Everyone scattering, one man left holding all the goods – a man who hid in a quiet rental apartment, the bottom floor of a two-flat in Lincoln Square. A grand epic had been playing out around them. “The guy in the suit, did he say how long we had?”

“No. But not long. He’s probably looking for us now.”

“Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“Definitely.”

“Worse than Jack?”

Tom shook his head. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” She rubbed at her temple. “What do we do?”

“We go to the cops,” he said.

“We’d have to tell them everything.”

“So?”

“Tom, we’d have to give up the money. Not just the cash we have left, but the stuff we’ve already paid too. We’d have to hire a lawyer.” A thought struck her. “God, I don’t even have a job now! How would we pay for it? We’d lose the house.” She shook her head. “There has to be another way.”

“I’m open to suggestions.”

She hesitated. Even if everything went perfectly, if they somehow rode out the storm, if the police caught Jack and the drug dealer, if a lawyer kept them out of jail, they would lose their chance for a child. Time and debt would guarantee it. They wouldn’t even be able to adopt. She’d researched the process, knew how stringent it was. People could be disqualified if the adoption agent just got a bad vibe. She imagined the interview: Well, sure, we are nearly bankrupt. True, we stole money from our deceased tenant. Yes, we did have to sell our house to cover our legal defense against felony charges. But we’re good housekeepers. You can overlook the rest, right?

If they went to the police, they risked everything. If they didn’t, they risked their lives. “I can’t believe this. It’s crazy.”

“I know.”

“I mean, it was just a coincidence. A nothing little thing. Our tenant deciding to make a cup of coffee. That’s all. If he hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been a fire. We wouldn’t have found the money. All of this would have been different.”

“But there was, and we did. Now we have to deal with it.”

The most crucial decision in her life could be traced to a cup of instant coffee. It hurt to think about. “We don’t have to call the cops right now, do we?”

He shook his head. “Soon, though. The longer we drag it out, the less friendly they’ll be.”

“What do you think they’ll do?”

“I don’t know. Take the money, obviously. I can’t imagine them locking us up or anything. We’re not exactly murderers.”

“Will they protect us?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. Finally he said, “They’ll do what they can.”

She thought back to the apartment, Tom on his back, Jack kneeling over him, that big gun pointing at her beautiful husband’s face. Remembered how loud the shot had been, how it had left her ears ringing for half an hour. An explosion, flame and fury. She had an image, quickly walled away, of what all that power could do to a human being. To Tom.

They had gotten lucky. Plain and simple. Lucky in the alarm, in the panic code, in the police response time. They hadn’t beaten Jack, not by a long shot. They’d gotten lucky.

And even with that luck, all they’d done was get away. He was still out there. Smart and dangerous and now pissed off. Would the police protect them? Could they? For how long? “Maybe we should leave town. Hit the road.”

“We’d have to come back sooner or later.”

“I guess.” She shook her head. “I’d just like to be farther away from him. From both of them. I’d feel better if we were in Detroit.”

He was sipping at his bourbon when she said that, and made a sound sort of like a laugh that quickly turned to a cough. He shook his head and swallowed hard, eyes watering.

“What?”

Tom beat at his chest, coughed. “What you said.”

“What about it?”

“It’s just” – he stared at her – “you know you’re in bad shape if you’d rather be in Detroit.”

Anna felt a smile burst out of her. Then a laugh. Then peals of it. It was freeing, a deep and cleansing silliness, and they kept at it, one triggering the other, the laughter far outstripping the joke.

When they finally stopped, Tom said, “Well, that’s about as good as I’m likely to feel. Maybe we better…”

She nodded. Took him to the bathroom, ran the water until it was lukewarm, then held his hand under it. He gasped at the contact, but didn’t fight her. She washed her own hands thoroughly, then, gently, washed each of his fingers. As the dried blood came off, she got a look at the damage. The knuckles were scraped and torn, and there was a nasty rip in the meat of his index finger. All of them were red and throbbing, sausage-thick and hot to the touch. His little finger was clearly broken, angled too far to one side.

She dried his hand and arm on a thick towel, then smeared antiseptic cream all over. “This is going to hurt.”

He nodded, sat down on the toilet, his face pale. “Pass that washcloth.” He spun it into a rope, then bit down. Huffed breath through his nose, one, two, three, then looked at her and nodded.

She steeled herself. Better to do it fast and only once. Anna took hold of his little finger and twisted hard. He yelled through clenched teeth and cotton.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry,” she said, hating hurting him, feeling her own face contract. She bent over his hand. Worked the finger gently to make sure it was in position, terrified she would have to do it again. But it seemed reasonably well aligned. She fixed the splint to it, then taped it tight. “There. That should work.” She began to bandage his other fingers. “I think you’ll be okay. The others aren’t broken. The little one probably isn’t perfectly in line, though. We should get you to a doctor soon.”

He spat out the cloth, let out a deep breath. “Promise me something.” His voice throaty.

“Anything.”

“No more lies. Okay? Never again.”

She looked up at him, this man she’d known forever. “And no more trying to protect me. We get through this together.”