The Ex by Freida McFadden(20)

Her eyes are full of pity, which is worse than anything. Everyone looks at me that way now. Even my own grandmother. “I just don’t think coffee is a good idea,” she says.

She is breaking up with me.

Lydia just broke up with me. I hadn’t realized how many of my friends were connected to Joel until he broke up with me and I lost all of them. I know Joel and Pete are super-close, but I thought Lydia and I were close too. Apparently not.

“But I heard you got a new apartment.” Lydia’s face brightens. “Something in the village?”

Oh Lord, the lie I told Joel is starting to spread. “Well, maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”

I’m moving in with my grandmother in Brooklyn.

“If you have a housewarming party,” she says, “I’d love to come. Please invite me. And I can meet… Charles, was it?”

She’s throwing me a bone. If I had any dignity at all, I’d tell her only my real friends would be invited to the housewarming to meet my imaginary boyfriend. But since I don’t even have an apartment to warm, the point is moot.

“I will,” I promise, around a lump in my throat.

And all the while, I keep thinking about this new girl that Joel is dating. The young one with the olive skin and long, dark hair.





Chapter 10: The New Girl


As Cassie steps out of the subway station, her phone pings with a text message. She digs it out of her purse and smiles when she sees Joel’s name on the screen.

Do you have any interest in a bag of fun-sized chocolates? A patient gave it to me and I CAN’T STOP EATING THEM.

Cassie giggles. They were talking when they went out last night about how fun it is when October rolls around and those miniature chocolate bars are everywhere, but it takes roughly one week to get sick of them—well before Halloween arrives. Joel told her he felt sad that he never gets trick or treaters in his building, so she invited him to come over on Halloween night. She said they could take turns giving out candy to kids. And after it was over…

Well, that was a question mark. They would see what happens after. He’s been to her apartment once in the weeks they’ve been dating, but never spent the night. But she wouldn’t mind if he did. The more time she spends with him, the more time she wants to spend with him.

Joel Broder is the real deal. She knows it’s early in their relationship, but there’s something between them she’s never felt before.

What kind of chocolate? she writes back as she treks the two blocks from the subway station to Bookland.

Twix. Milky Way. Nothing with peanuts.

Okay, bring it over.

Cassie is in the middle of typing her response when she practically trips over a woman pushing a baby carriage. She stumbles and nearly falls, but catches herself at the last second. The woman with the baby carriage flashes her a dirty look, but the most notable thing is the cackling coming from her right.

Maureen the Homeless Lady is laughing at her.

She’s got a huge smile on her nearly toothless mouth as she throws her head back and laughs heartily, even though the laugh dissolves into a cough halfway through. The cardboard she’s sitting on trembles with each cough. “You better watch your step, girlie!” Maureen cackles as she brushes filthy gray strands from her face.

She doesn’t dignify Maureen’s heckling with a response. She quickly walks up to the door of the bookstore, unwilling to be late. Not that there will be customers lining up at the door, but it’s a pride thing. She’s never opened up the store late before, and she doesn’t want to start just because she stayed out too late with Joel last night and had a few too many drinks.

Except when Cassie gets to the door of her shop, she freezes in shock.

There’s blood all over the door. All over the door and all over the glass windows. The entire entrance to her store is soaked in dried crimson.

She takes a step back, her entire body shaking. Who would do something like that? And why? It’s not like she has any enemies.

Unless…

No. Not that. Nobody knows about that.

She reaches a trembling hand into her purse and pulls out her phone. She needs to call the police to report this. It’s the simple and obvious thing to do. Except she can’t make herself dial 911. When did she become so frightened of the police?

Of course, that’s a rhetorical question. She knows exactly when she grew wary of the people who could potentially throw her in jail.

But she doesn’t have a choice. She needs to call them.

It will be fine.





Chapter 11: The New Girl


“It’s paint.”

The officer taking the report from Cassie doesn’t seem terribly impressed. Sympathetic, but not impressed. Admittedly, she was hysterical when he first arrived, sobbing about blood on the windows of her store. But Officer McNeil took one look at the crimson stain and made his declaration. Paint.

Cassie’s brows knit together. “Are you sure?”

He nods without hesitation. “Yep.”

“Oh.” She frowns, feeling stupid. “I thought for sure…”

In retrospect, he’s clearly right. The way the red material cakes against the door clearly resembles paint. And it sort of smells like paint. She saw it and her mind immediately went to blood. She wonders if that was the desire of whoever did this. They could have chosen any color of paint, but they chose something that looked like blood.