The Ex by Freida McFadden(71)

“Yes…”

Cassie pauses. “I should though. Right?”

“I suppose…”

“You don’t think so?”

“Well, what will they do?” Anna says. “Just loads of paperwork, right? And they’ll go through all your stuff.”

Cassie shudders at Anna’s assertion. That’s the last thing she wants.

“I mean, really,” Anna says. “Do the police ever catch burglars?”

“I… I assume they do…”

“They don’t,” Anna assures her. “But listen, I’m just across town, and my husband’s got the baby. Why don’t I come by and help you get everything cleaned up?”

“But…” Cassie thinks back to the other night, when she had the anaphylaxis from her dinner, even though she’d eaten the same food the night before without a problem. “I think the person who broke in might be trying to kill me.”

“Kill you?”

She tells Anna all about the obscene calls she’s been getting. And she explains about the peanuts in her food and how she’d nearly died when she couldn’t find her Epi-pen. She no longer believes the peanuts were just bad luck. And she no longer believes the missing Epi-pen was from her own carelessness.

“Oh my God,” Anna breathes. “That’s… insane. If someone really did that…”

“Yeah,” Cassie manages. “Insane.”

“Listen,” Anna says. “Don’t move. I’ll be there soon… there’s just one thing I need to do first. Okay?”

Cassie is too spent to argue. “Okay.”

After she hangs up with Anna, she’s itching to call Joel. She remembers how comforted he made her feel the night she was scared someone was in her apartment. On a whim, she punches on his number. She grips the phone as she hears ringing on the other line.

But he never picks up.





Chapter 51: The Ex


After Joel broke up with me and started dating Francesca, I hated both of them. But especially her. Because she’s everything I’m not. She’s as tall and beautiful as a model. She’s several years younger than I am. She’s a successful (or so I had thought) restauranteur. But as I step inside Francesca’s apartment, I realize something else about Francesca:

She is frightening.

I don’t know why, but it’s a feeling I’ve always gotten. That’s why I brought the knife tonight. Not because I’m scared of a faceless loan shark, but because I need protection against Francesca herself.

As I said, there’s something about her.

“What do you want?” Francesca growls at me.

I take a deep breath. “I know everything, Francesca. I know the trouble you’re in. I know that you’re putting the lives of everyone you care about in danger.”

She snorts. “You don’t know anything.”

“I tried to warn Joel,” I say. “But he won’t listen. So that’s why I’m appealing to you.”

Francesca arches a finely plucked eyebrow at me. She and I are both Italian women—nobody could say Joel doesn’t have a “type”—but we are so different. She is long-legged and tall with flowing hair. I am short and top-heavy with mousy brown curls. I don’t know how Dean could have said I look like Sophia Loren when Francesca is the dead ringer for her. I heard at Lydia’s Halloween party this year, Francesca dressed as Cleopatra and was absolutely stunning.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Francesca says. “Joel did listen.”

She says his name almost like Nonna does, with more emphasis on the second syllable. Jo-el. I bet he likes it, even though it drove him crazy when Nonna did it.

I frown at her. “Excuse me?”

“Joel came up here,” she says. “Accusing me. Asking all these questions about my financial situation. I knew you were behind it. Who else would put ideas like that in his head?”

I swallow. “So what did you say?”

She smiles at me then. I know I said Francesca never smiles, but that’s inaccurate. Her lips curl up and it looks like a smile, but there’s no joy behind it. “I told him he was being paranoid. Of course.”

“Of course,” I mumble. And surely he believed her. He is absolutely under her spell.

“Do you want a drink, Anna?”

“No, thanks.”

Francesca walks over to her kitchen. She grabs the bottle of wine on her kitchen counter, and I can tell even with my rudimentary knowledge of wine that it’s expensive. She and Lydia both have very expensive taste in wine, but Lydia can afford it while Francesca can’t. That’s Francesca—always spending beyond her means.

Not that I can throw stones.

She pours the wine into a glass, swishes it around for a moment. She takes a practice sip, letting it sit on her tongue for a moment, then she downs the rest of the glass in one gulp. And pours another.

“The problem is,” she says, “Joel did his research before he came here. He already knew exactly how bad things were for me.”

My mouth falls open. Joel listened to me. I can’t believe it.

“He ended it.” She takes another healthy sip of wine. “Told me he couldn’t be involved with someone who would get into this kind of mess and then lie about it. Of course, he didn’t know about the biggest secret of all.”