“What do you mean?” Elspeth asked.
“You mind if I text him?”
“What are you going to say?”
I took the phone from her and typed in a text:Heads up: Moon Monaghan’s guys are after u. They say u owe them a shit-ton of money and if you don’t pay up, U R gonna be dead for real.
It wasn’t up to my usual standards eloquence-wise, but I figured I’d put it into language that a wannabe gangster like Dylan could understand and respect. I showed the text to Elspeth. “It’s the truth,” I said. “Before I got home last night, I got chased by this Mafia asshole because I had Dylan’s phone and they were tracking it. He nearly got us into a car accident.” I looked at Spike. “Shit, that reminds me. I still have his gun in my purse.”
“Jeez, you’re so absent-minded lately,” Spike said. “Call Desmond. Do I have to write it on your hand?”
“No, you don’t,” I said. “I just happen to have a lot on my mind.”
“Obviously.”
Elspeth’s gaze darted from me to Spike and back again, as though she was watching a tennis match. “You guys lost me,” she said.
I put my back to Spike and spoke directly to her. “Okay, so as I was saying, Dylan really does owe money to Moon, and this text could scare him into doing something.”
“Like what?” Elspeth said.
“Like…paying up. Maybe moving around some funds to do it. We could keep our eyes on his accounts. And I can keep my eye on Moon.”
“How?”
“His boss is my ex-father-in-law.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow. Small world.”
“Small town,” I said.
“Seriously.”
“At the very least,” I said, “this should give Dylan something else to focus on besides, well…you.”
Elspeth nodded. “Send the text,” she said.
I did. We watched the screen. We saw bubbles. Then stillness. Then bubbles again. We kept watching. We waited. But the reply never came.
“Looks like somebody’s a little spooked,” Spike said.
Elspeth smiled. She picked up the clothes I lent her. “I fucking hope so,” she said.
Twenty-Three
Rosie woke up. I fed her. Then Spike, Elspeth, and I all had breakfast at the kitchen table—coffee, orange juice, a fruit salad I’d thrown together quickly, and these really good bagels I’d picked up at Mamaleh’s a week ago and frozen. Spike wolfed down two bagels in quick succession. Elspeth picked at some of the fruit, explaining she wanted to save room for her office holiday brunch. We talked about the weather, the holidays, our families, sports, politics even—anything and everything but Elspeth’s murderous, missing boss. The whole time, though, we all kept stealing looks at her phone, which sat next to the plate of bagels like a bomb about to detonate.
Toward the end of breakfast, it dinged once.
“Can you look at it?” Elspeth said to me.
I read the text and exhaled, realizing only then that I’d beenholding my breath. “It’s from your mom,” I said. “She’s reminding you to wish your aunt Debbie a happy birthday.”
Elspeth smiled. “Still nothing from Dylan.”
“Nope.”
We all went to various rooms to get ready for work. I kept a few of Spike’s shirts and jeans in my guest room closet especially for his occasional overnight stays, and he availed himself of those and showered and changed in the guest bathroom.
