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“Thishasn’t even started,” said the other woman, looking back and forth between them both.
Joshua moved toward her, and she moved in closer, poked him hard in the chest, looking up.
“Don’t forget,” she said. “If anything happens to me,everybodyhears abouteverything. Are we clear?”
Joshua deflated, lifting his palms in surrender.
“Just follow the plan,” said the woman. She gave him a dark look, and then she moved out into the night again.
Cricket was alone with Joshua, who stood there, staring after the stranger.
“Oh, shit,” he said. “This is so fucked.”
“Joshua,” she sobbed. “Whatis happening? Who isthat woman?”
She felt stunned, powerless, her head pounding.
“She’s,” he started, then shook his head. “She’s my sister. My half sister.”
Cricket shook her head, trying to let the information sink in.
Maybe she was hallucinating? It kind of seemed like that—everything topsy-turvy and nonsensical, Hannah’s here, then gone. Mako running out into the rain after his wife. The ghost of Libby. A strange woman in the night.
Joshua’shalf sister? Had he mentioned having a sister?
As she sat puzzling over the pieces, Joshua still standing by the glass door, seemingly paralyzed, that’s when she remembered the other woman. Her voice, cold and officious. On the phone at Mako’s office.
Trina, his assistant, the one who quit suddenly. The one Cricket suspected Mako might be fucking, while he was fucking Cricket and married to Liza.
Okay, that made sense. So this was a revenge thing. Mako had fucked her over in some way. She had come to take her revenge on Mako.
“No, she’s not your sister,” she said, sitting up. “She’s Mako’s assistant. Or she was.”
“Right,” said Joshua, rubbing at his face in distress. “Andshe’s my sister. Well, my half sister. It’s complicated. Oh, wow, I’ve really fucked up, Cricket. I’m so sorry.”
He moved back over to her quickly and got to his knees before her. She grappled with this new knowledge. Wait. So did that mean—?
“The night we met in that club? It wasn’t a chance encounter? You were—what? Working with her? Looking for a way to get closer to Mako?”
He closed his eyes a minute. “It started as one thing. Her thing. I had to go along with it. But then it all changed, Cricket. Believe that. Please. I didn’t know that I was going to fall—”
“Stop,” she said. “Don’t say it.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said again, taking her hands in his. He looked at her like she’d hoped he would when he was about to propose—earnest, loving.
God, she was so pathetic. She could still taste blood in the back of her throat, realized that their whole relationship was a plot to get to Mako, and still she was thinking about him proposing. Anyway, better to let him think they were okay.
“Look,” she said gently. “Let’s just get the others and get out of here.”
She stood and the world spun. He rose to support her.
“I—I can’t,” he said. “She knows too much about me. Ihave tohelp her.”
“What does she know about you? Explain this to me, Joshua. Make me understand you.”
The rain started pouring down again, drumming against the roof and windows, and all she could think was that Mako, Bruce, and Hannah were out there with that woman.
WhatdidTrina want? What was she going to do to all of them?
