"It was a stupid risk."
"We were seen. The place has cameras and there was a witness. But she's not going to say anything," Archer said.
"There was a—" Jules stared at him. "Now I know you're out of your ever-loving fucking mind. You can't know she won't say anything."
"He's right," I said.
"Of course I am," Jules snapped.
"I was referring to Archer," I said calmly, "She's not going to say anything. She was grateful for our help."
"For now," Jules reasoned. "What happens when she decides she's not so grateful after all? What happens when she decides you've made her life worse? She has camera footage."
Cass rose, headed over to pick up his laptop and opened it. He sat tapping at the screen for a few minutes, then shook his head. "Not anymore. I wiped it clean."
"Too clean?" Jules asked, no less pissed off. "They left an eyewitness."
"Who saw two people dressed in black with masks," I said. "She can't give anything to the police even if she wanted to."
"Two people in masks and one is a woman," Jules pointed out. "That's something, whether you want to believe it or not. Getzoff is already suspicious of you."
"Why didn't you tell us you were going out?" Boner asked, sounding hurt.
"We were on a date," Archer said. "I wanted some time alone with Harlow."
"Okay, but why didn't you tell us?" Boner insisted. "I woke up and Harlow was gone. I heard you come back. Figured you'dexplain. But no, you went and had a bath." He gestured toward the bathroom.
"Archer had ketchup in his ear," I said.
Boner dropped his hand. "In his hair, ear," he repeated. "You didn't think I'd want to see that?" His anger was starting to fade, replaced by his usual humor.
"It was sticky," Archer said, curling his lip slightly. His version of being completely grossed out.
"You got sticky and I missed it?" Boner flopped down into a chair, exhaling as he hit the seat.
"It wasn't a good kind of sticky," I told him. "That didn't happen until we got home."
"I heard the water sloshing," he said, looking down at the tabletop in front of him.
"Are you disappointed because you missed the killing, or because we didn't tell you before we left?" I asked.
He raised his hands in front of him and moved them up and down, like a set of scales. "A little of this and a little of that. You two had fun, by the sound of it."
"We did," I agreed. "Next time you and I can have fun together."
"You really are out of your minds,” Jules said, his arms crossed over his bare chest. "I thought the idea was to keep an eye on Getzoff and keep a low profile. Killing convenience store owners isn't what I'd call 'keeping a low profile.'" He used air quotes. "And leaving a witness?"
"Do you want us to go back and kill her? She’s innocent," I snapped. "He was hurting her."
"She tried to get help," Archer said softly. "No one would listen until we did."
Silence followed his words.
We knew it happened all too often. People reached out for support and didn't receive it. No part of that was okay. Weshouldn't have needed it to do what we did tonight. If the system worked, we wouldn't have. Sometimes it let people like Camilla down, and here we were. Taking care of the problem instead.
Jules scrubbed a hand over his face. "Okay, I get it. No one listened when Augustus needed help either. They gave him no choice but to…"
He closed his eyes without finishing the sentence. He didn’t need to, we knew what he was going to say. The system let Augustus down too.
