Page 56 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

Except he clings to me while he sleeps and his hair curls around the tips of his ears when it’s loose and when he wakes up, he looks at me like he can’t believe I’m real.

“Suuuuure,” my sweet sister says. “Anyway, I’ve got someth⁠—”

“Wait a second, if we’re talking about men wanting to play house, I get to bring up Beatrix Potter.”

“Dietrich Porter,” she says testily, “was a nice, normal guy.”

“He made you the ugliest ceramic vases I have ever seen. And they’re still sitting on shelves in your house!”

“Folk art isn’t for everyone. But we’re not talking about him.”

“Oh? Would you rather talk about that girl you dated for three weeks who tattooed your name on her ass?”

“Rue.”

The “we’re done fucking around” she injects into that one word shifts the conversation into very different territory.

“Shit.” I slump back against the fence, bracing myself for the body blow of whatever she’s about to say. “What is it?”

“How free are you to talk?” she says instead.

I glance over my shoulder as if I can see through the walls separating Hugo’s yard from mine.

“I’m in the backyard, so I should mostly listen.” I pull the blanket more tightly around me. Discussing murder plans on our standard-issue iPhones isn’t what anyone would call best practices, so keeping it vague until we can talk in person is second nature to both of us.

“Okay,” she says. “I stayed up all night trying to decipher the code names in the files you gave me.”

The files from Navarro’s computer, she means. The files detailing the awful things the men in this city have done or plan to do to the women in this city.

“Any luck?”

“Please. Luck has nothing to do with it.” I hear the squeak of her chair, which tells me she’s swiveling back and forth in the seat. She only does that when she’s nervous.

“Oh god.” I clutch the phone tighter. “Spit it out.”

“Okay. This might be hard for you to hear⁠—”

“Spit it out.”

“It’s Greg.”

I blink. “What’s Greg?”

“The lawyer who’s keeping the Philosopher Kings out of legal trouble.”

“My Greg? I don’t understand.”

“He basically wrote their how-not-to-get-arrested handbook, and he tosses out as many charges as he can for the ones who do.” Her voice drips with contempt. “Harassment, threats, assaults, drugged drinks, doxing…”

“My ex-boyfriend is doing that?” I say, my voice flat.

“Yeah.”

The chair squeaks stop, the silence on the other end of the line turning so thick my scalp prickles. “What else?”

Her only answer is an audible swallow.

“What else?” I repeat more sharply.