LOGIN"Yes. Next question." Juno said it under oath with Grant at the end of the table, and then she made Ferrante end his own deposition early. Would you have answered as fast as she did? Tell me below, and a gem helps her next chapter reach more readers.
Juno's POVA police officer wrote "silver laptop" on his form. I knew those two words would end up in a court file."What make and model, ma'am?" He was young and tired, with a mustard stain on his tie, and he had come that Thursday morning, only a few hours after the man with the box cutter left. His partner was taking pictures of my window and my bandaged hand."It's an old one. I don't remember the model.""What's it worth?""Three hundred dollars. Maybe less.""Is that your best guess?""It is my best guess."Ronan stood at my bedroom window, the one he had screwed shut at dawn. He didn't turn around, but his shoulders went tight. He didn't believe the number."Do you know any reason someone would go after you?" the officer asked."No.""She's in a lawsuit with Ellison Group," Ronan said. "Put that in the report.""Ellison, like the Ellison Tower?" The officer wrote it down, slower this time. "I'll tell the detectives.""That has nothing to do with this," I said."Then it won't hu
Juno's POV"Let me take you home," Ronan said through the bathroom door.I rinsed my mouth one more time and opened it. He was standing right outside with the tea he had made."You're shaking," he said."It was the chicken.""Then I'm never cooking again." He put his coat around my shoulders.He drove me home himself and didn't once ask why I'd been sick. At my door he looked past me at the bedroom window."Friday," he said. "I'll put a real lock on that window on Friday. Don't open it before then.""I won't.""And tomorrow, eat something I didn't cook."Then he kissed my forehead, which he had never done before, and went down the stairs. I didn't go to bed.Long after midnight, I was still awake at my kitchen table. I didn't know it yet, but a man with a blade was already on the fire escape outside my bedroom.I was reading Sloane's sworn statement for Monday's court hearing. In it, she swore that I had stolen Grant's files. But I kept thinking about Ronan on his roof. I had written
Juno's POVDee: My night guard says somebody sat outside my office last night with a camera on the door. And Grant Ellison was parked across the street in the back of his own car. What is going on with these people?Dee's text was waiting on my phone when I woke up on Wednesday.Grant didn't sit outside people's offices. He sent Owen. If he'd gone himself, something had scared him.An hour later, Ronan texted me too.Ronan: Dinner tonight. Red Hook. Wear something warm.The address was an old warehouse he owned and had only half fixed up. There was no real elevator, only a freight lift with a metal cage for a door. That evening he rode it up four floors behind me with one hand on the gate, and it was loud and shaky the whole way up."It's safe," Ronan said."It's a cage.""It's a safe cage." He pulled the gate open. "Come and see my roof. It's the only part of this building I've finished."The roof was bare concrete with a low brick wall around the edge. Work lights hung along the wal
Grant's POVThe brass sign next to the door said OKAFOR LAW, SUITE 3B. That was all it said. There was no other name on the door and no sign in the hallway.That Tuesday afternoon, I stood in a hallway on Court Street that smelled of floor wax. In my coat pocket was a report from the investigator Owen had hired. It had arrived at noon.For years, I had paid Ledger, my secret deal adviser, through a small company called Northline Advisory. I had never asked who owned it. The report said Northline's official address was Suite 3B, and the lawyer listed on its papers was Dee Okafor.This was her door. She was the lawyer who had sat next to Juno at the deposition that morning.A young man at the front desk told me Ms. Okafor was with a client. I said I would wait. She came out nine minutes later, carrying a notepad. She did not look surprised to see me."Mr. Ellison. You're early for the next deposition.""Northline Advisory." I held up the report. "I paid that company for five years. My in
Juno's POV"Who sent you?" I said through the gap in the window.The thin man in the raincoat looked at me. Then he looked down at the photo of my mother's house on the seat. He wanted to be sure I had seen it. The window slid up. The car pulled away from the curb and turned the corner at the end of Clinton Street.I was still standing in the road in my socks when I called my mother."Mom. Is your porch light on?""Juno, it's dark out. Of course it's on.""Is anyone parked outside your house?"I heard the curtain rings scrape. "There's nobody. Why are you asking me that?""Lock the door. Please. Just tonight.""Go to bed, Juno," she said, and hung up. I called back twice more. Both times it rang until it stopped.Marcus stood between Dee and the door of the Sayer conference room. He had been standing there for ninety seconds, and neither of them had looked away.It was early on Tuesday morning. In less than three hours, Sloane's lawyer would question me under oath. It was called a depo
Juno's POVSloane caught me on the townhouse steps, with the trunk's leather handle cutting into my fingers."Leaving so soon, darling? You've only just arrived." She came down two steps, so we were the same height. Inside, Grant was calling his sister's name. She didn't turn around. "Agnes has been with us for twenty years. She's old, and she's loyal, and loyalty is so expensive to keep. I'd hate for her to lose her job over a silly story about my clutch and Mother's diamonds.""Then don't make her."Sloane reached up and fixed my coat collar, just like she did with the maids before a party. "Sleep well, Juno."She went back inside, and the heavy door shut on Grant's voice. I carried the trunk to the corner by myself and waited in the cold for a cab.Rosa Delgado called me early on Saturday morning. She was shouting in Spanish and English at the same time."They are taking my oven, Juno! Men with a truck! Come now!"I jumped out of bed. Rosa owned the bakery around the corner from my







