Page 139 of In Case You Didn't Know

The phone rings once, twice.

“Hello?” Francie’s voice is sharp. Tired. It makes my stomach twist.

Christ, I miss her.

“It’s me,” I say softly. “Don’t hang up.”

“Why would I hang up?” she asks. Oh, she’s pissed. “I’m not the one who ignores messages and calls and thinks they can fix everything by playing Batman in a business suit.”

I close my eyes. “I wasn’t trying to ignore you. I just…”

“What were you trying to do then, Asher? Because from where I’m sitting it felt a lot like you didn’t trust me with details about my own life.”

“I was trying to protect you,” I tell her, and even I can hear how weak it sounds.

She lets out a laugh. It’s not funny. It’s sharp and brittle and cuts right through me. “Wow, you and my brothers should form a club. You could call it ‘People who think Francie can’t handle her own shit.’ Meetings every Monday. Matching jackets optional.”

I put on my best cajoling voice. “Francie.”

“Just stop talking,” she tells me. “Here’s what you don’t understand. I don’t want to be protected. I want to be trusted. Your equal in everything. And I thought you felt the same.” Her voice catches. “I really believed you understood me.”

I try to swallow, but my throat is too dry. There are a thousand things I want to say, but not one of them feels like enough.

“I never meant to hurt you,” I say softly.

“But you did.”

Those words feel like a punch to the center of my gut. I hurt her. When all I wanted to do was make sure she was safe.

I open my mouth then close it again, because I can’t think of a single thing to say to make this right.

Skyler murmurs something that I can’t hear. Then Francie’s low voice comes back on the line.

“I’m hanging up now,” she tells me. “But just so we’re clear, if you sign that agreement, or let that woman win, you’ll be losing me as well as your company.”

Before I can respond, she hangs up. I stare at the phone for a minute, willing it to ring again. Wanting to call her back.

Hudson whistles low under his breath. “Well that went well.”

West leans back in his chair, arms folded. “I hate to say I told you so but…”

I don’t answer.

Because I’m all out of words. And I have no idea how I’m going to make this right.

thirty-seven

FRANCIE

“This is it,” I murmur, as Skyler comes to a stop outside an expensive five-storied brownstone apartment building on the Upper East Side. Annalise’s address was easy enough to find out. One phone call to Jesse, who looked at Skyler’s contacts on her phone as he muttered, “remind me never to get on your bad side,” and two seconds later we had the intel.

Now we’re staring at the kind of building where the air smells faintly of Christian Dior and generational wealth.

And I should know.

“Are you sure you don’t want backup?” Skyler asks, peering through the windshield like she wants to storm the place herself. “I can play the muscle. Or the getaway driver.” She gives me a soft smile. “Or the wildly supportive friend who stands in the background and mutters passive aggressive commentary.”

“You wouldn’t mutter,” I tell her. “You’d scream it.”