"Are you listening to me?" Marcella screams.

"I can definitely hear you, Miss Walcott. Why don't you calm down and start from the beginning?"

Just as those words come out of my mouth, Smith walks into the restaurant. He ignores everyone as he makes his way back to our table, and when he gets here, he stops, looking at the phone with a puzzled look.

It quickly turns into amusement and he sits down. "I got locked in her house last night by mistake."

"Is that him?" Marcella screams.

"Marcella, please. Stop-"

"Don't tell me to stop screaming. Your weirdo stalker friend broke into my house last night. He was jerking off in my bedroom while he watched me sleep!"

"Fuck, Smith," I say. "What the fuck?"

"What the fuck is right," Marcella says. She's silent then. Breathing hard, like she's trying to regain control. "Keep him away from me!"

I get a dial tone after that, so I end the call and place the handset on the table. "Would you like to explain yourself?"

"I brought her here last night," Smith says.

"What?" That's Quin. "Why the fuck would you do that?"

"She's dark, man. So listen... she works at the Benton Gallery where Matisse is having his show this weekend, you know?"

I nod. I didn't really make that connection when he gave me her business card yesterday, but all right.

"It was a long day of unloading pieces for the show. She didn't eat dinner. So Matisse and I invited her here to eat."

Quin knows where this is going, because he's shaking his head and mumbling, "You fucking pervert. Why do you do this shit?"

But Smith is still looking at me. "She turned him down. So I went to her house to say she passed my test and I got inadvertently locked inside. I didn't expect her to set the alarm when she got home. It wasn't on when I broke in."

"Do you even hear yourself?" Quin asks.

Smith redirects his attention to Quin now. "Did you ever hear of the expression 'two birds, one stone?'"

Quin looks at me. "What the fuck is he talking about?"

But we both know what he's talking about. Smith wants Marcella. He thinks he can get Quin the information he needs and we can all have a replacement at the same time.

I'm silent as Quin stands up. "Fuck that girl. Fuck. That girl. I'm not in, OK? So if you assholes want to pair up and leave me out, feel free."

Smith and I both watch Quin walk out. And then Smith looks back to me. "He'll get over it. He's just pissed off that she tricked him. But you know what? I kinda like that about her." And then he nods to the headset on the table. "And I like that fucking screaming too."

The rest of my day is not filled with enough distractions to keep Smith's idea from percolating in my mind.

The screaming was hot.

When Smith brought her down the elevator the other night she didn't look wild. She looked scared, actually. But the screaming tells me another story. It says she's a fighter.

My mind is whirring with possibilities and ideas.

I did say I'd talk to Marcella about Rochelle for Quin. If only to get some semblance of closure about Rochelle's state of mind and being.

So after I conclude my last phone call about the upcoming holiday events, I find the card on my desk at TPC and stare at it as I look out the window.

I call the gallery. It's closed.

Smith has an address written down on the back of the card, but no phone number. So I call down to reception and tell them to bring my car up from the garage.

I clean my desk off, putting everything in its place before I leave, and then make my way down to the waiting car. It's cold tonight, but no snow. So the traffic is light as I weave through the downtown streets and make my way over to Little Raven Street near Union Station. It's one of those high-end areas just north of downtown. Every townhouse and condo on this street goes for over a million dollars. Well over a million, actually.

I scan the house numbers for her address and when I find it, I breathe a sigh of relief that the lights are on.

I park the car, get out, and walk up to her front gate. It's short, but stately, made of wrought iron, and it doesn't squeak when I open it and walk through. Her townhouse is three stories tall, plus a basement from the looks of the stairs I have to walk up to get to the front door. It's modern, has lots of large windows and sharp lines, and when I peek inside, I can see a fire going in the large front room.

Nina Simone is singing about a new dawn and a new day and then I get a flash of the woman I came to see as she walks across the room on the far end of the first floor.

I press the button for the doorbell.

Marcella stops in the middle of the hallway and stares at me, staring at her.

She doesn't move. Not one muscle. She's absolutely still as she considers her options.

Will she call the police?

Will she go about her business and ignore me?

Or will she answer the door?

Just as I get to that last option, she decides.

"What?" she says, peeking through a crack in the door.

"I'd just like to apologize for Smith's actions last night."

"Did he tell you everything he did?" She's still very angry about it. "Because I'd like to know just how deeply disturbed he really is so I know how to react."

"He told me he's sorry."

"Did he?" Marcella asks, unbelieving. "Then why are you here apologizing instead of him?"

"May I come in, Miss Walcott? It's like ten degrees out here."

She looks me up and down real fast, then opens the door and says, "Briefly."

"Yes," I say, stepping past her and into the warm house. "I'll keep it short." She's cooking dinner, I realize. Something smells good.

I turn to her, but she pushes past me and says, "Excuse me. I have to check my food before it burns."

Even though she didn't invite me to follow her back into the kitchen, I do. I take off my leather gloves and set them down on the granite island with my car keys. "Smells good. What are you making?"

Marcella reaches for a remote and turns the music down so we can have a conversation. "Chicken pot pie," she says, opening the oven. She peers in, grabs a pot holder, and then pulls out a single chicken pot pie.

"It's frozen?"

She laughs. "No." But her answer is terse. Like I offended her.

"You make them yourself?"

Marcella sets the cooking sheet on a trivet and turns around. "What do you want?"

"Why are you so angry with me?"

"He broke into my-"

"I'm sorry Smith did that. He's impulsive. But he had a reason."

"I'm sure he did," she says.

"Technically, Miss Walcott, you kinda broke into our house too. Right?"

Her spine stiffens and her chin lifts up. "Rochelle invited me up."

"Right," I say, drawing in a deep breath and then letting it out. "That's the other reason I'm here. You see, Quin-"

"I don't know where she is. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. If she wanted you guys to know where she went and what she was doing, she'd have left a note."

"OK. That's fine. I accept that. All we need to know is if she's all right. That's it. Was she stressed out?"

Marcella thinks about this for a moment and then says, "Yes. I'd call her stressed out."

"Do you think she was afraid?"

More thoughtful consideration from Marcella. "I don't know if I'd call it afraid. But she was crying when we talked that afternoon."

"Do you know why?"

Marcella shakes her head no.

"No idea at all? I mean, come on, Marcella. We love her, OK? Not equally and not all in the same way. But we love her. We need to know if she needs our help."

"She did not confide in me, Mr. Bricman-"

"Bric," I say. "Just call me Bric."

Marcella sighs. "I don't have the answer you need. I promise, I'd tell you if I thought she was in trouble and needed help. I think she has something going on. For sure. But I got the feeling she was handling it."

I nod my head and take a seat on one of the bar stools. "And you? You came upstairs..."

"I don't want to talk about it. It was obviously a mistake."

"Maybe," I say. "Maybe not."

"Your friend is weird, Bric. I'm not getting involved with him."

"Then why did you let Quin fuck you?"

She blows out a long breath of air.

"I'm not trying to be mean, Marcella. I'm trying to understand. And I'm trying to figure out if you're interested."

"Interested?" She laughs. "In that sex game you were playing with Rochelle?"

"If you knew about it-and you clearly did-and you didn't want to partake-again, you clearly did-then why let Quin fuck you?"

Marcella leans her hip into the granite counter next to the stove and folds her arms across her chest. "What do you want me to say? I was horny? It sounded dirty and I wanted to get in on it?"

"That would be a good start."

She grunts in denial.

"We're interested, Marcella. That's why I'm here. We are interested."

"You need a replacement before the weekend?"

"I have never seen Rochelle on the weekends. I have Wednesdays and Thursdays."

"Oh." She laughs. "My mistake. You need a fuck buddy before tomorrow?"

"Can you just be serious for a minute?"

"Sure," she says. "Sure. Let's be serious about what you're offering me. You and your friends want to own me. Share me. Fuck me senseless, any way you want. Let's get serious about this."

"You don't have to be condescending." I shrug. "Some people like the dark side of sex. And let's get real as long as we're getting serious. You like the dark side, Marcella." I get up and walk around the island so I'm standing in front of her. "You like the forbidden world we live in. Because if you didn't, you'd never have agreed to whatever plan Rochelle sold you. So why don't you just shut the fuck up with your holy self-righteous attitude and listen to my offer."

"You have some nerve coming here-"

I grab her face with one hand, my thumb pressing into her jaw and my forefinger wrapping under her chin. "Shut. The fuck. Up."

She breathes hard and heavy, but she doesn't do anything but obey.

"That's better," I say, letting go of her face. "I'm going to pick you up on Friday and we're going on a date."

"I'm working Friday," she says. Her voice is smaller now. Slightly-not all the way, but slightly-submissive.

"I know." I'm trying my best to be patient with her. "The gallery. We know Matisse. We're all going to that opening. So I'm going to pick you up at five-thirty and you and I are going to go together."