No Second Chance

Eighteen months have passed since Stacy’s death. This chapter opens with a third person omniscient narrator, rather than Marc’s usual first-person narration.

We meet Lydia, a former child star who is now a beautiful and ruthless criminal with a deceptively “warm smile” (61). Lydia is extorting a recent widow in order to collect on her dead husband’s gambling debts. Lydia approaches the widow, Wendy Burnet, at a Starbucks and expresses sympathy for the death of Wendy’s husband, Jimmy. She tells Wendy that she was “the last person to see Jimmy alive” (63) and confesses to killing him. When Wendy asks Lydia who she is, Lydia puts her finger to Wendy’s lips. Lydia then chastises Wendy for not understanding that Lydia is a credible threat: “That would be really narrow and sexist on your part, don’t you think? This is the twenty-first century. Women can be whatever they want” (64).

Lydia explains that Jimmy was tortured before his death by Heshy, the huge man waiting for her outside the Starbucks. Jimmy confessed under torture that his life insurance policy would cover his gambling debts to one of Lydia’s employers. Lydia expects full repayment, with 40% interest when the insurance payouts begin in a week.