Sliver of Truth

10

I am a pathetically bad runner. I’m not built for it. No speed, no endurance. But I still managed to elude Dylan Grace, though only, I suspected, because he didn’t get up and chase me with any real determination…and because I managed to hail a cab before he made it to the street.

“Ridley, don’t be stupid!” he yelled.

I waved to him as the cab sped off.

“You shouldn’t run away from your boyfriend,” the cabdriver admonished. I looked at the ID plate: Obi Umbabwai. He had a heavy African accent. “There aren’t that many good men around.”

I gave him a dark look in the rearview mirror.

“Where are we going?” he asked after he’d driven south a block or two.

“I don’t know yet,” I answered. “Just drive around a minute.”

“You must be rich,” he said.

“Just drive please, sir,” I said. I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed the number I’d taken off of Grant’s website. I prayed not to get voice mail as the phone rang. It was one-thirty.

“Go,” he answered.

“I need to see you,” I said.

There was a pause. “Do I know you?”

“Yeah, are you kidding? We met last night at Yaffa. You said you wanted to see me again.”

He started to protest. Then he got it. Not too quick on the draw for a conspiracy theorist. He probably met his buddies on Thursday nights to play Dungeons & Dragons; that’s probably as close as he’d come to any real intrigue.

“Oh, yeah,” he said reverently. “Glad you called.”

“Can you meet me right now?”

“Now?” he said, sounding surprised and a little uncertain.

“Now or never. I’m not a person with a lot of time.”

Another pause. His breathing sounded heavy, excited. “Where?”

I told him where to meet me and hung up. I figured I was probably making his day or even his year. I repeated my destination to the cabdriver, who gave me a disapproving look in the mirror.

“Whatever you say, honey.”

My cell phone rang and I saw Dylan’s number on the screen. I pressed the button and put the phone to one ear but didn’t say anything.

“Ridley, you are making a major mistake,” he said. “Do you really want to be a fucking fugitive?”

I could tell by the pitch of his voice and by the fact that he’d resorted to cursing that he was really upset. I hung up and closed my eyes, leaned back against the faux leather interior of the spotlessly clean cab, and let it speed me toward Times Square.

YOU’D NEVER KNOW it by my adult life, but my adolescence was fairly free from drama. My brother caused enough chaos for both of us, so I always felt it was my responsibility to be the “good” kid, the one who never caused any trouble for anyone. I got caught with cigarettes once (they weren’t even mine), broke curfew now and then. Nothing too terrible. I don’t remember ever even being grounded for anything.

But there was a time after Ace left that I acted out a bit. I was just so sad and angry. I felt as if all this pain was living in my chest with no way of being released. I found I couldn’t sleep well, couldn’t concentrate at school. I lost interest in going to the mall or the movies with friends. I just wanted to stay in my room and sleep. I kept feigning illness so I could stay home. Not easy when your dad is a pediatrician. I’d just tell him I had cramps; he always seemed to accept this without question.

My parents didn’t really seem to notice my distress, maybe because they were in their own states of depression. They’d tried to commit my brother to a drug treatment center against his will. Instead they’d driven him from the house. He was living somewhere in New York City, doing who knows what to himself. He’d dropped out of high school just months before graduation. And there was nothing my parents could do about it because he’d just turned eighteen. It was devastating for them. Sometimes at night when I couldn’t sleep, I’d go down to the kitchen for a snack. Twice I’d heard my father weeping behind the closed doors to his study.

One morning my parents were screaming at each other as I ate my breakfast. I might as well have been invisible. I got my stuff and left the house without saying good-bye to them. Instead of waiting on the corner for the bus, I walked down the hill to the train station and hopped the 7:05 train. I got into Hoboken, took the PATH to Christopher Street, and walked around the West Village for a while. Eventually I worked my way to Fifty-seventh Street. Max had left for work by the time I reached his apartment. Dutch, the doorman, let me upstairs, and Clara, Max’s maid, let me in the apartment. She made me a grilled cheese sandwich and gave me a glass of chocolate milk. After that, I went into the guest room, pulled down the shades, and went to sleep.

Clara didn’t ask any questions, just looked in on me once and closed the door. I felt cocooned in the cool, dark place. I liked the silence, the soft sheets that smelled of lilac. I slept for I don’t know how long.

Clara must have called Max because he came home in the early afternoon. He woke me with a light knock on the door.

“Let’s get some lunch,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed.

He took me to American Grill at Rockefeller Plaza. We watched the ice skaters make their way around the rink as I wolfed down a huge cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake. He didn’t ask me any of the questions I was expecting. In fact, I don’t remember saying much of anything. We just ate together in a comfortable silence until I was stuffed. Then he took me to the movies. I can’t remember now what we saw—something funny and R-rated that my parents would have never allowed. Max laughed uproariously, drawing annoyed looks and angry hushes from the few other people in the matinee. All I remember is that the sound of his ridiculously loud laughter was contagious and soon I was giggling, too. I felt the heaviness in my chest lift, some of the sadness dissipated, and I could breathe again.

In the limo on the way back to his apartment, Max said, “Life sucks sometimes, Ridley. Some things go bad and they don’t get better. But generally the bad stuff doesn’t kill us. And the good things along the way are enough to keep us going. A lot of people have worked hard to make sure you see more good than bad. This thing with Ace…?” He paused and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s out of everyone’s hands.”

“I miss him,” I told Max. It was a relief just to say it out loud. “I want him to come home.”

“We all want that, Ridley. And it’s okay to be sad about it. What I’m saying is, don’t let it crush you. Don’t fuck up your life because Ace fucked up his. Don’t skip school and run out on your parents. Don’t hide in the dark. You’re a bright light. Don’t let the Aces of the world snuff you out.”

I nodded. It was good to talk about it with someone who wasn’t in as much pain as I was.

“Your parents are wrecked right now. Take it easy on them.”

My father was waiting for me at Max’s apartment when we got back. As we crawled home to New Jersey in thick rush-hour traffic, my father and I talked about everything I was feeling. But he asked me not to talk about those things with my mother.

“When she’s ready, we’ll all sit down together. She’s just too raw right now.”

We never mentioned Ace’s name in our house again.

I called Ace a couple of times from the cab. No answer. No voice mail. I quashed the fear that he might blow me off, that I might have to go to the Cloisters alone.

As we sped down the Hudson, I had to ask myself: Why were the men in my life so damaged? What was it about my karma that drew this kind of energy into my life? I thought of Max and wondered if it was really possible that he might be alive, if it was him I would find waiting for me at the Cloisters. Or maybe it would be Jake. I thought of the two of them out there circling my life like two dark moons. It felt to me as if they were on some kind of collision course, and if I didn’t get to one or the other of them first, they’d both be destroyed in the impact—or I would. Add Dylan Grace to the mix and who knew how bad it could get.

JUST OFF TIMES SQUARE there’s a virtual-reality arcade and Internet café called Strange Planet. It’s three stories of all the latest video games, packed all day and late into the night with geeks and weirdos. Dark and crowded, with multiple exits, it was the perfect place for a clandestine meeting with a computer nerd. The windows were blacked out, so when I slipped inside, I felt as if I had entered some bizarre future world. Surfer dudes, skater chicks, punks, and hackers all shuffled about from game to game, drinking smoothies and trying to look cool. A crowd had gathered around an overweight kid jerking in front of a kung fu game. Techno music throbbed from big speakers but no one seemed to notice. An Asian chick dancing furiously on some odd disco game seemed to be moving to her own rhythm.

In a weird way, it reminded me of some of the drug dens I’d visited in desperate searches for my brother. They were dark, inhabited by zombies concerned only with the the next high. Where they were, the present moment, was lost to them; their eyes were glazed over, staring at things I could neither see nor understand. There, like here, I’d felt anonymous and invisible. Just the way I like it these days.

I jogged up a flight of stairs at the back of the building and entered the Internet café. I found a free kiosk toward the back, ordered myself a cappuccino, and checked my e-mail while I waited for Grant. I figured I’d know him when I saw him.

There was the usual crap in my in-box. I scrolled through the junk until I came across an e-mail from my father. The subject line gloated, Having a wonderful time! It was just a brief note from him, saying that they were in Spain and just loving the “spectacular architecture” and “glorious food and wine.” I put my head in my hand against a wave of anger so intense that I thought I might puke up my cappuccino. I hit the delete button. As usual, my parents were off in their own little world while mine crumbled around me. I was starting to understand why Ace disliked them so much. Then I saw the e-mail from Ace, subject line blank. The message read, I can’t make it tonight, Ridley. I suggest you rethink this. Sorry.

I wrote my reply: Coward. I hit send. Lately I’d deluded myself into thinking I would be able to count on my family in a pinch. But I was remembering what I’d learned last year. You’re on your own.

I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and tried Jake again. His voice mail picked up before I even heard a ring. “Oh my God,” I said softly into the phone. “Where are you?”

The café was crowded with all kinds of people—students with backpacks, businesspeople with soft laptop cases, even an elderly woman with a walker parked by her chair—their faces lit by the glow of the screens in front of them. But I’d never felt so alone. I looked at the time on my phone; Grant was already five minutes late. I had six hours until my appointment at the Cloisters—an appointment I would be keeping, as I’d feared, alone. I reached into the inside pocket of my coat and pulled out my wallet, which contained a clutter of receipts and business cards and very little cash. I sifted through the mess until I found what I was looking for: a business card given to me by the only FBI agent who treated me decently during my father’s investigation. Her name was Claire Sorro; she was older than me by about ten years. Professional and courteous, she had been kind to me when other people were cold and officious. I dialed her number and leaned into the cover of the faux wood walls around me.

“Sorro,” she answered.

“Agent Sorro, this is Ridley Jones.”

“Ridley,” she said. Her voice sounded cautious and I wondered if people already knew I’d gotten away from Agent Grace.

“I have to talk to someone about Special Agent Dylan Grace.”

“Okay…” she said, her voice trailing off.

“He shouldn’t be working on the case involving Myra Lyall. He has a history with Max Smiley—he believes that Max killed his mother. And he’s using me to find out if Max might still be alive.”

“Ridley,” she started. But I interrupted her. If I’d been listening to myself, I would have realized that I wasn’t making a whole lot of sense. I was assuming a lot of knowledge on her part.

“I know I shouldn’t have run away from him, but I’d be willing to come into the FBI—if he was taken off the case. Sometime tomorrow. I didn’t have anything to do with Sarah Duvall’s murder.” I took a breath.

“Ridley,” she said quickly in the pause, “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

“Agent Dylan Grace,” I repeated.

“I’ve never heard of him.”

My heart started to thump.

“What I do know, Ridley, is that your face is all over the news. They’re saying that you’re a person of interest in the murder of Sarah Duvall and that an accomplice helped you to escape from NYPD custody.”

“No, not an accomplice,” I said, my mouth going dry. “Agent Grace took me. I’m a federal witness.”

“Not anymore you’re not. The Project Rescue case is long closed.”

“I’ve been under surveillance for a year. Someone over there is still looking for Max Smiley. They thought he’d come for me, because he loved me.”

In the silence that followed, I realized that I sounded like a crazy person. A sad, desperate crazy person searching for a dead man who loved her once.

“Ridley,” Agent Sorro said carefully, her voice soothing, “Max Smiley is dead. You know that.”

I tried to think back on all the things Dylan Grace had told me and suddenly it all seemed nebulous. How much had I filled in with my own imagination? How much had he really said? I told her how he’d showed me his ID on the street that day and took me in for questioning, about the photographs, how he was trailing me, how he’d had access to my phone records, how he’d taken me from the police precinct. I must have sounded hysterical, possibly delusional. I wondered if she was tracing this call, if she could triangulate the signal and figure out where I was.

Another heavy silence followed. “What did you say this man’s name was again?”

“Dylan Grace,” I said, feeling more and more foolish by the second. “Are you seriously telling me you’ve never heard of him?”

“I’m telling you I’ve never heard of him,” she said. “And I’m looking on the database now.” I could hear her fingers tapping on a keyboard. “There’s no one listed in our files by that name. No one named Dylan Grace works for the FBI anywhere in the U.S.”

I let the full impact of the information register. For a moment, I wondered if I’d imagined him altogether, if all of this was just a figment of my imagination. Maybe I should check myself into a hospital somewhere, get some meds.

“Listen, Ridley, it sounds to me like you’re in more trouble out there than if you turned yourself in. The NYPD just wants to talk,” she said with a slight singsong quality to her voice that told me she thought I’d gone over the edge. “I’ll meet you somewhere and bring you in if you want. We’ll get it all worked out. We need to find out who this guy is, why he’s been impersonating an FBI agent, and what he really wants from you. We can help each other.”

Just then I heard the lightest click on the line. It brought me back to myself. I weighed the pros and cons of just turning myself in. She was right; I’d probably be safer. But part of me had already decided that this meeting at the Cloisters was the only way to Max. Something inside me had seized on that, and even though I had no reason to think it was true, I just couldn’t let it go. If eight o’clock came and went and I wasn’t at the Cloisters, Max would elude me forever. I wasn’t sure if I could live with that.

“Okay, Agent Sorro, thanks,” I said.

“Where do you want to meet?”

“Um…I’ll think about it and get back to you.”

“Ridley—”

I ended the call then and sat there for a second, every nerve ending in my body tingling, my stomach in full rebellion. I had been lied to and tricked by Dylan Grace, my imaginary friend. I didn’t even know how to react or what to think. Oddly, I didn’t even feel that shocked or betrayed. In a way, I guess I had always expected him to be something other than what he appeared to be. It was almost a relief to know that I had been right about him.

I scanned the room around me. No one was looking in my direction, everyone hyper-focused on the screen in front of them. I wanted to scream for help, but of course I didn’t. Then I saw a young guy huffing and puffing his way up the stairs. He was pasty and soft but had a pretty face framed by a mass of golden curls; he wore tiny round silver spectacles. I was sure it was Grant. I felt scared suddenly that I’d led the poor kid into danger, that I’d wind up kneeling over his dead body on the floor. I thought about bolting, but he saw me and made his way over.

“I knew it was you,” he said as he sat down heavily. He took off his glasses and wiped them on the hem of his T-shirt. His shirt read THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR EVIL TO TRIUMPH IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING.

I didn’t say anything just out of surprise that he’d recognized me.

“Man, you are in some serious shit.” I heard admiration in his voice. “You must have done something pretty fucked up in another life to have this much trouble raining down on you again.”

I thought it was a pretty insensitive thing to say and told him as much.

“Sorry,” he said. “You’re right. How’d you slip the NYPD?”

I was taken aback by his question. It really was all over the place. Part of me had been hoping that Agent Sorro was exaggerating or even making it all up, part of some elaborate ruse to cover up a secret investigation into Max’s alive-or-dead status.

“I didn’t realize I was slipping them,” I said defensively. “I thought I was being taken into federal custody.”

He cocked his head and looked at me. “What do you mean?”

I told him the whole story, starting from the day Dylan approached me on the street, ending with my leaving him in Riverside Park. I even told Grant about the text message and my meeting at the Cloisters.

“Man,” he said, shaking his head. “This is bigger than I thought.”

He was enjoying this a little too much. It was annoying me.

“Pretty brave of you to come, considering a number of people I have come in contact with during the last few days are dead or have disappeared,” I said, paying him back for his earlier comment.

“No one’s going to touch me. I’m too high profile,” he said with a casual shrug and uncertainty in his eyes. I thought he might be kidding. Did he really consider himself high profile? I almost laughed but saw he was serious and gave him a knowing nod.

“Of course you are,” I said. He didn’t seem to hear the sarcasm in my voice.

“How did you hear about me? My website?”

“No,” I said. “Jenna Rich told me about you.”

“Oh,” he said, looking embarrassed. I wondered if he’d heard through other sources the not-so-nice things she had to say about him. I felt bad for him suddenly.

“She said you were a computer genius and that you had some interesting theories about Myra Lyall. I looked on your site and thought you might be able to help me.”

He seemed to brighten at this a bit. “Help you how?” he asked, leaning forward with alacrity.

I typed in the URL on my borrowed computer and up popped the red screen.

“I need to know what this website is,” I said. I told him about the streaming video of Covent Garden that I’d seen on Jake’s computer.

He slid in closer to me, pushed his little glasses up toward his eyes, and he smelled not unpleasantly like Krispy Kreme doughnuts. There was something teddy-bearish and appealing about him. He tapped away on the keyboard for a second and two small narrow windows opened. A curser blinked in one of the blank white spaces, waiting for a prompt.

“It’s waiting for a log-in and password,” he said, turning to look at me.

“How did you do that?” I said with grudging admiration.

He blew out arrogant disdain from his nostrils. “This is your basic cloak-and-dagger program. Wannabe spy shit one-oh-one.”

I noticed a sheen of sweat on his forehead and wondered if he was nervous or just hot. He was pretty out of shape, the room was over-warm, and even I’d felt a little breathless after the flight of stairs.

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s called steganography, deriving from the Greek, meaning ‘covered writing.’ It’s a way to embed messages within other seemingly harmless messages. There’s software, like Noise Storm or Snow, that allows you to replace useless or unused bits of data in regular computer files…like graphics or sound, even video. I just tabbed around until I hit the window where the prompts were hiding.”

I looked at the prompts, my mind already working on what my father’s log-in and password would be. Probably the same as his home computer; he’s nothing if not predictable. I reached for the keyboard.

“Wait. Don’t just make a quick guess. If you enter the wrong thing, you might alert the webmaster of an unauthorized attempt to enter the site. The prompts or the site itself might disappear altogether.”

I just looked at him, withdrew my hand.

“This is not typical of steganographic sites, though,” he said, as if thinking aloud. “I mean, usually it would be masquerading as something else, like a porn site, or even a mystery bookstore. Then messages would be hidden in elements of the site, like I said…images or sound files.”

“Or streaming video,” I said, thinking of Jake’s computer. He nodded.

“Those messages might be encrypted on top of that. There’s a program called Spam Mimic. Say there was a message waiting for you at a site like this. You’d get a message in your in-box that would look like ordinary spam that most people would delete. But you’d know it was an alert to check the site.”

I thought about my father’s computer, all the junk mail there. I wondered if one of those spam messages had been an alert that a message was waiting for him.

Grant went on. “When you click on the link, it leads you to the message site. You get your message and supposedly you have the means to decrypt it.”

“Who would set up this kind of thing?”

He shrugged. “The government has been making a lot of noise that terrorists are using communications like this. They want stricter regulations on the software that makes it possible to create these encrypted messages. They’re virtually untraceable. Unless someone stumbles on a site like this and knows what they’re looking at, there’s no way to even know it exists. More and more, this type of thing is preferred to phone communications. The government is nervous because it significantly cuts down on the ‘chatter’ they monitor through conventional counterterrorism measures.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by chatter, though I’d heard the term before. I asked him about it.

“Yeah, the government can monitor terrorist activity by watching the frequency of communications between known terrorist groups. When they see an increase in communications—or even a falling off of communications—coupled with other things, say content intercepts or satellite observations, they know something is going on. But things like these websites, disposable cell phones, even Internet cafés like this one are making things a lot harder for them. Of course, organizations like the FBI and CIA probably use sites like this all the time to communicate with agents in the field, freelance contacts, God only knows who else. They just don’t want anyone else using it.”

“Sarah Duvall told me that Myra Lyall had a screen like this up on her computer when she ran out of the Times that afternoon.”

“No shit?” he said. “Can I put that on my site?”

I gave him a look. “I wouldn’t advise it.”

He took his glasses off again and rubbed them on his T-shirt. He was sweating profusely now.

“Is there any way to know who set up this site or where it originates from?”

“I can take the URL and go back to my place, see what I come up with,” he said, putting his spectacles back on. “There are ways to trace these things, and I know a couple of guys who might be able to help.” I could tell he was trying to act cool, but it wasn’t working. A tiny bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face.

“Can I get you some water or something?”

“Sorry,” he said, rubbing his brow with his hand and then wiping his hand on his pants. “I sweat when I get really excited. This is pretty exciting stuff. I mean, I can’t believe I’m sitting here with Ridley Jones.”

The way he said my name, with such awe and reverence, made me a little queasy. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been writing about the whole Project Rescue thing for months. If it weren’t for you, none of it ever would have been exposed. Now you’re on the run from the police. Max Smiley might be alive. It’s too rich.”

I felt my face go hot with anger and annoyance. “This is my life, Grant, not some movie of the week. People are dead. This is serious.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s what makes it so cool.”

“Look,” I said, rubbing my eyes. I felt so tired suddenly. “Can you help me or not?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want to know where this website originates from, how to log in, and what kind of messages are contained inside.”

He took his glasses off again and looked me dead in the eye. The teddy-bear sweetness was gone. “What’s in it for me?”

I shrugged. “What do you want?”

“An exclusive interview with Ridley Jones for my website,” he said without hesitation.

What a vulture, I thought. His eyes suddenly looked beady; he had an aura of smugness about him as he leaned back in his chair. I wanted to punch him in his big, soft belly.

“Okay,” I said. “When this is over.”

He raised his eyebrows. “No offense, but how do I know you’re going to make it, you know? You said yourself everyone else in this mess has disappeared or is dead. What makes you think you’ll be any different?”

I felt my stomach bottom out. People say the shittiest things, don’t they?

I forced an aura of confidence and gave him a wan smile. “That’s a chance you’re going to have to take, Grant.”

I wondered if he’d walk away. He didn’t have to do this, would probably be better off if he didn’t. But I was banking on his curiosity getting the better of him.

“How will I reach you?” he asked.

I slid him one of my business cards, which displayed my name, home phone, cell, and e-mail address. “I’ll be in touch with you in a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours,” he protested, lifting his hands. “Dude. Impossible.”

“Grant, I don’t have a lot of time. Just do your best.”

He nodded, scribbled down the URL on the back of my card, and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. “I better bolt.” He handed me a card as well. “Here are my numbers. They’re all secure. There’s a secure e-mail address on there, too.”

I slipped it into my pocket and watched him get up. “I’m serious, you know,” he said, looking at me. “Your face is everywhere—on the television, the Times website…will probably make the evening editions. If you’re not looking to get caught, be careful.”

I remembered the last time my face had been all over the place, just after I’d saved Justin Wheeler. People had stopped me on the street to hug me, to give their well wishes. And even still, my life had gone to hell as a result of that exposure. I wondered what happens when your face is all over because you’re wanted by the police. I realized it might not be so easy to get to the Cloisters.

“You, too,” I answered. “Nothing on the site, Grant. Not about the call or this meeting—you could get us both in a lot of trouble.”

He nodded, started walking away.

“So, hey, first question,” he said, turning back to me. “What’s it like being the total Project Rescue baby?”

I looked at him.

“It sucks, dude,” I said. “Totally.”

I HUNG AROUND in the dark safety of Strange Planet for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I had another cappuccino. I felt as if the second I stepped back out into the light, I’d be identified and taken into custody—which might not have been the worst thing in the world as far as my personal well-being was concerned. I spent a few minutes staring at the red screen, sipping coffee, and thinking about Agent Sorro’s advice. But then I thought about Dylan Grace and the things he’d said in the park. It turned out he was a liar, and God knows who he worked for or what his agenda was, but he was right about one thing: Whether he was alive or dead, I was chasing Max.

Instead of finding clarity from knowing the truth about my past, I had felt my delicate self-concept becoming more and more nebulous. Every day, I felt less connected to the woman I was.

It was obvious that the only way to understand myself was to find Max, my father. I had to find him or I’d lose myself completely. I knew this with a stone-cold certainty. If I allowed myself to be taken in, I might never have the answers I needed. A door was closing, and if I didn’t slip inside before it shut, it might be locked forever.

I remembered that day in the woods behind my house. Max had said, “There’s a golden chain from my heart to yours. Trust me. I’ll always find you.” He was right. I knew it then, I knew it now. And I knew I was the only one who could bring Max home. That connection had always felt like a gift. Now it felt like a curse.

Then, of course, there were the other things I’d fallen into, or had been dragged into, depending on your perspective: Myra Lyall’s disappearance, Esme Gray’s and Sarah Duvall’s murders, the question of Dylan Grace. (Not to mention, where the hell was Jake?) Myra Lyall had accused Sarah of lacking that belly of fire, that raging curiosity to just know the truth. She could never have accused me of the same. What was so awful that all these people were dead or missing or lying? What had they learned? Who wanted them to be quiet? Who was the man in black who had killed Sarah Duvall so audaciously on the street and then disappeared? What did all of it have to do with me?

Ace had accused me of choosing trouble. Maybe he was right. But sometimes I had to think trouble chose me.

When I figured the light had gone low in the sky, I left Strange Planet, made a stop at a drugstore, and picked up a few things. I checked into an SRO near Forty-second Street, the kind of awful place nice girls from the suburbs never even know exist, populated by transients, the homeless, hookers, and people just clinging to the fringes of the world, barely able to make their rent day to day. Dark stairways, dirty hallways, hollowed-out people staggering through—it truly was a land of the lost.

The room was small and filthy in spite of smelling like antiseptic. I could hear yelling and the sound of multiple television sets blaring through the thin walls. I wasn’t staying; I just needed the small private bathroom for a while. In my plastic bag was a bottle of hair dye, an electric shaver, a pair of sunglasses, and a black cap.

When I left that bathroom, my thick auburn tresses (one of the things I’ve been most vain about) were in the drugstore bag, tied tight and clasped in my hand, about to be stashed in the Dumpster outside. I’d turned my leather jacket inside out and cut out the tags, exposing the silk lining. I popped the dark lenses out of the sunglasses and wore only the frames (there’s nothing more obvious than someone wearing sunglasses at night). I put the cap on over my new spiky platinum-blond hair.

The girl in the mirror? I didn’t even know her.