The Amateurs

CHAPTER 25

IN THE CAB ON THE WAY HOME, shaky and alternately scalding and freezing, Ian played a game with himself. Even now, he liked games. The thought made him sick.

This one was called Have You Ever Felt Worse in Your Life.

Round One, eighth grade. All summer he’d bugged his father for a trip to Six Flags, and finally the old man piled him and his best friend, Billy Martin, in the F-150. Dad paid the entrance fee, shaking his head at the price, and Ian had led them straight to the biggest ride in the park, a monster of plunging hills and loops. They’d waited for an hour, listening to the screams, watching people stagger off. At first he’d been giddy. But as they inched forward, a dark, flapping fear had grown in him. It was in the irrevocability, the way the car got higher and higher with no last chance. The terrible pause before it went over, and the screams started.

Then the bored teenager manning the gate had opened it, and they’d walked onto the platform, where the empty car was waiting. People were laughing and jostling, the air sweet with cotton candy and hamburgers, gulls shrieking above.

Just as they reached their seats, he said, “I don’t want to.”

His father had looked at him then with an expression he’d never forgotten, one he saw sometimes late at night. A twisted-lip sort of contempt, and behind it, a thought Ian could read clear as day.

What kind of a pussy am I raising?

“Fine,” his dad had said. “Wait here.” Then he’d turned to Billy, and said, “What about you? You want to?”

And the two of them had climbed into the front seat of the front car like father and son, leaving Ian to stand and watch.

That had been bad. But not as bad as now.

OK, Round Two. Junior year at the University of Tennessee. Madly in love with Gina Scoppetti, a fierce Italian girl with sharp brown eyes and a body that reminded him of his favorite picture in the stolen Penthouse that had held him through his teenage years, the shot of a girl stretched and spread and glistening beside a perfect California pool, a world a million miles from pork rinds and Friday night football. Gina said she loved him too, and they made silly plans and drew on each other with marker and dry-humped till he bled.

Then someone told him that she’d gotten drunk at a fraternity party and ended up blowing three brothers in a back room. He’d confronted her, and she’d cried, said that she didn’t remember, she didn’t think it was true, that she loved him, that she’d been drunk. And he’d wanted to believe her, but thought about the frat boys with their expensive clothes and bright white baseball caps trading high fives as they used her, and he’d started to cry, and called her a whore, and said they were through. It was a month before he found out it hadn’t been Gina, it had been a friend of hers, that Gina had just passed out on a downstairs couch, and he’d begged her to forgive him, said she was the best thing that had ever happened to a kid from Shitsville, Tennessee, and that he would never doubt her again, and she hadn’t even let him in, just shook her head through the crack in the chained door and called him a coward.

That one came close, all the more because then, like now, he was to blame. But as terrible as he’d felt-the racking crying that left him hollowed out, the sense that the world was empty-it didn’t add up to the combination of cocaine shakes and paralyzing horror that he had let down and endangered everyone he loved.

How about the time he’d slipped on the icy steps of the Michigan Avenue staircase down to the Billy Goat Tavern, tumbling half a flight to hit the cement with a sickening crack, the pain vicious as broken glass, his leg broken in two places, cars sliding by, exhaust and the queasy yellow light of the underpass and the sense that he was all alone in a city that wanted to break him?

Nope.

Katz holding a cigar to his nuts?

Nope.

He felt an urge to giggle and retch at the same time. It had been almost four days since he’d had so much as a bump of coke, and he was shocked at the desperate way his every cell seemed to be screaming for it. The sky was a spotlight, white and hot and hard.

Hell with them, he thought. Jenn and Alex and Mitch, Katz and Johnny Love and Victor, his father, his coworkers. Hell with them all.

The cab pulled up to his building, and he paid without counting, just handing over bills and climbing out as the driver said, “Hey, man, you OK?” Slammed the door and went in the lobby and hit the elevator button again and again.

His hands were shaking as he fumbled with the keys, and he dropped them and cursed and kicked the front door hard enough to hurt his toe, then bent and snagged them and jammed them in the lock and twisted and walked into his home.

The air smelled sour, and he remembered vomiting that morning, on his knees in front of the toilet, desperate for a line, not doing one. Lying on his side on the couch, the TV on mute, until the phone had rung, Katz on the end of the line, saying he needed to see him right now. Telling him to come to the Continental.

That Katz had betrayed him didn’t surprise or sting. But his friends? The people he had tried to protect? That they couldn’t even try to understand why he had done what he had, that there had been reasons-

Fuck it.

He strode to the bookshelves, snatched the Montecristo box, opened the lid, and shook out the contents to clatter on the glass table. Habit taking over as he unrolled the baggie of white powder, unzipping it to pour a too-large pile. The razor had bounced to the Oriental carpet, and he stooped for it, then dropped to his knees and began to chop the pile furiously. It was good stuff, already fine, and in half a minute he had broken the few clumps and then divided the pile into four thick rails, each long as the span between thumb and forefinger. Ian transferred the razor to his left hand and took the pre-rolled twenty and leaned forward, one end in his nostril, his body calmer already, the shakes easing as they sensed what was coming, the bitter winter snort of relief. The air-conditioning was on, and he could smell his own sweat as he bent over. The motion reflected off the polished surface, the sunlight glaring oblique through the windows, turning the table into a mirror so that he could see his features ghosted over the powder. Pale and hard-angled, with dark pits instead of eyes. A cadaver with a rolled-up bill jammed up his nose.

It was the most haunting thing he had ever seen. Ian froze, staring down at his own face eight inches away. His fingers palsied on the twenty, and his breath scattered the edges of the cocaine like dust. Every part of him wanting to just take a quick blast, just one, something to ease this feeling, to let him think clearly, to banish the memory of the friends who had betrayed him and the job he had blown and the father who never knew what to do with a son who liked games and the man in the suit saying he would visit that same father and do terrible things to him. If he just did a little his mind would clear, and he wanted it, God, he wanted it, more than he’d ever wanted anything, more than Gina or his father’s love or the thrilling uncertainty of the unturned card, and he hated it, more than he hated even himself, and the two feelings yanked at him, tore into him, made him clench and shake and want to scream, and then he felt a slick burning in his left hand.

The pain was sharp and immediate, and it broke the trance. He straightened and blinked. Blood was dripping onto the glass, big fat drops that spattered in perfect patterns, softening red to pink where they hit the powder on the table. Slowly, like a man waking from a dream, he unclenched his fingers. The razor blade. He’d forgotten he was holding it, and his tightening fist had jammed a good third of it into the meat of his palm. Gingerly, he tugged it out, the sliding sensation vaguely nauseating. He dropped it on the glass, where it hit with a ting.

Shit.

Ian closed his hand. Heat and the throb of his pulse. His fingers were red.

Is this all you are?

Is this what you want to be?

He heard Katz’s voice from last week. Laughing, calling him a degenerate. A drug addict in a suit.

A wave of disgust pounded him. He yanked the bill from his nose. Grabbed the cigar box from the floor and upended the Ziploc into it, then leaned forward and used a forearm to shovel all the blow from the table into the box as well. He stood up fast, and walked hard to the bathroom. The toilet seat was still up from the morning’s puking. He held the box over it.

He hesitated before dumping it. But only for a minute. Then he kicked the handle with the tip of his dress shoe and watched it all swirl away.

OK. He’d made some mistakes. And even the things that he had done with good intentions, like paying off Katz, had made things worse. But he wasn’t going down like this. Not Ian Verdon, no way. He’d worked too hard, come too far. Cocaine wasn’t going to beat him, and neither was Johnny Love or Victor, that sick fuck. And if his friends didn’t want his help, well, fine. He’d do it on his own.

Do what, exactly?

The thought took the wind from him. What was there to do? Monday morning, Jenn and Mitch would go to the bank, get the mystery bottles, and give them to Victor. That would be that.

Or would it? Only as long as the guy held true to his promise. Ian had heard too many pitches to buy that “believe every word I say” schtick on credit.

Ian’s left hand was wet with blood. He spun the faucet, held his hand under it. The pain was steady but distant. Hell of a week. A black eye, a sliced palm, a second-degree burn on his balls, dope sickness, and the rejection by his only real friends. Hell of a week.

Somehow he had to make this better. Make up for all the ways he’d blown it.

How long have you got, kid?

All right. Maybe not all the ways. But as many as he could. Help his friends. Get back to being the man he once had been. The guy on the go, the Tennessee Refugee who had come to the Windy City and made a killing.

How, though? Beyond where to score premium flake or play in a private poker game, he didn’t know anything about the criminal world. His cell phone didn’t have numbers for ex-cops with friends on the force or gangbangers working as muscle.

Well, OK. What do you have, then? What are you capable of?

He could always go to the police. But while he wasn’t sure of Victor’s magnanimity in victory, he was damn sure of the man’s willingness to carry out his threats if crossed. His father, Alex’s kid, the others… Ian shivered in the cold tile bathroom. He couldn’t risk it. Especially not knowing what he was dealing with.

Wait. There. He had a flash of the movie Wall Street, Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, preaching that information was power. God, how many times had he seen that flick? Fifty? A hundred? Lying on the couch of his shitty efficiency apartment, eating ravioli straight from the can, reciting the lines to get rid of his Southern drawl.

Information was power. And right now they didn’t have enough.

So what? You don’t know how to learn about a man like Victor. Not as if you can look him up in Well-Dressed Psychopaths Weekly.

OK. So he couldn’t get much on Victor. So what could he-

Whoa.

He straightened. Left the bathroom, picked up his phone from the counter. Scrolled through until he found the number he was looking for.

“Davis. It’s Ian Verdon. Listen, can I buy you a beer? I need to pick your brain.”

CHAPTER 26

HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ON SHIFT UNTIL SIX, but Mitch just couldn’t find it in himself to give a good goddamn. When he thought about the sum total of hours he’d occupied the same patch of sidewalk, sun or rain or snow, in a monkey suit, smiling on cue, jockeying to open the doors of cabs and limousines, hauling luggage and giving directions, it made him not so much tired as physically sick. Eight hours a day, 250 days a year, times, what, ten years? Staring at the patterns of blackened gum driven into the sidewalk, at the building opposite, watching people walk to better jobs, talking into cell phones, women in stockings and long soft hair not even looking as they strode home. His life. What a colossal waste.

Alex and Ian had both already left, the first storming out, the second slumping, leaving him and Jenn sitting in the conference room alone. He had a quick flash of hoisting her up onto the polished wood table, laying her back with one hand behind her head, whispering to her as he kissed down her body, but a glance told him that wasn’t going to happen. She sat rigid, staring at her hands, elegant fingers splayed across the tabletop.

“Are you OK?”

She nodded but didn’t look up.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“What about your job?”

“I quit.”

She’d looked at him then, an appraising kind of stare. He met her gaze and put on what he hoped was a rakish grin. Maybe it was silly, but he felt good. Alive, and strong, and with the woman he wanted. They could stand shoulder to shoulder against the world. Forget the others.

It was a gorgeous day, the sunlight bright and pure, the colors fresh-scrubbed. He put his arm around her and steered east, no real destination in mind. They got lucky with the light at Michigan and crossed over to Millennial Park. The air smelled of fried foods and the lake. It felt good to walk with her, and he didn’t break the silence, just wandered up the steps toward the massive chrome sculpture. The thing was shaped like a bean, maybe forty feet across and mirror-polished, the curves reflecting the whole world. Tourists and their children wandered staring, watching the surface warp and distort them. He liked that about it, the sense of disappearing in plain sight, of turning into something else.

“Aren’t you scared?”

He turned to look at her, surprised. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is a good thing. It solves everything at once. We get to keep the money, don’t have to worry about Johnny, and all we have to do is give up something we don’t want anyway.” He watched a small boy, seven or eight, walk steadily toward the sculpture with his hands in front of him. “That was smart of you, telling him you’d put it in the bank, so we do it in public.”

“Is that why you think I said it?”

“Isn’t it?”

She didn’t reply. Whatever was spinning in her mind, he had a feeling he wouldn’t like it, and so instead of asking again, he said, “Can you believe Alex? I know we’ve had our differences, but I never thought he’d just abandon us like that. Prick.”

“He has his daughter to think about.”

“Like we don’t have people to protect?”

“It’s different for him.”

“Why?”

“He’s a father. He’s worried.”

“He’s a coward, is what he is.”

“Come on.”

“What? Why are you defending him?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” His forehead felt overlarge, the blood vessels in it pounding. “Again. What’s going on between you two?”

“Nothing.”

“Sure. He showed up at your place the other night for nothing.” The words were barely out of his mouth and he already regretted them.

“Excuse me?”

He sighed. “I didn’t mean that.”

“What did you mean?”

“I just”-a cab blared its horn, and another answered-“I like you, Jenn. A lot. I have for a long time.” Jesus, what are you, twelve? “I mean, I know this is new, and I don’t want to rush.”

She didn’t answer him, just brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

“Anyway, the thing with Victor, this is good. We can bring the stuff with us to the bank, then give it to him there. It won’t matter that it wasn’t in the safe-deposit box. He won’t pull anything.”

“Maybe.”

“Nah. You have to understand, a guy like Victor, we’re not on his radar. He’ll just take what he wants and go.”

“ ‘A guy like Victor’? What do you know about guys like Victor?”

“He’s a businessman, that’s all I mean.” Nothing seemed to be coming out right, like they were having separate conversations. “We’ll take care of him, and he’ll take care of Johnny, and then we’re clear to use the money. We can start a new life.” He caught himself, flushed. “I mean, you know, we all can.”

She turned and looked up at him. It seemed like she was searching for something, and he felt his face get hotter still. Finally, she said, “You have the wrong idea.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “You’re a doorman. I work in a travel agency. I didn’t lie to Victor to get us to a public place. I lied to buy us time to go to the police.”

For a second he felt like he was falling, that weird gut sense of imbalance. He stared, waiting for her to say it was a joke, that she had been kidding.

“Hey, buddy, got any change?” The man had that same look of a lot of Chicago’s homeless, indeterminate age, clothes nicer than you’d expect, but eyes rheumy and worn.

“No,” Mitch said. Then turned back to her. “Are you serious?”

“Come on, mister. Any change at all?”

“I said no.”

The man stood for another second, then grimaced and wandered away.

“You can’t be-”

“I am.” She crossed her arms in front of her breasts. “This is out of control. We need to get some help.”

“Think about what you’re saying. We’re going to walk into the police station and tell them what, we robbed a guy at gunpoint?”

“Whoever Victor is, he’s bad news. I’m sure they’ll take that into account-”

“Jenn, we killed someone.” He said the words under his breath, glancing around to make sure no one overheard.

“It was self-defense. We’ll all swear to that.”

This couldn’t be happening. He put a hand on her elbow. “Do you understand what you’re saying?”

She looked the other way.

“Oh, that’s great. Fantastic.” He could feel the throb of blood through his body, hot and cold at once. “So you and Alex and Ian get off for free, and I go to jail.”

“No, I’m not saying that-”

“That’s what will happen.” He squeezed her arm tightly, and she jumped, turned to face him. “Why are the rest of you being so blind? This isn’t one of Ian’s goddamn games. We don’t get to start over.”

“Let go. You’re hurting me.”

“Hey, buddy, seriously, help me out, just a quarter, anything.”

Mitch let go of her arm, spun to face the homeless guy. “I said, fuck off.”

“Come on, I’m trying to get something to eat-”

Something in him snapped. Mitch stepped forward, put his hands against the bum’s chest and shoved. The man staggered, and Mitch followed, one fist bunched up, his hand shaking. The bum took another quick step back, then his heel caught on something, and he went over, his arms whirling. He hit the ground with a whoomp and a yell.

People froze, their eyes on him, that same old schoolyard feeling, everyone watching with vampire eyes. A woman had her hand to her mouth like she had stuffed a doughnut in whole. A burly guy twenty feet away started forward. On the ground, the bum writhed, saying, “Shit, man, all I wanted was a quarter.”

He was at once bulletproof and bleeding, that shaking intensity of being the center of attention. He grabbed Jenn by the arm and started away. He had to tug to get her moving. “Come on.”

“Lady, you OK?” It was Burly Guy, one of those Chicago big men, not exactly fat, but no GQ cover.

“I’m fine.” She shook off Mitch’s hand and started walking. Two teenagers were helping the homeless guy to his feet. The crowd turned as one to stare them out.

“Listen, that was-”

“What’s happening to you? You’re not the same.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s like you’ve become someone else. I know this has all been crazy, but-”

“Jenn, fuck that, OK? I’m the only one doing what needs to be done. And if you go to the police, I go to jail. It’s just that simple.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. And so do you.”

“So we won’t tell them the whole story. We can lie, tell them that we found the bottles.”

“What, we stumbled on them in the alley? Don’t be stupid.”

She stopped, whirled to face him. Her feet were planted shoulder width, and her eyes flashed. “Don’t you ever. Just because we fucked doesn’t mean you get to do that.”

He raised his hands. “I’m sorry.”

She stared for another moment, then turned and started walking fast. He was taller than she was, but had to hustle to keep up. “Look, I understand. You’re scared.”

“Of course I’m scared. So are you. The difference is that I’ll admit it.”

“Jenn, please, listen to me, would you?” They reached the north end of Millennial Park, and she started across Randolph without looking. Horns shrieked and brakes squealed as she strode through traffic, parting it like the Red Sea. Even now, as everything fell apart, it was a thrill to watch her. “Would you listen?”

“I’m going home, Mitch.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No.”

“Fine, but would you just listen for a second?”

She stepped up onto the sidewalk. “What?”

“You’re right. I’m scared too, OK?” He held his hands out in front of him, fingers almost touching, like he was squeezing an invisible ball. “I have been since we started this.” It was only as he spoke that he realized it was true. What was he doing? What had he done?

Push. It. Down.

He made himself speak gently. “We have to be realistic. We can’t go to the cops. If we do, maybe, maybe you and the others will be OK. But I won’t. You know that.”

Something flickered across her face like a cloud shadow. She turned to look at the half-finished high-rise to the west, her eyes tracing the girders. “You did it for me, didn’t you? Not… what happened in the alley. Before that. You agreed to rob Johnny because I was.”

“No.”

“Yes, you did.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I told myself that I wasn’t manipulating you, but I knew how you felt, and I took advantage. Because I wanted to do this. I wanted an adventure.”

“I-” He felt he should say something but didn’t know what.

“I was wrong to do that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Maybe you’re right, maybe I did do it for you. But you know what?” He shrugged. “That’s as good a reason as any I can think of.”

“But now everything is bad.”

“We have to keep it together. Just a little longer.”

“You’re wrong.” Her smile a broken flower. She threaded her arm through his. “I think things are going to get a lot worse.”

VICTOR STARED out the limo window at Jenn and Mitch walking arm in arm. Beside him, Bennett said, “You think she’s playing straight?”

“She is straight. All of them are. They’re in over their collective heads, and I’m tossing them a line.”

“What about the cops? If they turn over the stuff, they’d have some heavy negotiating power.”

“They aren’t thinking that way. They’re civilians. Their idea of prison is Oz.”

“So you’re trusting in their fear of anal invasion to keep them in line?”

“If they knew what they had, maybe it would be different.” Victor shrugged. “Or maybe not. You know how little it can take to convince people to do the wrong thing. The money is a big temptation.”

“About that. You’re letting them keep it?”

“Our deal stands. I’ll still stake you the two hundred fifty thousand.”

“Why?”

“I’m being careful. That money is two hundred and fifty thousand reasons not to go to the police.”

“Why not just take them somewhere, lock them down?”

“Too risky. Who knows if someone is expecting them, will report them missing? This is safer. They don’t know what they have, and they don’t know anything about us. So we watch, and we wait.” Victor leaned forward, tapped the mic. “Let’s go, Andrews.” The car began to move almost immediately. “You’ll watch her.”

“I don’t work for you, remember? No orders.”

Victor sighed. “If anything happens, it will go through her. She’s the one who set up the safe deposit. No one will be able access it without her, that’s why I didn’t insist on the key. I’ve got plenty of men, but you’re better than they are. So pretty please, in the interest of our partnership, will you keep an eye on her?”

“Fair enough.” Bennett paused, rubbed at his chin. “You’re right. If they do make a play, they won’t leave her dangling. Three men, one woman, they’re going to protect her.”

“They’re going to try.”

CHAPTER 27

THEY HAD SPENT ANOTHER HOUR wandering the city before Jenn told Mitch she was going home. He’d said he would come with her, and she had been forced to say no. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about him, or that her apology had been less than sincere. But everything was moving too fast. Maybe, maybe, they had a chance to make something happen. Of the original foursome, he was certainly the only one she still trusted. But they’d only slept together a couple of times, and he seemed ready to propose, and she just couldn’t take it.

“You’ll be OK?”

“I’ll be fine. I just need a little space.”

“Space from me?”

“Space from everybody.” She had taken his hand. “What you said before-”

“I know, it was too fast-”

“It was sweet. And I like you, too, Mitch. But I need some time to think. Let’s just get through all of this and let things settle down, OK?”

“Yeah,” he’d said. “Sure.”

“And once it has, why don’t you give me a call. Ask me out on an actual date.”

His face lit up like Christmas. “Yeah?”

“I’d like that.”

“Me too.” He laughed. “We’ll do it right. Go somewhere nice. On Johnny.”

That had made her laugh too, and as she’d gotten in a cab and closed the door behind her, she’d felt a quick pang of regret to leave him standing on the sidewalk, hands tucked in his pockets.

But it had also felt great to step into her apartment alone. To dodge out of the weight and meaning of everything. Habit, maybe, and one that she was looking to break. It was time to quit playing games, pretending that nothing meant anything. But it wasn’t going to happen all at once. Right now, all she wanted was to put life on hold. To forget about the dissolution of her friendships, the transformation of her world, the monsters tracking them. To have a vodka and read a silly magazine and forget everything. Maybe it was weak, maybe it was regressive, but she deserved it.

So the knock on the door had been anything but a happy surprise. She strode across the hardwood fast, reached for the door. “Damn it, I said I need a little space-”

Alex stood in the hallway.

“Oh.” She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling trapped and a little silly. “You.”

“Listen, I can’t stay. Cassie’s got a soccer game, I promised I’d be there. But I wanted to-I couldn’t say it in front of the others. First Victor, then Mitch, they got me so riled up.” He let out a breath. “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“OK.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “I really pissed you off, didn’t I?”

“You bailed on us.”

“That’s not what I’m apologizing for.”

“No?”

“I had to do that. I have my daughter to think of.”

“We all have people to think of.”

“I know. But you don’t know what it’s like to have a child. It… it takes over everything. When I heard Victor threaten her, I could have… Jesus. If it wasn’t for his guards, I might have put his face through that table.”

There was something in the way he held himself, the tension in his shoulders, that touched her. In the genes, she supposed-hard not to be attracted to a man who would do anything for his family. “I’m glad you didn’t try.”

“I know.” He paused. “I’m going to lose her, Jenn.”

“Mitch thinks that if we give the stuff to Victor-”

“I don’t mean that. They’re taking her away. To Arizona.” He looked down, rubbed at the back of his neck. “I brought Trish the money. I know, I shouldn’t have, just like Ian shouldn’t have paid his bookie, but I had to. And they had this lawyer there, this slick as shit corporate killer, and he-”

“Unbelievable.” She shook her head. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

“Huh?”

“First, you come down on Ian for doing the same thing you did.”

“That was different-”

“But beyond that, it’s always the same for you, isn’t it? You never look at the things you don’t want to. You convince yourself of something and screen out the rest of the world. Of course you can’t just waltz in, give her some money, and make everything OK. Did you really believe that was going to work? For a bright guy, you sure miss the obvious. You did it with your marriage, your job, the child support, even-” She stopped herself.

“Even you,” he said. “That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it? Well, maybe you’re right. That’s why I’m here. To apologize.”

She waited, gave him nothing.

“I’ve been stupid in so many ways. Everything you said, and more.” His gaze was level, challenging. “The other night, when I came over… it was… I’d just come from Trish’s-well, from a bar-and I was hurting, and I needed someone to help me, to make it better. And the only person I could think of was you.”

Jenn stared at him, the hard line of his jaw, the muscles his shirt didn’t conceal, the haunted look in his eyes. There had been a time when hearing that would have made her happy. They’d told each other that they were just passing time and taking pleasure. But though she’d been willing to go along, it wasn’t the way she was wired. The way women were wired. Not really. No matter the promises, the words spoken, the secrets, she couldn’t sleep with someone for a year and not care about him. Not wonder about a future. Once upon a time, hearing him say that would have made her very happy indeed.

Now, though, it just annoyed her. “I don’t really know what to do with that.”

“I know.” He shifted. “I know.”

“Mitch and I…”

“I’m not trying to get in the middle of that.”

“Yes, you are.”

“How are things with the two of you?”

“I like him. It’s nice to have someone want you, want to be with you, want to let everyone know it.” She saw Alex wince, but didn’t feel like making it easier on him. “And he’s smart, and strong. Stronger than any of us thought.”

“But?”

“Why do you think there’s a ‘but’?”

“Isn’t there?”

“It’s just, it’s all so fast. He thinks it’s true love, that this is a musical and all the excitement is part of the fun.”

“And you don’t.”

“I don’t know. Everything is complicated.” She sighed. “You know how I told Victor that the stuff was in the bank? I lied.”

“What? But the key-”

“I got a safe-deposit box, but it was for the money. The bottles are still in the drug dealer’s car. I lied to buy some time so we could go to the police. But Mitch said that if we do, he’ll go to jail.”

“He’s right. He killed someone. He would go to jail. He should go to jail.” Alex paused, then something came into his eyes. “But you can’t live with that. Because he did it for you.”

“It wasn’t that simple, like he-”

“Come on.” Alex shrugged. “You know the truth. He did it for you. All of it.”

“Screw you.”

“You know I’m right.” His voice, in its calm certainty, was too much.

“You know what? I don’t think I know a thing when it comes to you.” The anger came quick and hot. “You spend a year alternately sleeping with me and telling me that what we’re doing doesn’t matter. Then the moment someone else is willing to step up, suddenly I’m all you can think of.”

“How’s this for stepping up?” He moved toward her, put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to him, his lips pressing hers, his body hard against her, muscular and sure. It felt at once familiar and exhilarating, that old heat rising between them-

She turned her head away. “No.”

“Jenn-”

“I said no.” She pushed him, and he stepped back, looking wounded.

He said, “You lied to me too, you know. And I told you, my daughter-”

“Yeah. You told me.” She snorted, the anger making her hands shake. It felt good, better than being scared and confused. “Fine. Thanks for telling me.”

“I didn’t come here to fight.”

“No. You came to apologize.” She stepped back, put her hand on the door. “Well, mission accomplished.”

“Jenn, wait.”

“Go watch your daughter play soccer.” She closed the door.

EVERYTHING HAD TURNED TO SHIT.

Alex stood outside her door for a long moment, wondering if he should knock again, wondering if she would open it if he did. Finally, he slunk down the stairs, got in his car, and started counting the things he didn’t have.

No job. No family. No friends. No girlfriend. And all of it, every problem, every pain, was his fault. He’d methodically decon structed his own life.

Jenn was right. He did only look one step ahead, did ignore the things that didn’t work for what he wanted. And that had cost him everything.

Worse still, he’d put the lives of others in danger. That sick fuck Victor was out there somewhere, right now, planning ways to hurt his child. He cocked his fist back and punched the steering wheel. Dammit. He’d brought the boogeyman into his own daughter’s world. The reasons didn’t matter. All that mattered was that now Cassie was in danger. If something happened to her…

Cassie. He glanced at the clock. He’d be late, but there was still time to make her soccer game. He fired up the car and headed for the highway.

What now? Go cheer on the sidelines with the other divorced dads and hope everything worked out? That Trish and her new hubby could protect his daughter if a psycho came calling?

What if Jenn and Mitch blew it on Monday? What if they decided to go to the police? What if they didn’t, but Victor thought they had?

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He jammed on the gas and blew by a CTA bus pulling to the corner.

Everything was so tenuous. Cassie should be safe if Mitch didn’t screw anything up. If Victor didn’t decide they were playing him, or that he needed some extra insurance. Hell, Alex had been so distracted in her hallway, trying to talk sense to Jenn, it hadn’t hit him until just now what a risk they were running. Lying to a guy who had managed to find them effortlessly, a guy who had Johnny Love terrified, that was beyond dumb. It was reckless. Mitch and Jenn were throwing dice with his life. A horn blared as he passed a sedan on the right.

He remembered the conversation at brunch the other day, Ian explaining another one of his games. What had it been called? Prisoner’s something. How the point of the exercise wasn’t trust. How in the logic of game theory, abstracts like trust and love and goodness didn’t come into play. In a world where everything had consequences, where it was always a choice between the lesser of two evils, the best strategy was to betray before you were betrayed.

That was a lesson Mitch and Jenn, the happy couple, sure seemed to have learned.

The helplessness was the worst. Back when it had just been the four of them in danger, he was OK with the risk. But this? His daughter?

He had to protect her. He had to make sure that no matter what happened, she was safe.

That she was somewhere no one could get to her.

AFTER FLUSHING THE COKE AND MAKING A PLAN, all Ian wanted was to get moving, to make something happen. But while Davis was more than happy to hear from him-damn near ecstatic, actually-he’d explained that it was his little girl’s birthday, and that they were having a party. “She’s turning six. Twenty friends, a clown, the works.”

“Jesus. What happened to a cake from the store and those candles that relight when you blow them out?”

“Tell me about it. My wife, you know. It’s what they do these days. Anyway, what’s up?”

“You remember Hudson-Pollum Biolabs, right?”

“Remember it? You kidding? It’s financing the party. And Janie’s college education.” A pause. “Why? You have something else like that, something hot?” The hunger in his voice was unmistakable.

“Maybe. Can we get together?”

“How about lunch on Monday? My treat.”

“Can’t wait till then.”

“Something I can help you with over the phone?”

“No.” It was one thing to buy drinks, ease him into it. Another to chat while Davis stood in his family room. Ian had to sell the guy. “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s something I don’t want to talk about over the phone.”

“Why, is it… umm…”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just, I need to be careful. It’s complicated…” He let his voice trail off, imagining Davis leaning forward. The guy might be a brilliant scientist, but a poker player he was not. “There are confidentiality issues, regulations.”

“I hear you.” There was a pause. “You think it might have a payout like last time?”

“Hard to say. But if you help me, and it does turn into something…”

Davis sighed. “All right. My wife’ll be pissed, but I could sneak away tonight. Say about nine?”

“No earlier?”

“It’s my little girl’s birthday, Ian.”

“Right. Right. Nine.”

Which left him with nothing to do but pace and stare at the carpet and try not to lick his coffee table for leftover powder.

It was one thing to realize he’d been a fuck-up-to have his only real friends tell him-and decide to do something about it. It was another to actually have to suffer through the hours. That was the thing about decisions. The act of deciding was easy.

The living with it, that was the trick.

CHAPTER 28

THE GIRL HAD HAIRLESS LEGS that flashed white as she drove downfield, the soccer ball racing ahead like a puppy. Her hair was bound in a ponytail, and her look of grim determination was visible from the stands. The first defender fell for a fake, had to turn and come back, out of the running with one bad move. The second put everything into a wicked slide-tackle, right foot out, back arched, other leg curled beneath, but was half a second late. Then the only thing between the girl and glory was one dirty kneed ten-year-old. The attacker set up with a soft left tap, wound up her right, and the ball was a black-and-white streak rocketing for the goal.

Even knowing what he planned to do, panting under the terrifying enormity of it, Alex was caught up in the moment. The smell of grass and dirt. Team jerseys bright as candy. A coach’s yell from the sidelines. Late afternoon sun basting his shoulders.

And especially Cassie, in the goal, making a flying leap, her arms stretched out, braids whipping behind, coming not just off the ground but near horizontal, suspended for a moment of grace as her fingers stretched, stretched, and then tagged the ball, knocking it down to bounce harmlessly in front of the line.

The crowd exploded. It was a play-off game on a beautiful day in an expensive suburban neighborhood, and packed with parents and grandparents and siblings and friends. Even so, Alex had thought it a little too risky to sit on the home-team side. Which meant that as his heart filled with joy for Cassie, as he looked across the field and saw Trish and her new husband leap to their feet and scream, all he could do was sit among the parents of the other team as they groaned at his daughter’s perfection.

A few minutes earlier, he’d sensed Trish’s eyes rove across him. He’d made a point of staring downfield and clapping, his baseball cap pulled low to screen his face. He’d tasted bile at the back of his throat, sure that even at that distance she not only recognized him but saw into his heart, saw what he planned to do. He imagined flyers in post offices, digital billboards on the highway flashing the Amber Alert. That weird disconnect of the pictures that would be included, snaps taken at happy times, a birthday or a vacation.

Was he really about to do this?

His stomach was sour, and he couldn’t stop tapping his toe. A woman muttered something as she passed, and he snarled, “What?”

She turned, spooked. “I said excuse me.”

“Oh.” He exhaled, forcing a smile. “Sure.”

This was the only option. On the surface it looked foolish, but to anyone who knew the whole picture, what he was planning made perfect sense. His daughter was in danger. He was going to take her somewhere no one could hurt her. Simple as that. When it came down to it, what more important role did a parent have than keeping his child safe?

Besides, maybe Mitch and Jenn could pull it off, and if they did, Victor would leave them alone. At that point, he could bring Cassie back, no harm done. Trish would be furious, but she might learn something along the way. Like what it felt like to be helpless while someone took your child.

Whoa. Jesus. What kind of thinking is that?

When Alex had arrived, he’d pulled past the neat lanes of approved parking spaces onto the grass at the edge of the lot, then did a three-point turn to leave the car facing out. It was a walk of maybe fifty yards. As soon as the ref blew the whistle for halftime…

On the field, Cassie’s team had regrouped and were steadily moving the ball forward, maintaining a good passing game. Her coach was big on not cultivating stars, said that soccer was a metaphor for life; you had to work together for victory. In the opposite bleachers, Trish nuzzled into the crook of her new husband’s arm. He leaned down to whisper something in her ear, and she laughed and punched his shoulder.

How had he ended up here? How had he ended up… this?

Stop. You screwed up. And you’ll pay for it. But are you going to let your daughter be a chip in that game? Or are you willing to risk everything to make sure she stays safe?

An easy choice in a hard world. When it came to priorities, he’d only ever had one.

One of Cassie’s teammates dribbled ahead at an angle, then turned and banked it to the other forward, who fired off a straight blast, plenty of power but no artifice. The opposing goalie caught it easily, then spun and discus-hurled it down the field. As it landed, the referee blew the whistle. The first half was over.

The world seemed to be phasing in and out. Not quite wobbling, more a wet sort of zoomy feeling tied to his heartbeat. Alex wiped his palms on his jeans, suddenly aware of the texture of the fabric. All around him happy fathers talked to happy mothers. Little boys with action figures turned the bleachers into war zones. Girls Cassie’s age had cell phones out and were texting one another. The sun beat down, hotter somehow at this hour than at noon. Hundreds of voices, the sounds of scraping shoes and clicking cameras, it all blended into a whirlpool of noise, spinning and scraping past his ears, a maelstrom he couldn’t separate into individual elements.

It was time.

He closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Then opened them, stood up, and started down the bleachers. He pictured it all in his head-going over to the sidelines and calling to Cassie. Her delight at seeing him, the puzzled trust in her eyes when he told her that they had to go, right now, yes, right now. He wondered how long it would be before Trish would notice. Five minutes? In the confusion, he might be able to count on five minutes before the questions started. The panic. The announcement over the loudspeaker, the calls to police, the appeals on the local news.

This is for her.

He hit the bottom step, dropped to the faded grass. Behind him, he heard someone say, “Did you see that goalie? What a talented girl.”

Goddamn right, he thought, and took another step before something made him freeze, literally freeze in place, one shoe arrested an inch over the ground. Something about that voice-

“She’s truly something,” the voice continued. “A child like that, you sure hope her parents are taking care of her.”

Alex put his foot down. He felt his hands start to shake, clenched them, but it only made his whole arm tremble. Slowly he turned.

Victor was splayed out across the second row, feet propped below, elbows behind. With his open suit jacket and white shirt and casual posture, he looked like a Ralph Lauren ad. He smiled. “Your daughter has a lot of talent.”

“What are you-” Alex started forward, his fists coming up. “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Victor’s smile widened. “Be careful.” He nodded his head ever so slightly to the left. Dreading what he was going to see, knowing what he was going to see, Alex followed his gaze. One of the bodyguards from earlier was on the other side of the field. His gaze was fixed on them as he stood with his hands in his pockets.

Ten feet from the bench where Cassie and her teammates sat.

“I’m not a father myself,” Victor said. “In my line of work, kids are at best an encumbrance. And at worst”-he sucked air through his teeth-“a man with a child, he’s at the mercy of the world. Know what I mean?”

Alex stared, his teeth clenched so hard they ached.

“Man with a child, he loses his head. Gets irrational. He thinks that the fact that he would give anything to protect her is actually enough to keep her safe. But it’s not. If he really wants her to be safe, well”-Victor shrugged, looked down the field-“he remembers that he’s just a man. He sets aside his ego, and he does what’s best for her.”

“What are you talking-”

“There’s nowhere you can go that I can’t find you.”

“I wasn’t-I mean, I-”

“Yes, you were.” The voice calm and certain. “You were going to run. Which makes me wonder if I should wait till Monday. Where does this leave our arrangement? Should I just start making good on my promises to you? Can you get me what I want, or is your little girl going to be doing some very fast growing up?”

“You sick fuck, you touch her, I’ll-”

“Daddy!”

The voice came from thirty yards away, maybe more, but rang like a bell in his soul. Alex whirled, saw Cassie sprinting across the field toward him. Her hair fell in unruly braids, there was a smudge of dirt on her chin, and her jersey was grass-stained. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

He opened his mouth to yell at her to stay away, to get back, and then caught himself. Victor was right. A man with a child was at the mercy of the world. He had to play cool.

She didn’t slow as she drew near, and hit him like a wave. “You came!” Her hair smelled of sweat and sunlight. “Did you see my save?”

“I did, baby. It was amazing.” He kissed the top of her head.

“It was something,” Victor said. “You’re an absolute peach.”

Cassie looked at him, then at her shoes, gone suddenly shy. “Thank you.”

“It’s Cassie, right?”

Alex glared, shook his head. “Don’t you-”

“I’m Victor. I’m a friend of your dad’s.” The man leaned off the bleachers, held out one hand. Still looking the other way, Cassie shook it formally. “I came to talk to him, but when I saw you playing I had to stay and watch.”

“Daddy, why are you shaking?”

“Huh?” Alex tore his eyes from Victor, made himself smile for his daughter. “I’m-I’m just so excited for you.”

“Well.” Victor stood, brushed the knees of his suit. “I’ll let you two be.” He winked, started away, then snapped his fingers and turned. “I almost forgot. You never answered my question. About whether we could work together?”

Alex stared at him, his lips turning up in a snarl. He thought about launching himself at Victor, tearing the guy’s throat out with his bare hands, and knew that if a lifetime in prison would be the only cost, he would have paid it gladly.

Man with a child, he loses his head. Gets irrational. He thinks that the fact that he would give anything to protect her is actually enough to keep her safe. But it’s not. If he really wants her to be safe, he remembers that he’s just a man. He sets aside his ego, and he does what’s best for her.

Victor’s words in his head. But that didn’t make them wrong. He couldn’t keep Cassie safe by wishing it so. He couldn’t keep her safe by taking her away, or by wrapping her in his arms and making promises.

But there was a way. A way to be sure. To go not around, but through. What you’re thinking, you can’t take it back.

Alex took a deep breath, then said, “We can work together.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I’ll call Johnny soon. In the meantime,” he said, gesturing at Cassie with his eyes, “you keep your end.” Because so help me, if you so much as touch her hand again, this earth isn’t big enough for you to hide, motherfucker.

“Fair enough.” Victor smiled. “Nice to meet you, Cassie.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” she said, very properly.

Alex stared until the monster had walked away.

“Who was that, Daddy?”

“He’s… my boss’s boss.”

“He was handsome.” She turned to Alex, beamed up at him. “So I was good, huh?”

Something was eating him from the inside out. Alex smiled through it, said, “Not good, baby girl. The best.”

CHAPTER 29

IT HAD BEEN A LONG DAY.

Ian made it through by relentlessly cleaning his already spotless place. A bit after seven he took a long, long shower, hot enough to slough the skin from his shoulders. Dried off, then spent an hour getting dressed. His best suit, tie crisply Windsored, hair gelled into submission. A little cover-up for the yellowing bruise under his eye, a little cologne. When he looked in the mirror, he almost recognized his old self. Thinner and older, but filled with restless purpose. He still felt awful, but at least he had a plan.

He met Davis at a martini place in River North. Pale amber light splashing on polished wood, soft trip-hop in the background. The woman tending bar wore boots that came halfway up her thighs. The chemist looked just the way Ian remembered: a short-sleeved oxford tucked into his slacks, a haircut his wife had obviously had a say in. Add a pocket protector and a pair of Coke-bottle glasses, and he could have worked for NASA.

“There’s the man! Look at you, Ian. Still conquering Wall Street, huh?”

“Doing my best.” He ordered a Glenlivet, neat. “How was the party?”

“Expensive. The clown smelled like marijuana. But Janie loved it.”

“She’s six, huh? Crazy how time flies. When we did Hudson-Pollum, I think she was four.”

“I want to thank you again for that.” Davis glanced around, then said, in a low voice, “I made a killing. You really helped me out.”

“Glad to hear it. Couldn’t have done it without you.” Which was true. The Hudson-Pollum Biolabs buy had made Ian. On the surface, HPB had looked like a loser; a small company with a long-delayed patent and serious cash-flow problems. But something about it had caught Ian’s eye, and he’d worked it hard. The breakthrough had come when he stopped talking to analysts and traders and started talking to chemists. It had been Davis who had explained how revolutionary their pending patent could be. It didn’t seem sexy-a complex process for manipulating volatile organic compounds-but Davis lit up as they’d talked. With proper financing, the thing had potential to become industry standard for certain segments of the pharmaceutical industry. Most of what the man had told him had flown several miles over Ian’s head, but the essence had hit him square, and over the next weeks he’d quietly put together a major buy. When the patent cleared review, he’d gone from a junior trader to a respected wunderkind with a private office.

And in the time since, you’ve gone from a wunderkind to a fuck-up. Ain’t life a card.

Ian took it cool at first, keeping the conversation on innocuous subjects so Davis had time to get a martini down and order another. Felt good to be maneuvering again, going after what he needed. It was only once the chemist was halfway through his second drink that Ian began to broach the subject.

Davis ’s cheeks were reddened by booze. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Which part?”

“You want me to figure out what something is by description? It’s just, I don’t see how this fits any sort of investment. Is this one of your games?”

“No,” Ian said. “No, it definitely is not.”

“What are you, doing research for a screenplay or something?”

“Can you just trust me for now?”

“There are a million possibilities.”

“You know what? Pretend it is a game. You’re not writing an article for Nature.”

“Yeah, but-”

“It’s a thick fluid. Dark-colored.”

Davis shrugged. “Crude oil.”

“It looks like that, yeah. But even smelling it causes massive headaches. Trouble breathing. Clenched muscles.”

“Some kind of industrial solvent.”

“But extremely valuable. Four quarts are worth, say, a quarter of a million dollars on the black market.”

“The black market? What the hell?”

“Assume it’s illegal. For the sake of discussion.”

“Tell me again how this will help my portfolio?”

“ Davis…”

The man sighed. “OK. A dark, viscous, illegal liquid. You said four quarts?”

“Yes.”

“Not a gallon.”

“Aren’t they the same?”

“Yeah. But you said four quarts. Why?”

“Oh. Separate containers. Four one-quart containers.”

Davis nodded, and Ian could see him starting to get engaged in the problem, enjoying the intellectual exercise. “What kind of container?

“Plastic.”

“Any seal?”

Ian wasn’t sure, but figured Jenn and Mitch would have mentioned that. “Let’s say no.”

“Chemicals are most commonly stored in glass or metal. Since it’s in plastic, it’s probably something that reacts with them. That narrows it down some.”

“Drugs? Or something for cooking up drugs?”

The man shook his head. “Doesn’t make sense.”

“Why?”

“Do the math. Four quarts of the stuff are worth $250,000? It would have to work out to a huge pile of drugs. Or else a drug that was worth an unbelievable amount. Unless a gallon of this stuff makes, you know, pounds and pounds and pounds of cocaine, it doesn’t make sense. Plus, most drugs aren’t that hard to synthesize. You hear stories every now and then of chemists who wash out, it turns up they’d been cooking their own heroin. The ingredients are easy enough to come by if you work in a lab. So the math doesn’t make sense.”

The simple logic smacked Ian hard. This whole time, they’d been assuming that this was a drug deal. They’d taken it as a base assumption-Johnny used to sell drugs, and what else was worth that kind of money? But now that seemed silly.

“I guess it could be some sort of superdrug we haven’t heard of,” Davis said, “but Occam’s razor. The simplest explanation is the right one.”

“So what is the simplest explanation?”

“It’s not drugs. It’s illegal and moving on the black market, so it’s not likely for industrial uses. It’s not radioactive, or it wouldn’t be in plastic. It reacts to glass and metal, and just smelling it results in a headache and clenched muscles. My best guess?”

“Jesus, Davis, what have I been asking for?”

The man paused for a moment, and Ian felt irritation like an itch, fought the urge to reach across the table, grab the chemist by his lapels, and shake the answer out of him. Finally, after a long moment, Davis began to speak.

And as the bottom fell out of his stomach and the room began to spin, Ian realized why Davis had hesitated.

And why Victor wouldn’t.

IN THE DREAM, she was on a beach. A beach unlike any she’d ever actually seen, the likes of which she booked trips to for other people. Soft white sand, rustling palms, and no one for miles and miles.

She was in a hammock, in a bikini, and her belly was enormous. Ripe as tropical fruit. Swollen and heavy with child. She was eating a mango. The juice ran slick down her chin. The sound of the waves was steady and constant, each paving the way for the one to follow.

When she woke on the couch in her apartment, sweating and awkward, twisted into the cushions, the first thing that hit was joy. Then she realized that it had just been a dream. And for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, she began to cry.

She wasn’t much of a crier, and it took her by surprise. Was she crying because of the dream? Because she wanted a child? Or was it deeper than that?

Maybe she just wanted life to matter. To mean something. Maybe that was all she’d ever really wanted. A life engaged. No more games, no more calculated distance and ironic detachment. Everything else was a smoke screen, crap sold to her by Hollywood. After all, now that she was living her adventure, what she really wanted was to take it all back. Not just the robbery-the years. All that time wasted, the hours and months pissed away instead of seized with both hands. She’d watched life flow by like it would never end, like there was always more.

But there wasn’t. What she had squandered was gone, and where she had ended up wasn’t where she wanted to be.

After a while, the tears slowed. She felt vaguely self-conscious as she wiped her face. Lying in a dark room, crying existential tears, it was sort of pathetic. She stood and washed her face in the bathroom. The cold water brought color to her cheeks, snapped her mind back to her body. Her head hurt, and she realized she was hungry. No food since breakfast, and it was after nine.

It was as she was walking back from the Thai place at the end of the block that the police arrived.

CHAPTER 30

THE COP WAS A GOOD-LOOKING GUY, broad-shouldered and tall, his face ruddy and hair neat. “Ms. Lacie? I’m Detective Peter Bradley. Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?”

Her heart went fluttery. She forced herself to stay calm. So this was it. This was how it would end. “About what?”

“Why don’t we talk inside?”

She nodded, stepped past him, led the way up the stairs to her apartment.

“Thanks for your time. This won’t take too long.”

“Uh, sure,” she said. Wondering what the hell he was talking about, how he thought it wouldn’t take long. Wouldn’t take the rest of her life. “Coffee?”

“I’m OK.” He followed her into the kitchen, watched as she set down the carryout bag. “Go ahead and eat if you like.”

“What’s this about?”

“It’s about a robbery. And a homicide.”

She was reaching in her cabinet as he spoke, and her hand fumbled. The glass she almost had slipped, hung for a long fraction of a second, and then fell. It burst against her countertop, glittering pieces flying in all directions. “Shit.”

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” she said, feeling anything but. “Just clumsy.”

“There’s no reason to be nervous,” he said. Then he cocked one corner of his mouth up in a little smile. “Unless you have a lot of parking tickets I don’t know about.”

She shook her head, forced a smile over her shoulder as she began to collect the broken shards. Her mind felt like the one time she’d tried acid, like it was on a relentless slalom, racing in all directions with reckless, slippery speed. Mitch had begged her not to tell the police anything. But was he right?

“Why don’t we sit down?” The detective’s eyes roamed her kitchen with easy habit.

“I’d rather stand.”

He shrugged. “Well, what I wanted to talk to you about. You know a restaurant named Rossi’s?”

Here it comes. “Sure.”

“This Tuesday, there was a robbery there. Several men broke in, tied up the owner and a bartender, and made off with some money from the safe.”

She started to say, I know. Then knew that she would have to follow that with I was one of them, and froze up. Simply couldn’t make her tongue work.

The detective continued. “On the way out the back door, they shot and killed a man.” His voice was matter-of-fact, almost bored.

And it occurred to her, finally, that he wasn’t here for her. That he didn’t know. The surge of relief was an almost physical thing.

Hard on its heels was confusion. If that wasn’t the reason he was here, then what was? And regardless, wouldn’t now be the time to make things right?

“Do you remember the last time you went to the restaurant?”

“Umm.” A lie? The truth? The guy had to know something. Better not to lie without knowing what. “I think it was Tuesday, actually.”

He nodded, and something in him seemed to relax.

She said, “I often meet a couple of friends there.”

“Were you meeting them that night?”

“No.” Technically true. Jenn had finished piling the glass on the counter, and to have something to do with her hands, she opened the cabinet again, took out a plate. “Why?”

“Well, I’m investigating the incident. We’re trying to get as complete a picture as possible. We pulled the credit card records for the evening, and saw that you paid your bill a few minutes before everything happened.”

She had an urge to laugh. What rotten criminals they made. That the police might look at something like that had never occurred to her.

“Do you remember anything about that evening?”

“I had a martini, I think.”

He smiled. “I meant more like, do you remember anything unusual. Anyone acting strange, or seeming to pay a lot of attention to the staff? Any sort of fight or altercation?”

You mean besides the one where we killed someone in the back alley? She stared at him, realized that if she was going to speak, now was the time. Maybe there would be consequences to pay, maybe Mitch would end up in trouble. But at least it would all be over. The police could step in and protect their families, catch Victor tomorrow. All she had to do was tell the truth. Just own up, take responsibility, and be done with everything.

“No,” she said. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”

SHE HAD SOLD HIM OUT.

Mitch stood at the end of her block, shaking. The anger flowed from some hard hot center, radiating in fiery waves. His fists were clenched and his arms were trembling as he watched a cop walk out of Jenn’s apartment.

At first he hadn’t been sure. It was after ten, and raining, and the cop just looked like a guy in a suit. But when he’d stopped on the porch to look at the sky, his jacket had pulled open to reveal a gun and star. A detective. As Mitch watched, the man hurried out into the rain, heading for a pale sedan parked in front of the fire hydrant.

She had called the police. After everything he had done for her. After everything they had shared. After promising not to.

She had called the police, and she had doomed him.

Mitch dropped to a squat, pretended to tie his shoelace as the cop drove past. A lucky break that Jenn didn’t know he would be here. After they had parted, he’d walked and walked, let his mind run. Thinking about Johnny and Victor and the money and the four of them. And especially about her. About whatever had been going on between her and Alex. Because something certainly had.

And it had hit him, as he walked, that if it had, it had probably been going on for a while. So many shared looks he’d sort of registered, so many conversational dodges and changed subjects. They had probably been sleeping together for a while. And that whole time, they had kept it a secret.

Which meant that Alex had been unwilling to commit, that he’d been using her. It also meant that what she needed might be a romantic gesture. Something to let her know he was different.

So he’d bought a dozen roses and taken the train up to her neighborhood. Roses for the woman who had sold him out. The woman for whom he had raised a pistol, had-

Push it down. The thought came swift with force of habit.

He stood up and started down the block. Tossed the roses aside, still wrapped in plastic. There was a man sitting on a stoop, talking on a cell phone, but Mitch didn’t even look at him. Took the stairs to her apartment two at a time, the echo thundering off the hallway. He was composed of energy, toes to fingertips. He banged on her door, the sharp impact feeling right and good.

When she opened it, he watched her face. Saw it change. It looked like she was folding into herself. “Mitch.”

“You called the cops.”

“No, I-”

“Don’t lie to me!” He pushed past her, down the short hall to her living room. He heard her following, saying, “Listen, I swear-”

Mitch whirled, and she blanched.

“Do you understand what I have fucking done for you?” He stepped forward, and she retreated. Her eyes were wide, her hair loose, and she still looked beautiful to him, even now, and that stoked the rage. He had been faithful. He had waited. When she needed protecting, he had been there to do it. Not Alex. Him. And in return, she’d mouthed lines about needing space, about wanting time, strung him along with lies. Given him up to the cops, to prison.

“Mitch-”

He slapped her beautiful mouth.

Her head snapped sideways. The fleshy sound hung in the air. His palm tingled. Slowly, like she couldn’t believe it, she turned to face him. Raised her hand to her cheek. Touched it with delicate fingertips. He could see the flesh beginning to redden.

Her lip trembled like a little girl’s.

And just like that, the anger was gone. It didn’t drain away; it evaporated. And it left a terrible void. “Oh God.”

She stared. “You hit me.”

“Oh. God.” He staggered back, wanting to get away. Hit the wall by the fireplace, and felt his legs going weak. Let himself slide down it. The drywall cool through his shirt. He had that same disconnected feeling he’d had in the alley, that sense of standing outside of himself and outside of time.

The way he had raised the gun. Stared down the barrel at the man on the ground. Realized, a half second before he did it, that he was going to pull the trigger.

Half a second before he had swung at her, he had known that he would. Known it that same way. The same way…

The same way he had killed someone.

Push it down.

Jenn said again, “You hit me.”

Push it

He saw the look in the man’s eyes, the way he, too, had known what was coming. The moment fear had hit, as all that he was and all that he had was taken away.

Push

The kick of the gun in his hand. The same right hand that stung from hitting the woman he loved.

What had he become?

A dangerous man. A killer.

A monster.

Jenn said, “Get out,” but Mitch could barely hear her. His mind was filled with a static roar and a video of what had happened after he pulled the trigger. The way the man’s body had jumped as the bullet slammed into his chest. The spreading circle of red, moving slower than he would have guessed. The faint and final exhale, barely audible over the ringing in his ears.

He had killed someone.

Jesus Christ. He had killed someone.

All the waves of emotion he had been walling away crashed with tidal force. Horror and shame and guilt and especially fear. For days he had been telling himself to push it down, to lock it away. Hiding from what he had done. Bargaining with the devil, but never looking him in the eye.

But now it was right in front of him. He wasn’t the strong man he had tried to pretend he was. The cold calculator, the one who had acted like this was a game and he could play a role.

He was just Mitch. That’s all he had ever been. All he ever would be.

He buried his face in his hands and wept.

THE SHOCK HAD COME FIRST. No one had hit her, ever. This didn’t happen to her. Her cheek burned, and her brain felt scrambled. She touched her fingers to her face to check it was all still there.

When she looked at Mitch again, she saw something happening in his eyes. Something terrible. For a moment she was afraid he would hit her again, but then he staggered back as though he was the one who had been struck. Hit the wall and slid down it. His hands were shaking and his face was pale. He looked like he might vomit.

“You hit me,” she said, incredulous. The words making it real. “You hit me.”

He said something, but she didn’t hear it. “Get out.” Anger replacing fear. Ready to scream at him, to kick and slap and claw. To beat him out of her house if she had to. To fight him if he dared.

But instead of moving toward her, he collapsed. His head fell to his palms, and he made a terrible choked sound, and his chest began to heave.

He was crying.

She was surprised to feel her rage ebb. The last days had been a constant swing from one primal emotion to another-exhilaration to terror, lust to loneliness, rage to sympathy. She was wrung out, weak on her feet. Standing over the lover she hadn’t planned on taking, the man who had killed to protect her and then mistrusted and hit her, she didn’t know what to think. Where to stand.

“I didn’t call the police,” she said softly.

He didn’t respond. His tears were slowing, but he looked like a glass vase hurtling toward a marble floor.

“The detective had run the credit cards for that night. That’s why he came here.”

“What did I do?” His voice thin and aimed at his lap.

“I’ll live.”

“Not that. I mean, yes, that too.” He looked up at her. A little boy’s face tracked with tears. “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did that. But I meant-”

“In the alley.”

He nodded.

She sighed. Lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the floor a few feet away. “I’ve been wondering how you were so calm.”

“I haven’t let myself think about it. Not once. I just decided that I would pretend it was something that had happened to someone else. The old Mitch. And that the new Mitch would break free from that. Rise from the ashes. And not just from that. From everything.” He wiped at his cheek with the back of his hand. “I wanted to be, I don’t know… strong. Decisive. Able to take care of you. More like”-he turned away, barely whispered the words-“more like Alex.”

She didn’t respond. Wasn’t sure how much she wanted to comfort him. Or even who he was, exactly. The new Mitch, the old Mitch, the Mitch on her living-room floor. It was too much to deal with.

Finally, he said, “What did you tell the cop?”

“I told him I didn’t know anything about it.”

The words brought his head up, and he looked her in the eye. “You did that for me?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Her cheek hurt, and she tasted copper from where her teeth had cut the inside of her mouth. “I was scared, I guess.”

He nodded. “Scared I understand.”

They sat on the floor, not touching, not looking at each other. She could hear the faint sounds of life going on around them, but she felt apart from it. In a bubble.

Then she heard a voice from the door.

IAN HAD BROKEN every traffic law racing from the martini bar to Jenn’s apartment. It was Saturday night, and after eleven, but even so, he made it in fifteen minutes, Davis’s calm voice ringing in his mind as the chemist explained what it was they had stolen.

When he found her front door standing open, he imagined the worst. Forced himself to keep moving anyway. “Hello?”

There was a long silence, and then he heard Jenn’s voice. “Come in, Ian.”

He stepped inside, closed the door behind him. Until last week he’d never seen the inside of her apartment. Now, as he rounded the corner into her living room, he felt almost at home. Until he saw her and Mitch sitting on the floor.

At first he thought maybe they had been attacked. But by the weary way they both looked up at him, he realized it was something more complicated than that. Her cheek was bright red. “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine,” she said, looking not at him but at Mitch. “We have bigger problems.”

“You don’t have any idea how true that is. You know how we assumed this was a drug deal? It wasn’t.” Ian took a deep breath. “It was something much, much worse.”

CHAPTER 31

GOD, he loved predictable people.

Bennett was used to watching, to spending long hours staring at someone’s window. Waiting for the five minutes that justified days or even weeks of patience. It wasn’t his favorite part, but he’d developed a kind of Zen about it.

But watching the chick’s place hadn’t required much patience thus far. Victor’s hunch had been right. She was at the center of everything. Each member of this little drama had stopped by. Even a cop: Around ten, Bennett had gone to piss in the alley, and was just walking back when he saw the sedan pull by. Municipal plates going the wrong way on a one-way street. Police, gotta love them. Enforce the rules for everybody else.

He’d taken a seat on someone’s stoop, dialed Victor on his cell. “There’s a cop going into her apartment.”

“Uniform?”

“Detective. Alone.”

There had been a pause. “OK. There’ve been some developments on this end too. I applied a little more pressure. We may be moving ahead faster than anticipated. Maybe even tonight.”

“Great news. Any specifics I need to know?”

“Not on a cellular line. What’s your read on the detective?”

“Not sure. If he stays more than twenty minutes, or any others show up, I’ll call. Otherwise it’s likely nothing.”

They hung up, and Bennett leaned back on the porch. Something was happening. He could feel it, almost taste it.

This thing would end tonight.

JENN WONDERED how much worse it could get. Wasn’t there a limit to how messed up life could become?

First things first. Get off the floor.

As she wobbled to her feet, Mitch said, “What do you mean? Johnny is a drug dealer-”

“Yeah, well, he seems to have moved up in the world.”

“But-”

“Would you shut up?” Ian’s voice had none of the comic distance he usually tried for. The tone was iron, and it caught them both. He continued, “I talked to a chemist friend of mine. No way that stuff was drugs. When I described it to him, do you know what he said? He said”-Ian paused, rubbed at his eyes-“he said that it sounded to him like it was…”

“What?”

“A chemical weapon. Nerve gas.”

She was suddenly conscious of the little sounds, of the slow, regular draw of her own breath. The continuing pace of the world, the way it just kept going, like it or not.

Then she started laughing.

It wasn’t a giggle. It was high and came from somewhere deep and flavored with hysteria. “A what?” She choked the words out.

“Chemical weapon. Probably sarin gas.”

“Sarin?” Mitch’s tone was strangely dead. “The stuff from those subway attacks in Tokyo?”

“Yeah.” Ian raised his hands. “I know.”

“But. We opened it.”

“You didn’t touch it, though, right?”

“No.”

“That was one of the things that told him what it was. If that had been sarin, you might have died. This is what’s called a precursor. Apparently, if you’re the kind of evil fuck who makes chemical weapons, you make them in two parts. The part you guys found is called the precursor. Based on your description, the headaches, the clenched muscles, the rest of it, my friend said it sounded like something called”-he dug in a pocket, came out with a bar napkin, squinted-“methylphosphonyl difluoride. DF for short. That’s the part that’s hard to make, and that’s worth a lot of money. The other part is just alcohol.”

Her laughter got harder. Drug dealers and terrorists and chemical weapons, oh my! Her breath came in short gasps between gales that hurt her stomach.

“I’m serious,” Ian said. “The dangerous half of sarin gas. That was what Johnny was buying. What he planned to sell to Victor. That’s what the money was for.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How would Johnny-”

“I don’t know. Maybe the guy you killed put him up to it. Maybe he was just a middleman. It doesn’t matter. The stuff was moving through the black market, and we intercepted it. That’s why Victor is coming after us this hard. Drugs are easy to get. But can you imagine how much something like that would be worth to the wrong people in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

Jenn’s vision was getting spotty from lack of air. The boys were talking around her, talking sheer madness, and neither of them could see how funny it was.

“We cannot give this stuff to Victor,” Ian said.

Mitch stood up, walked over to her. “Jenn?”

She gasped, fought for breath. “Don’t you see-”

“Pull it together.”

“I’m… I’m… I’m a fucking travel agent.” She doubled over again. Mitch caught her shoulders gently.

“Shhh. Come on.”

“This is bad. This is so bad.” Ian had his hands to both cheeks like the kid in those movies, and it didn’t make breathing any easier.

“Jenn. Stop.”

She closed her eyes, clenched her fingernails into her palm. The sharpness helped. Just as the laughter was dying, another thought occurred to her. “You,” she said, fighting back more, “your timing was lousy, Mitch.”

“Huh?”

“You slapped me too early.”

It was meant as a joke, but no one else laughed. She felt them looking at her and saw herself from their eyes. Slowly, she stopped, the sounds dying like a baby’s cry, strangled and kind of embarrassing. She straightened, wiped tears from her eyes.

“This is serious.” Ian’s voice was somber.

“I know,” she said. “I know.” She took a deep breath. “It’s just, you can’t be right.”

“Why not?”

“Because… just because.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I am. And if you two will listen to me for a second, you’ll see.”

The laughter was gone, but the hysteria was still inside her, twisting and coiling and looking for release. She took a moment to calm herself. “Tell us.”

Ian started, his words like freezing water. How he had called a friend who had helped him before, and described what it was that they had found. How the man had gone through it logically, the possibilities; the material the bottles were made of, the value, the reaction they had both suffered. The logic cool and hard and diabolical. On some level, she realized, it wasn’t really a surprise. Some part of her had known all along that whatever was in those bottles was more important, and more dangerous, than mere drugs. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it.

And still didn’t. “What if he’s wrong?”

There was a moment of silence, and then Mitch said, “What if he’s not?”

“This stuff, you know how it kills people?” Ian somehow looked even worse than he had that morning. “It causes all of the muscles in your body to contract to their maximum amount. People break their arms, their spines. They eventually die of suffocation because their lungs won’t move. But first they feel their body tearing itself apart. He said that a drop of it was enough. One drop on bare skin.”

One drop. Jesus. There had been a gallon of the stuff.

The silence was unlike any she had known. Within it, her thoughts and fears curdled and spun, foul twisting things. She felt a childish panic at the enormity of what they were dealing with. It made her want to crawl under the table. “If we hadn’t robbed Johnny, this would still be out there.”

“So?”

“So, it’s not our fault. We didn’t make it. We wouldn’t sell it. It’s not our fault.”

“Not our fault?”

“Like you said. We just intercepted it. We weren’t even supposed to be there, but we were, and we ended up with it. But that doesn’t make it our fault.”

“Did you understand what I told you? This stuff, it could kill-”

“Ian, Victor will kill my parents. And your dad, Mitch’s brother, Alex’s daughter.” She knew what she was saying was selfish, but she wasn’t sure that made it wrong. Who didn’t look after their own first?

“That doesn’t make it right to ignore-”

“I didn’t say it does. But that’s the situation. If we don’t give him what he wants, he’ll kill our families. And regardless, it’s not my fault.”

There was a pause. Then Mitch said, “It’s like one of your games, Ian. An impossible situation, no way to win, just ways to lose less. Is it better to lose a few people you love or a lot of people you’ll never meet?”

Ian looked from one to the other of them. “Those are just games. This is real.”

“Yeah. But it’s also true. He’ll kill them.”

“That nerve gas could kill hundreds of people. Maybe thousands. And maybe it won’t be in Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe it will be in Chicago or New York. Maybe it will be in a subway station at rush hour.”

“I didn’t ask for this,” she said. “I didn’t agree to it.”

“None of us did.” Mitch stood, walked to the window.

The whole thing was surreal. It reminded her of the kind of talk they used to have on Thursday nights, back when life made sense and everything was casual. When it could all be viewed with ironic detachment, when their problems were jobs and rent and their love interests. Back when everything had been play.

Even their lives.

They had all been treading water. Playing the game of life, but unwilling to actually make a move, put their chips on the table. Staying in dead-end jobs and bullshitting themselves about what mattered. Pretending nothing did.

“Do you remember,” Mitch said, staring out the darkened window, “how we used to talk about the rich guys, the CEOs and politicians? How we used to hate them for acting in their own interests instead of for the good of everyone else?

“We went into this thinking we were going to stick it to guys like that. Like Johnny. People who broke the rules for their own good. And now here we are. Thinking the same way.”

“So what do we do?”

He took a breath. “All I know is what I won’t do.”

“What’s that?”

“Settle for the lesser of two evils.” Mitch spoke with a quiet calm. His back was straight and his voice steady.

“But-”

“There has to be a third way,” he said. “There has to be something better.”

Again, the silence fell.

Then Mitch said, “You know what?” He turned to face them. “There is.”

“What?”

“I take the stuff to the police. I turn it over and tell them everything.”

“But-you-the alley. You…” Even now, she found it hard to say the words.

“I killed someone,” he said. His voice was steady, but she heard the stress beneath it. “I shot someone. And I’ll admit that.”

“They’ll arrest you,” Ian said.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “But it’s the only way. Take responsibility for what I did.”

“That’s crazy. They’ll send you to jail.”

“Maybe that’s where I belong.” His voice cracked a little, but he kept going. “Look, I’ve been hiding from this since it happened. Pretending I can be something else, that I can just go on with life. Maybe there are people who could forget it, but that’s not the way it works for me. I did it to protect you, and I’ll tell them that. Maybe it will help. Maybe not. But I can’t go on pretending, and we cannot let Victor have this.”

“But it’s not our fault,” she repeated, hating that they were making her play this role. “I know that sounds weak, but if we hadn’t come along, Victor would have bought and sold it, and we wouldn’t have known a thing.”

“Sure. But if we give this to him, chances are, one morning we’ll turn on the news and see a story about a terrorist attack with sarin gas. Maybe here, maybe somewhere else, and we won’t even know for sure it was the same stuff. But there will be hundreds of people dead. And we’ll have to stand and watch, and wonder if we could have done something. Can you live with that?”

She looked at him. The streetlight outside cast raindrop shadows across his face. His back was straight, but his hands trembled. She imagined herself making breakfast in her kitchen. The radio on, a bagel in the toaster, hummus on the counter, coffeepot gurgling. Alone in her little world. And on the TV, images of innocent people twisted and broken, their faces locked in eternal screams.

“No,” she said. “No, I can’t.”

“Me either,” Ian said. “But there’s a snag in this plan, right? The DF is in a safe-deposit box. How do we-” He stopped, caught the expression on their faces. “What?”

“It’s not in the bank,” she said. “It’s here.”

“Here here?”

“Down the block, in the trunk of the drug dealer’s car.” She paused. “Are you sure you want to do this, Mitch? You understand-”

“I understand.” He raised his hands above his head in a stretch, then let them drop. “I’m not happy about it. But that choice between the lives of people we love and the lives of a lot of people we don’t know? I won’t make it.”

It was a simple enough statement. But she didn’t know if she would have been strong enough to say it.

“What are you going to tell them?” Ian asked.

“What happened, more or less. I don’t need to mention you guys.”

“Yeah, you do,” Ian said. “Johnny saw me, too, remember?”

“I can just say that I won’t tell them who my partners were.”

“That will make them go harder on you. As it stands, you’re a civilian without a criminal record. The man we robbed is a former drug dealer, and the one you killed was selling chemical weapons. Weapons you brought to them.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Besides. Screw the Prisoner’s Dilemma.” Ian gave that lopsided grin. “I’m not letting you take this on alone.”

Mitch smiled. “If you’re looking for me to convince you otherwise…”

“We’re not,” she said. She stood up. “I’m going too.” Some part of her wanted to do this, she realized. Wanted to admit the wrong and take the punishment, to stand with her friends. “Guess the Thursday Night Club isn’t done yet.” She took a deep breath, the air rasping cool into her lungs. “OK. So when do we go?”

“Now.” Mitch stood. “Right now.”

The rain had been going steady and soft for the last few hours, and the air had that smell that told her it might go all night. It had put a damper on the usual Saturday revelry, and the sidewalks were nearly clear. They walked in silence, all of them lost in their own thoughts.

Abruptly, Mitch spoke. “I’m sorry.” He turned to Jenn. “I can’t believe I-that wasn’t me.”

She turned responses over in her mind, looking for the right one. Finally, she said, “I know.”

“You too.” Mitch turned to Ian. “If you hadn’t figured out what this stuff was, we would have gone through with it. I was wrong to call you a fuck-up, man.”

“No, you weren’t. I am a fuck-up. But I’m working on it.”

“We all are,” she said and meant it. Still, there was a calm replacing the panic of earlier. They had come up against an impossible decision, and they had made the right choice. Whatever sins they’d committed, that had to count for something. And if nothing else, at least this would all be over soon.

They crossed the intersection, passing two women holding hands. Weird to think that just days ago she and Mitch had run this course in reverse, in pain just from smelling the chemicals. How much worse must the actual thing be?

She thought about the police, wondered what the three of them would say. The truth, obviously. But what exactly? Maybe it didn’t matter, she thought. Fast or slow, elegant or graceless, the facts spoke for themselves. Maybe it was just a matter of telling them-

“No.” Mitch stared straight ahead. “No.”

She followed his gaze. In the dark, the Eldorado had a richer hue, the purple almost looking good. The car radiated a certain cool, that big grill, a hood that could sleep three. The sharp, almost dangerous lines of the body, leading back to where-

The trunk was open.

IN THE CITY PROPER, Saturday night made for lousy, slow driving. But at this hour the freeways weren’t too bad, and even with the rain, Alex made good time. The dashboard clock read 11:32 when he pulled up outside his ex-wife’s.

He sat in the car for a moment. He could hear the ticking of the engine and the soft, steady spatter of the rain. Through the windshield he could see her house: porch lights on, the quiet domestic comfort of aluminum siding, squares of warm yellow hidden behind curtains. It looked comfortable, cozy. Everything he had ever wanted.

The rain made him want to hurry up the walk, but the thought of what he would say-or rather, the total lack of any idea what to say-made him keep his pace steady. With shaking fingers, he rang the doorbell. Listened to the soft tones, wondered what it felt like to hear them from inside.

Footsteps, and then Scott opened the door. Trish’s new husband looked surprised, but quickly wiped it away. He stood in the doorway, his body blocking the light. “Alex.”

“Scott. I’m sorry to come out here like this. But I need to talk to Cassie. Just for a few minutes.”

“I can’t do that.”

“She’s my daughter.”

“I know. And you can see her. But we went through this. It’s almost midnight. You can’t just drop by. We need you to let us know in advance, so that we can-”

“For God’s sake.”

Scott pursed his lips. “Why were you at the game today?”

“I wanted to see her play. Jesus, man. I’m not going to do anything to her.”

“I know you would never intentionally hurt her.”

“What does that mean?”

The man shrugged. “Take it how you like.”

Alex had two inches and twenty pounds on Scott. Shoving him out of the doorway would be the easiest thing in the world. Push past him, head straight for the stairs, find Cassie up in her bedroom. Close the door, sweep her into his arms, hold her close. Whisper in her ear. Tell her…

What?

That he loved her?

That everything would be OK?

That she might never understand what he was doing, what it was likely to cost him, how many people he was betraying, but that he was doing it for her?

Instead, he said, “Please?”

Scott wavered. Alex could see him considering it. See that he didn’t want to be the bad guy. That, in fact, he wasn’t. A voice came from down the hall, female, maybe Cassie, maybe Trish, he couldn’t be sure. Whoever it was, it made up Scott’s mind. He straightened. “I’m sorry. Not tonight.”

“Listen. I know this doesn’t make sense. But I might not have another chance. Please?”

“You’re right, that doesn’t make sense. We’re not leaving for a couple of weeks. Why don’t you come back tomorrow afternoon?”

He sighed. “Yeah.” He turned and started back down the walk.

“Alex.”

He spun on his heel, stood with the rain running down his shaved head.

“Are you OK?”

He almost laughed. Instead, he said, “Sure,” and started for the car. He had almost made it when he heard sounds behind him, Scott’s voice saying, “Cassie, wait-”

“Daddy!”

He turned in time to see her sprinting down the walk, bent to scoop her up into his arms and hoist her off the ground. His little girl. He could smell her hair, feel the warmth of her body.

In that instant was every other. The way he used to sit in his beat-up chair, legs going numb, unwilling to move as she napped on his chest, her baby’s breath and milk smell. A Fourth of July, Cassie maybe six, spelling her name in the air with a sparkler. The frozen perfection of her guarding the soccer goal this afternoon, captured mid-lunge by his mental camera. “My girl,” he said. “My girl.”

She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. “I don’t want to go to Arizona. I want to stay here with you.”

I want it too, baby girl. I want only that forever.

Over her shoulder, he saw Scott hurrying toward them, his gaze wary. The front door was wide open, and Trish stepped into it, squinting to see what was going on.

Alex allowed himself one more thought of hopping in the car with her, forgetting all about drug deals and police and dead men, just hitting the road together. Best friends and partners in crime. It was so beautiful it hurt to look at.

He said, “It’s OK, Cass. It will be OK.”

Scott had reached them, stood with his hands out, like he was thinking of tackling them both. Alex looked at him, saw the fear in his eyes. Realized that he was scared of exactly what Alex had been thinking.

Alex lowered her to the ground, knelt in front of her. “You know I love you, right?”

She nodded, eyes wide.

“Promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll always remember that.”

“I promise. But don’t make me go!”

His knees felt weak. For a moment, he closed his eyes. Reached deep inside himself, not sure he had the strength to say what he knew he had to. “It’s for the best, Cass. Scott and Mom, they both love you. You can have a normal life with them.”

“But I want to be with you.”

“I know, baby girl. I want that too. But this is better.” He clenched his fist. “This is better.”

Scott said, “Alex.”

He nodded. Glanced up at the man, imploring, not sure what he was asking for. Everything, maybe. Their eyes locked, and for a moment, he forgot all his anger toward the guy, forgot all the ways he’d been wronged. Just saw a man who also loved his daughter. “You take care of her, all right?”

“I will.” The words solemn and the gaze steady. “On my life.”

Alex turned back to his daughter. “I have to go, sweetie. I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.”

“Where are you going?”

“I have some things I need to take care of. They’re important.”

“More important than me?”

“Nothing is more important than you.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing.”

Then, before his will broke along with his heart, he stood and turned around. The ten steps to the car were the hardest of his life. Behind him, he heard her voice, saying, “Don’t go,” and then he opened the car door and got in. Fired it up and slammed it into reverse and spun out of the driveway fast.

This is for you, Cass. It’s all for you.

When he reached the end of the block, he stopped. In his rearview, he could see the three of them. Cassie staring, Trish behind, her hands on his daughter’s shoulders. Scott stood alongside, his back straight. They looked like a family. Like they would be happy.

Time to make sure they stayed that way. He turned the corner and reached for his cell phone.

CHAPTER 32

THE THREE OF THEM stared into the Cadillac’s empty trunk. Mitch kept fighting the urge to close and open it again, as if the stuff would magically reappear. The rain soaked him.as if

“Victor?” Ian asked at last.

“No,” Jenn said. “He didn’t know about this.”

“No one knew about it,” Mitch said, his voice hollow. “No one but us.”

Think, think, think. What does this mean?

Part of him felt an enormous relief. If the stuff was gone, then there was nothing they could do about it. There was also no point in turning themselves in. They had decided to do the right thing, been willing to, but circumstance had made it impossible. A lucky break.

Except that one drop could kill, and they had hidden a gallon of the stuff. Not taken it to the police, or called the FBI. And now it was gone. How many would die because of that?

“Oh my God.” Jenn put a hand to her face. “Oh shit.”

“Yeah.”

“No, it’s”-she looked up at them, her face pale-“it just slipped out.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t tell him on purpose. He came to see me this afternoon. To apologize, and we were talking, and I just said it without thinking. That it was in the trunk of the car.”

Mitch stared. “Who? Who did you say that to?” But in his heart, he knew the answer already.

“Alex.”

IT WAS ALL FALLING APART.

Not, Ian reflected, back in Jenn’s kitchen, wet suit plastered to wet skin, that it had ever exactly been together. Everything about their situation had been screwed pretty much from the jump.

OK. So things are bad. What do you do?

Only one answer. The same one he’d always fallen back on. Think about it like a game.

Not gambling or one of the political modeling games. Strategy, then. Like the battlefield sims he’d played in college. Balance strengths and weaknesses, figure the goal, and then move toward it. Meanwhile, try to forget that you have a phone number memorized, that relief from sickness and doubt is one call and a stop at an ATM away. It was only midnight. He could be the proud owner of an eight ball by 12:30-

A game.

Right. OK, then. Strengths.

“I can’t believe he took it.” Jenn was twisting a lock of hair like a phone cord.

“I can,” Mitch said.

“I know, you hate him-”

“No, I don’t.” Mitch sighed. “I don’t. I was trying to become him, I think. But you had it right from the beginning. His daughter. He wouldn’t be thinking about anything else.”

“But to give Victor chemical weapons-”

“He didn’t know what they are, remember? Maybe on some subconscious level, he suspects. But he’ll be ignoring that, same way we did. Telling himself that it’s just chemicals to cook up drugs. Set against Cassie, that won’t mean much.”

Strengths. Well, they knew what the bottles held. Neither Johnny nor Victor would expect that. What else?

Nothing leapt to mind.

Against that, the weaknesses. Victor and his bodyguards and their guns and easy violence. Alex’s head start. Nothing to take to the police now, no bargaining chips. The fact that the four of them couldn’t manage to have each others’ backs for half an hour.

Who was he kidding? They were fucked.

“You know how I said this wasn’t our fault?” Jenn’s voice pitched like she was talking to someone who wasn’t there. “That’s not true, is it?”

“Well, you were right, we didn’t make it-”

“Mitch.”

He sighed. “Yeah. It’s our fault.”

“And a thousand people could die because of it.”

Her words hit Ian hard, took him back to September. No matter how many years passed, he would always think of it simply as September. How he had watched TV for hours, the towers falling over and over. That terrible video of the second plane, the way every time it ran you prayed that somehow this time it would happen differently, that it would slide sideways, miss by inches. That there would be a Hollywood ending.

The sick feeling when it didn’t. Over and over again.

He’d just been starting out then, working from a half cube under fluorescent lights. But trading was a virtual gig. He spent all day on the phone, on the computer, talking to people all over the world, but especially in New York. He’d had friends in those towers. Every time he’d watched people jumping, that agonizing footage, too grainy to tell anything, he’d wondered if the body plummeting through the air was someone he knew.

Now they would have to live with the fact that the next time they turned on the TV, it might have another ungraspable story of broken bodies and mass panic and that sudden awareness that they were not invulnerable, that there were people in the world who wanted to hurt them, and that those people could.

Only this time, he had helped them.

MITCH FELT A SCREAM building inside. All that time they could have done right. Not just when they had the chemicals. Before then. When they sat around and bullshitted each other about what mattered, when all the time in the world lay splayed at their feet.

And worse, this final irony. By giving Victor the bottles, Alex had made them safe. It was over for them. No one would come after them. The police would never know. They could go on with their lives. With a lot more money.

All they had to do was nothing.

“Goddamn it.” He hit the counter with the flat of his palm. The sting was sharp and clean, and reminded him, for a half second, of what it had felt like to hit Jenn. He pushed the thought away. One more sin. “I’m not going to let this happen.” He rubbed his hands together. “Jenn, call your detective. The two of you go meet him. Tell him everything. The robbery, the guy in the alley, the DF, everything. Tell him that I’ll turn myself in soon.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going after Alex. I’ve got a guess where he’ll be.”

“Where’s that?”

“Where this all started.”

“Johnny’s restaurant?”

“Victor isn’t going to invite Alex over to his house. But they need a place where they can be alone. It’s after midnight. Johnny’s is closed. It’s safe ground. No risk of being seen, and no chance Alex can have cops with him.”

“If he’s there, then so is Victor,” Jenn said. “You’ll just get yourself killed.”

“Maybe not. If I can get to him first, I can tell him what he’s carrying. Alex is stubborn, but once he knows, he’ll come with me to the police, and we can end this thing.”

“And what if you can’t get to him before Victor does?”

“Then I’ll just have to try anyway.”

“That’s suicide.”

“I don’t care.” He stepped closer to her, took her hands in his. Looked her in the eye. “Jenn, I have to do this.”

“Why?”

For my sins. For a body in an alley and the lie that was my life and the lie I tried to turn it into. But what he said was, “You know why.” He thought about trying to kiss her. Instead he turned to Ian. “Can I borrow your car?”

The man dug in his pocket, pulled out a slender ring of keys. Mitch took them. It felt good to be moving, to finally be acting instead of letting life happen.

“This is stupid,” Jenn said. “You’re feeling guilty, so you’re just walking into this?”

“If there’s even a chance to stop him, I have to take it. Besides,” he said and forced a smile, “I have insurance. You two.”

“Why don’t we just call the cops and tell them to go there right now?”

He shook his head. “They wouldn’t believe us. You’ll get transferred around, have to tell your story over and over. Eventually maybe they would send someone. But it will be too late.”

“I could call Detective Bradley and tell him-”

“You’d just be a voice on the phone. No, you have to go and turn yourselves in and tell him enough details, in person and in his custody, to convince him. It’s too big a risk otherwise. You have to convince him. And do it fast, all right? I’m depending on you.” He took a deep breath, held it for a moment. It took all his strength to make himself look calm, like fear wasn’t scrabbling inside of him, a living thing. “OK.” He started down the hall.

“Mitch.” It was Ian’s voice.

He turned. Ian opened his mouth, closed it. Finally he said, “We won’t let you down.”

Mitch looked at them. Two of the three friends he’d once considered the only people who knew him. Torn apart by stupidity and selfishness, and now responsible for something more horrible than they could imagine. Average people, each weak in their own way, all afraid and lost and lonely.

“I know,” Mitch said. “I trust you.”

Then he turned and headed for the door.

THE DETECTIVE ANSWERED on the fourth ring. It was after midnight, but she supposed Saturday night was prime time for a homicide detective.

“This is Jennifer Lacie. You came by my house-”

“Yes, Ms. Lacie. What can I do for you?”

She took a deep breath. Once she said what she had to say, there was no going back. No return to safety.

You have to convince him. And do it fast, all right? I’m depending on you. Mitch’s voice in her head.

“Remember how you said that if I remembered anything else, I should call you? Turns out I have a lot to say.”

There was a pause. “Go ahead.”

“I lied to you. About, well, everything.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I know exactly who did the robbery. And everything that happened after it.”

“And who’s that?” His voice curious, but not excited.

“I did. Me and three of my friends.”

He laughed.

“Detective, I’m not kidding, I-”

“Ms. Lacie, I’m flattered, I am, but I’m also very busy-”

“The men who went into Johnny’s office used duct tape to tie him and the bartender up. The bartender, Alex-who’s in on it, by the way-threw a punch and got hit in the head. We did that to keep him above suspicion. The man in the alley was shot twice, once around the shoulder, once in the chest, with the same gun.”

There was a long pause. “Maybe we better talk.”

“Good.”

“I’ll have some officers come by your place in the next few minutes to make sure you’re safe.”

“Wait, what? I need to talk to you.”

“You will. I’m on a scene right now. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“When?”

“When I’m done.”

“No. It has to be now. Right now. It’s a matter of, well, life and death.”

“Ms. Lacie, you need to understand, you’re in very serious trouble-”

“Detective, you need to understand that if you don’t meet me right now, I won’t be here when the officers arrive. And I’ll deny everything I’ve just said.”

When Bradley spoke again, his voice was steel. “All right. If you’re in that kind of a hurry, why don’t you come into the station? I’ll head there now. I’m in Rogers Park, so we’ll be meeting halfway.”

Damn it. She could hardly refuse, and at the same time, once she was in the station, it would be easy for them to detain her. Still. What choice did she have?

“All right. I’m leaving now. But, Detective?” She took a breath, let her emotions show in her voice. “Please hurry. I’m begging you. There are a lot of lives at stake.”

“This had better not be some sort of a joke.”

“I’ve never been this serious in my life.”

She hung up the phone. Ian said, “I guess blowing this off and heading to Disneyland is out of the question, huh?”

“Kinda.”

“OK. Let’s grab a cab and go to jail instead.” He held out a hand, and she took it. His palm was sweaty, but it was comforting.

Walking out the front door felt surreal, a routine she’d done a hundred times rendered strange. There was a habitual urge to check that she had everything, pick a coat, take a last look in the mirror. But none of that mattered. She just grabbed her purse and opened the door, and they headed down the stairs.

“I wasn’t sure you were going to tell them about Alex.”

“We have to,” she said. “Mitch is depending on us. We can’t risk any lies at this point.” They stepped onto the porch.

“Yikes,” Ian said. “The whole truth? Not my specialty.”

“Yeah, well-”

“Ms. Lacie?”

The stranger had the kind of face that always seemed familiar, a bland average of decent looks. He wasn’t wearing a uniform, but her first thought was that somehow Bradley had managed to get an officer over to her house in that short a time.

Then she saw the gun pointing at her.

TWELVE THIRTY on a Saturday night. Plenty of places would just be getting started. In Wicker Park, the bands would have wrapped up, and Estelle’s and the Violet Hour would be mobbed. Down on Rush Street, the Viagra Triangle, wannabe sugar-daddies would be putting moves on administrative assistants. Even here on Lincoln, a mile in either direction the bars would be full, music pounding out open windows.

But the stretch where Rossi’s was located was quiet. Not dead; a few revelers strolled the sidewalks, cabs cruised, and in an apartment up the block, a party was winding down. Mitch had driven as fast as he dared and had made good time. As he passed the restaurant, he felt a weird shiver at the sight of the place. So many events, good and bad, all clustered into one small space.

Focus.

Though they thought of it as a bar, Rossi’s was primarily a restaurant, and the cursive neon sign was turned off, the building radiating that closed energy. There was just enough light for him to see chairs up on tables as he passed. No sign of anyone inside. What if he’d been wrong? Mitch had dialed Alex’s cell phone half a dozen times on the drive over, but the guy either didn’t have it or wasn’t answering. Mitch was betting on the latter.

He turned down the side street, then into the alley, pulling the car up to the same place they had parked the rental. Dread hit as darkness flooded into the car. Ten feet from where he sat, he had murdered a man.

The air was cool and smelled of rotten milk. A scrap of yellow crime-scene tape was still attached to the Dumpster, stirring in the breeze. He walked out of the alley, forcing himself not to glance at the place, not to look for a dark stain or a chip in the concrete.

Mitch hurried around the corner, under the awning, and up to the front door. He paused to listen. No sounds from within, no shouting voices or screams. He gripped the handle, the metal cool beneath his fingers. Once he walked in, there was no going back. If Victor was inside…

He froze, his legs trembling. Every muscle was screaming to turn around, to walk away. His mind ran wild and slippery, imagining killers on the other side of the door.

If Alex is there alone, you can reason with him, get out fast. If Victor is there, then you’ll just need to stall until the police arrive. Jenn and Ian are talking to the detective right now. He’ll have cops here in ten minutes, maybe fifteen. You can do this.

You have to.

Mitch pulled the door handle. It opened.

He felt like his intestines were being unspooled. The entry was lit only by the Exit sign. The hostess stand loomed empty. He could hear his footsteps and the beat of his heart. Mitch rounded the corner, saw the empty dining room, set for tomorrow’s meal, white tablecloths and neat silverware arrayed like a banquet for ghosts.

There was a light in the bar, and he headed for it.

The first thing that hit him was the familiarity. Chairs up on tables, ammonia smell from the damp floors, the muted buzz of the beer fridge. How many nights had they sat there after closing, the four of them at the end of the bar? Drinking and talking, trading theories on the world, laughing at everyone from their towers of irony and distance. Killing time.

He took another step, his eyes adjusting.

A voice said, “Hello, Mitch.”

THE FIGURE IN FRONT OF HER moved with brutal grace, rocking forward to drive a fist into Ian’s belly. Her friend made a gasping whoop, then dropped to hands and knees, leaned forward, and retched. Thin ropes of spit and vomit trailed from the corner of his lips.

“Hi,” the man said, raising the pistol in his other hand. “Don’t scream.”

The world narrowed to a long hallway, like the gun had black-hole gravity that warped space.

“Pick him up.”

She stared at the gun, and at the man beyond.

“Jennifer.” His voice sharp. “Pick Ian up, and help him up the stairs. Now.”

Without thinking, she bent down, put her arms under Ian’s shoulders, and helped him slowly rise. His body felt thin and hollow, and he smelled of bile.

“Up the stairs.”

“Who-”

“Now.”

She wanted to scream, to run, but instead she turned around, started back to her apartment. Her vision was wet and smeary, the carpet blurring into the walls. From a great distance, she felt her mind racing, telling her that she should fight, or else bolt up the stairs and into her apartment and lock the door. But fear and her grip on Ian, all that was holding him up, stopped her from doing either. She prayed for a neighbor to come home, for someone to save her.

When they reached her door, the man said, “Open it.”

“It’s locked. The keys are in my purse.”

“Get them. Slowly.”

Jenn glanced over, fear spiking hard through her veins. The man stood half a dozen feet back, just far enough that she couldn’t reach him, not far enough that she could make it in and close the door. Not unless she abandoned Ian. “Can you stand?”

Her friend coughed, nodded. She leaned him against the wall, then unslung her purse. Keys, keys, keys, where the fuck were they? Her hands shook as she fumbled, and the purse slipped from her grasp, landing upside down. “Shit.” She bent to pick it up, a clatter of everyday things falling free: sunglasses and Chapstick and a pill bottle and her wallet and mascara and a leaf she had liked the shape of and her cell and her keys. Jenn retrieved them, fit them in the lock, and turned.

The moment the door creaked open, the man lunged forward, shoving her. Suddenly flying, she struggled to get her feet beneath her, barking her shin on the edge of the coffee table, the impact ringing straight up her legs. She staggered, managed to catch herself with a hand on the table. The bottle of nail polish from that morning tipped and fell.

Nail polish. Beside that, several files, and her pair of shiny manicure scissors.

“Join us, Ian.”

Moving before she chickened out, Jenn palmed the scissors, then turned. And found herself staring at the barrel of a pistol. The gun was maybe four inches from her face, so close she couldn’t focus on it.

Her blood felt like ice chips.

Doubled over, Ian lurched into the room. His face was a sallow, yellowish green, and he was gasping. His suit was spotted with vomit. He collapsed on the couch.

“Ian?” She looked at the man with the gun, then slowly moved away from him, keeping her fingers closed around the reassuring steel of the scissors. They were tiny, but they were sharp, and that was something. She knelt beside Ian. “Are you OK?”

He forced a brief nod, his eyes wild. She glanced over her shoulder, saw the man with the gun grimace, then walk over to the door to kick the pile of belongings inside. As her Chapstick rolled across the floor, Jenn put her left hand on Ian’s knee, and flashed her right open, just long enough for him to see what was inside. His eyes widened.

Then she heard the sound of the door closing and found that it took all she had to draw a shuddering breath.

“Now,” the man said. “Have a seat, sweetheart.”

“My name is Jenn.”

“I know.” The man gestured. “Next to your friend.”

Jenn straightened, stood perfectly still.

“Lady, I like your spirit, I do. But you ought to know that I’m a feminist. When it comes to hitting people, I don’t draw gender lines.”

She hesitated. The suddenness of everything had made the last minute a blur, but she was coming back to herself, and anger was infusing the panic. This was her apartment, her private sanctuary. And now this man, this stranger with a gun, had invaded it, hit her friend and dragged them back into her own world as prisoners. The last thing she wanted to do was curl up like some useless woman on TV. The scissors weren’t much, but maybe now was the time, while she was standing up.

Then the man raised the gun. Her knees went watery. As slowly as she dared, she eased herself onto the couch.

“Good. Now. Hands under your thighs, palms down. Both of you.”

Ian looked at her, a question in his eyes she didn’t know how to answer. Then he did as the man said, and she did the same.

“Excellent.” He slid the gun behind his back. “Thank you.”

“What are you going to do with us?”

“We’re just going to sit here for a little while.”

“Why?” Keep him talking. Maybe he’ll relax. Maybe he’ll give you a chance to…

What? Launch into a flying spin kick, knock the gun free, do a Jet Li roll for it, and blast him? Kickboxing classes at the gym were as far as her experience with fighting went. Sure, she could do some work on a heavy bag. But heavy bags didn’t hit back.

Who was he? What did he want?

One of those questions was easy to answer. He worked for Victor. The way he carried himself, his easy menace and complete calm. The way he hadn’t hesitated to hit Ian. He was… professional.

Professional what, exactly?

Something chilly slid down her spine. Another easy question to answer. But it raised a much harder one.

What chance did a stockbroker and a travel agent armed with manicure scissors have against a professional killer?

MITCH STEPPED FORWARD. There was a figure at the end of the bar, but he couldn’t make out any features. “Alex?”

“He shoots, he scores.” The figure reached for a highball. Took a long sip. In the quiet of the closed bar, Mitch could hear ice clink in the glass. “You want a drink?”

Mitch started forward. On the drive here, he’d imagined all sorts of last-second scenarios, catching Alex just as Victor pulled up, the two of them jumping out a back window. But now that he had made it, he realized he didn’t know what to say. It was partly the situation and partly a strange note in Alex’s voice. Something sad and final and yet oddly menacing. “No, I-”

“Where’s the rest of the crew?”

“On their way to the police station.”

Alex gave a brief and bitter laugh. “If you can’t win, you may as well piss all over everyone else, huh? Drag them down with you.”

“What are you talking about?” He walked closer.

“How many nights do you think we spent here?” Alex leaned back against the bar, thick arms braced on either side. “A hundred? More? The four of us, sitting right here,” he patted the end of the bar. “Our private table.”

Mitch froze. On the bar, the four plastic bottles sat clustered right next to an open fifth of vodka. Jesus Christ.

“So what’s the deal? You here to talk me out of my diabolical plot?”

“Something like that.”

“Have a drink first.”

“Listen, Alex, that stuff-”

“I said, have a fucking drink.” His tone suddenly hard. “If you don’t want vodka, we’ve got everything.” Alex gestured at the wall behind the bar, the mirrored shelves holding row on row of liquor. “What’ll it be?”

Something was wrong. He’d imagined that Alex might be surprised to see him, angry even. But this was different. He didn’t sound quite together. Not raving, but not exactly centered, either.

“Alex, the bottles-”

“Alex, Alex.” The man mocking him, his voice high. “The bottles, the bottles.”

Mitch paused. Could he just grab the chemicals and run? Skip reasoning with the man? Not likely. Four bottles, and his friend had fifty pounds on him, all of it muscle.

“I’ll have a beer. And a shot.” He strolled over as casually as he could. Whatever was going on, he needed to roll with it. He couldn’t take the bottles from Alex. So he had to convince him, and if that meant playing along, then that’s what he had to do. Even as time ticked agonizingly away.

“Help yourself.” Alex reached for a pack of cigarettes, lit one. “It’s self-service night at Johnny Love’s fabulous dining emporium.”

Mitch nodded, walked around the edge of the bar. His nerves were barbed wire in the wind, singing jangled and raw. He took a pint glass, held it under a tap. “So, about those-”

“I saw Cassie tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Her and her mother and her new dad. One big happy.”

“I’m sorry.” He skipped the shot, walked back around to sit. “That must have been hard.”

“You think?” Alex’s smile a little loose. He lifted his glass. “What are we drinking to?”

“Listen-”

“I’ve got it. To the Thursday Night Club. May we all get just exactly what we deserve.”

Mitch forced himself to lean forward, clink glasses. “Cheers.” He brought the beer to his lips, took a sip-

And found himself falling, the glass knocked sideways, beer slopping everywhere, the side of his head ringing from the back of Alex’s hand. He flailed wildly, got hold of the edge of the bar, kept himself from going down. Had time to say, “What the fuck?” before Alex was off the stool, his hands shooting down to grab the front of Mitch’s shirt. The big man hoisted him in the air with a grunt, spun, took two steps, and slammed him down on a table. Pain exploded up his spine, and the air blew out of his lungs.

“Here to tell me how it is again?” His friend raised him, then slammed him down against the table again. “Big boss man?”

Mitch brought his pint glass up in a whistling arc against Alex’s head. It shattered, and he felt a burning in his fingers. Alex gasped, let go of him, his hands at his head. Mitch pulled himself off the table. A chair was on the floor at his feet, and he grabbed it as he stepped away.

Alex had regained his footing and braced himself like a boxer, one hand in front of his face, the other by his ear. He was breathing hard, and blood ran down the side of his face. The two of them faced each other. Frozen. Part of Mitch screamed to move now, to step forward and swing the chair and try to knock Alex down, to hit him again while he fell, and then take what he wanted and go. To leave his onetime friend bleeding on the bar floor.

Instead, he straightened. “I’m not going to fight you. I came here to talk.”

“We don’t have anything to say.”

“You’re wrong.” He kept the chair cocked back. “Ian figured out what’s in those bottles. It’s not drugs, man. It’s poison. Nerve gas. Those things have the chemicals that make sarin gas.”

Alex snorted, shook his head. “You’ll say anything, won’t you?”

“I swear to God-”

“You’ve been wanting this for a long time. You think I don’t know? I know how you feel about Jenn. About me. All that time you were the quiet one, the smart one, too shy to live, you think I didn’t see the way you looked at me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I think it’s time we dropped the bullshit, don’t you?” Alex circled sideways, rocking gracefully from foot to foot, and Mitch moved in response. “We don’t really like each other much. Haven’t for a long time, have we?”

“That’s not true.” But even as he said the words, he thought back to Alex’s regular condescension, the way he had spoken the night they’d met Johnny. Or his own quickly suppressed joy at the big man’s humiliation and helplessness. The thought of him and Jenn in bed together, muscular, tattooed Alex, the golden boy who always had it easy.

“Bullshit. We’ve been coming to this for a long time. Years. So let’s do it.” He nodded at the chair. “If you’ve got the balls.”

Juvenile, maybe, but the barb hit. Mitch narrowed his eyes. Why not? What did he owe this guy? The supposed friend who had betrayed him over and over. Mitch wasn’t the shy weakling Alex thought. This was the new Mitch, the man who decided who he wanted to be and just did it. Who moved through life with force and purpose.

Who hit the woman he loved.

Who killed a man and tried to hide from it.

He took a deep breath and a step back. “You know what? Maybe you’re right. But that’s not what I’m here for. Whether you want to believe it or not, those bottles have the stuff to make chemical weapons. That’s why I’m here.” Slowly, he lowered the chair. Set it down and stepped away. “So you want to hit me, man? Go ahead.”

Without even a pause, Alex stepped forward and slammed a right hook into his side. There was a crack and an explosion of pain and Mitch collapsed, legs folding beneath him. Hit the floor hard, the impact ringing through his whole body. He tried to get up, found he could barely move. It was all he could do to curl himself into a fetal ball and wait for the kicks to start.

Nothing happened.

After a long moment, he opened his eyes. The floor was inches away, old tile with grime beaten into every crack and crevice. He turned his head, saw Alex standing above him. For a moment they just looked at each other.

Then Mitch managed to croak, “Feel better?”

“Yeah.” Alex lowered a hand. Mitch took it. Standing up sent razors spinning through his chest. He paused a moment, drew a shallow breath. “I can’t believe you hit me, you fucker.”

Alex snorted, then rubbed at his face with one hand. “Let me get you another drink.”

Mitch let his friend help him to a stool, sat down stiffly. Took the glass Alex offered, three fingers of Jameson, neat. The burn felt good.

Alex said, “Chemical weapons?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re serious.”

“Yeah.” He straightened, finished the rest of the glass. Set it down. It was stained with blood, and he looked at his hand. Looking at it was enough to make it start throbbing.

It didn’t matter. “Ian and Jenn are talking to the police.”

“So why did you come here?”

“In case they couldn’t make it in time. Victor is on his way?”

Alex nodded.

“We have to get out of here. We’ll be safe with the police.” He started to stand up.

“No.”

“Did you hear me? We can’t let-”

“I called him, Mitch. I called him and I told him that you guys had lied, that I had the stuff, and that I would meet him here with it.”

“Yeah, but we can still-”

“Where do you think his first stop will be when he shows up and I’m not here?”

“We can go there right now. Get Cassie, take her with us.”

“What if he’s already got someone there? What if they’re watching? If it was just me, that’d be one thing. But it’s not. It’s my daughter.”

“Alex, do you understand what I’m saying? This is the main ingredient in sarin gas. A gallon of it. All someone needs to do is mix it with alcohol and it could kill hundreds, thousands of people.”

Abruptly, the big man chuckled.

Mitch stared. “I’m not kidding.”

“No, I just… Alcohol.” Alex shook his head. “No wonder you freaked when you saw me drinking.”

Despite himself, Mitch felt his lip twitching upward. The two of them looked at each other across the bar, and then they both started laughing. It didn’t last long-the motion sent shivers of pain through his chest-but for just a second, Mitch felt like he was home.

“Come on. We have to go.”

He could see his friend wrestling with it, doing the same thing they had done earlier. Trying to decide whether he could live with either set of consequences. Struggling to find a way out. And for a moment, Mitch wondered what would happen if Alex refused.

Then he heard a voice behind him.

“What’s the hurry? We just got here.”

THE SECONDS HURT.

Jenn had never realized it could work that way, that time could have physical weight and sharp edges. That each slow tick of the clock could cut. While she and Ian sat on the couch, helpless, Mitch would be pitting himself against Victor. And she’d seen the light of too much self-sacrificial joy in Mitch’s eyes. He had finally torn down the walls he’d erected to hide from the things he had done, and it was killing him. He wouldn’t act cautiously, wouldn’t hang back. No, he’d go forward in typical male fashion.

Which meant they were his only chance. And every second they sat here, prisoners in her living room, was one closer to too late.

The scissors had gone warm in her hands, the metal slick. Though they were a lousy weapon, they were what she had, and some comfort.

The man pulled a cell phone from his pocket, dialed, said, “I’ve got them.” A pause. “Yes.” His eyes were cold and steady as some deep-sea creature. “OK.”

Beside her, Ian whispered, “Are you all right?”

“I think so.” She saw the man watching them, didn’t bother to hide her words. “You?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Hold on. You have to hold on.”

“You remember the game I told you about?”

“Jesus Christ, are you kidding?”

“Prisoner’s Dilemma. Remember it?”

She sighed. “Yeah.”

“Remember what I said? It’s about iteration. The point is that you play over and over.” For a moment, she thought she saw the faintest crinkle of skin around his eyes, like he was trying to tell her something. “But if you know you’re only going to play once-”

“I know, I know. Then you betray.”

“Right.” He coughed long and hard. When he could breathe again, he said, “Especially if it’s the last game. Or if there’s something truly important at stake. Something larger. Then you betray. You make sure you get out.” His gaze locked on her.

“Jennifer, Ian, do me a favor?” The man smiled. “Say cheese.” He pointed his phone in their direction, and she heard a faint click. He’d taken a photo. A trophy, and another violation. They were toys for him, a way to amuse himself.

“If all you wanted was a picture, you could have asked,” she said. “I might have posed.”

He smiled. “That’s a generous offer. But this way is better, I think.”

“What do you want?”

“Little late to play innocent, don’t you think, sister?”

“Yeah, but what do you want? Why are you here?” It was part anger, part hope that he would tell her. “Did Victor change his mind? Because you can’t get into that safe-deposit box without me. Even if you have the key.”

“But we’re not trying to get into the bank, are we?” His eyes hardened. “Are we, Jennifer?”

“Oh God,” Ian said. “You’re here to kill us.”

Jenn looked over at him. He was wax and sweat, all pale and runny. How hard had he been hit?

“Alex has the stuff you want, and you know that. So once you get it from him, you’re going to kill us. Right?” Ian leaned forward. “Please. Tell me that much. I need to know.”

“Why?”

Ian’s arms were trembling. “Listen. I’m a trader. I make deals. Let’s make one.”

“Like what?” The man sounded genuinely amused.

“You know that we got the chemicals when we robbed Johnny Love.”

“So?”

“So we took money, too. That’s the reason we did it.” Ian’s eyes darted. “Promise to let me live, and you can have it.”

What the hell was Ian doing? He couldn’t possibly believe that a promise meant anything. Could it be some sort of play? Was he making a move, trying to distract him?

Then the words hit more clearly: Promise to let me live.

Was he selling her out? Was that what he had been saying, with his reference to the game? Explaining in advance what he was going to do, assuaging his conscience for betraying her?

Jenn stared at him: expensive suit spotted with vomit, skin pale and shiny, arms shaking. He didn’t look much like the cocky player she knew, the one who hid behind a mask of wit and sarcasm. The man she considered a friend.

She thought back to brunch, Ian talking about the game, its results. How if both people betrayed, they both got medium prison time; if neither did, they both got just a little. And the worst result of all, if one was faithful and the other betrayed. One walked free and the other suffered for a decade.

Is that what he was setting her up for? If so, then according to the rules of the game, the best thing she could do was betray him right back.

Only, what would that mean? How could she betray him?

More important, did she want to?

She’d no sooner thought of the question than she had the answer. It was like the dream she’d had earlier, the one where she was pregnant. When she’d woken, she’d been genuinely sad that it was just a dream. Not because she wanted a kid. Because she wanted things to matter. She wanted to live as though they did.

So screw the rules of the game. Whoever this guy was, he likely intended to kill them. Maybe they could get out, find a way to help Mitch. Maybe not. But either way, she’d rather go out being faithful.

Ian said, “I mean it. There’s a lot of money at stake. More than two hundred thousand dollars. You let me live, you can have it.”

“I know all about the money, Ian. You think you stole it from Johnny Love, but really, you stole it from me.”

“Well, this is your chance to get it back.” Ian paused, let the words sink in. “Look, I understand you don’t trust me.”

“Not too much, no.”

“Let me prove I’m serious.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Ian took a deep breath, then glanced at her. “If you look in Jenn’s right hand, you’ll find a pair of scissors. She picked them up when you weren’t watching.”

CHAPTER 33

VICTOR WORE THE SAME OUTFIT he’d had on earlier, a charcoal suit and a white shirt, the top button open. His hair was neat and his smile broad. Leaning by the entrance of the bar, he looked like a man who had already won.

And there was a reason for that, Mitch realized, looking at the four bottles on the bar top. Looking at himself, a busted rib and cut hand and screaming headache; at Alex, blood drying on the side of his face from the broken glass, the wound on his eye bound in butterfly bandages. Both of them unarmed and worn down and out of their depth. And, Mitch realized, not done with the discussion they’d been having. He wasn’t sure which way Alex would have gone. Which meant that, again, each stood alone.

Johnny Love was behind Victor. He had on a mauve silk shirt. The pistol in his hand was bright chrome.

Game over.

“Where are you off to, Mitch?” Victor slid his hands in his pockets.

“Just… away from here.”

“Away from me, you mean.” The man shook his head. “That’s not playing by the rules.”

“You’re selling chemical weapons, and you’re talking about rules?”

Victor’s eyes hardened. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Let me ask you.” He knew he should be frightened, and was, but there was more than that. Maybe he was in shock. Maybe it was just exhaustion, and the fact that he couldn’t think of any other way to behave. “How do you live with yourself?”

“How do I live with myself? You mean, as a nasty evil arms dealer?”

“Yeah.”

Victor smiled, then strolled across the room. For a second, Mitch considered tackling him, taking a shot, but Johnny had the pistol up and aimed. He’d be dead before he started moving. Think, goddamn it. You have to find a way. Victor walked behind the bar like he owned the place. Took a highball glass, set it on the back bar, then eyed the scotch. Chose a dusty bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. “Is this the part,” he said, his back to them, “where I’m supposed to tell you that I’m just a businessman, that people will find ways to kill each other whether or not I’m involved?”

“Is that true?”

Victor shrugged, then turned. “Sure. But you know what else?”

“What?”

“I don’t really care.” He sipped his scotch. “All that moral relativism crap, it’s for people who feel bad about what they do. It’s for little people.” He pointed with the glass. “Like you two.”

“We may be little people. But at least we don’t sell chemical weapons. Who are they going to? Al-Qaeda? The Taliban?”

“The Michigan Militia? The KKK? MS-13? The next Timothy McVeigh or Ted Kaczynski?” Victor smiled, shrugged. “You know who they’re going to? You really want to know?” He leaned forward. “Whoever pays me.”

Though Mitch could hardly have expected different, the words still floored him. The simple ease of the man, his comfort playing such a monstrous role, it was unlike anything Mitch had imagined. If the man had been a true believer out for a cause, that would at least have made sense. But this?

And that wasn’t the really terrible part, he realized. The terrible part was that it was his fault. Their fault. Whatever happened, whoever this plain-looking poison went to, whichever poor crowd of innocents suffered and died, the weight of it was on them.

How many people had they murdered?

FOR A MOMENT, nothing happened. The room was silent. Then Ian felt the couch shift as Jenn threw herself at him.

He yanked his hands out from under his thighs, barely got them up in time to catch her wrists. The wicked curve of the manicure scissors gleamed inches from his cheek.

“You fucker, you motherfucker-” Jenn screamed at him. “What’s wrong with you?!”

He struggled backward, surprised at how strong she was, or how weak he was. It must have looked comic, him in a business suit, bent halfway backward over the arm of the couch while a hundred-and-fifteen-pound woman came at him with nail scissors. The man with the gun laughed. “Sister, you really are something.”

“Get her off me!”

The guy continued to laugh as he took the gun from behind his back. “That’s enough.”

Jenn continued to thrash against Ian’s arms, her face furious red, the shining edge of the scissors coming closer.

There was a loud click as the man cocked the gun. Jenn froze, then slowly looked up. She narrowed her eyes, then slowly eased back to her side of the couch.

“Drop those bad boys.”

Jenn tossed the scissors to skitter across the table. She turned back to him, glared, then reared her head back and spit a gob of wet phlegm on what used to be his favorite suit.

That set the man off again. “I hadn’t figured you for a fighter. I love a girl with spunk.”

“Fuck you,” she said, her voice gone sullen.

“Even if she isn’t too creative.” The man turned to Ian. “You, though, I’ve had pegged since I spoke to your bookie. A weasel.”

Ian held his hands up in surrender. “I just want to live.”

“And you’ll sell out your friends to do it. Hell, you’ve screwed them from the beginning, haven’t you?”

He felt the flush in his face, the sickness in his belly. “More than two hundred thousand dollars, cash. All but the money I gave Katz. That’s not bad for letting me go.”

“Where is it?”

“Here.”

“Where?”

“Do we have a deal or not?”

The man shrugged. “Sure.”

“You promise?”

“You’ve got my word.” He gestured with the pistol. “Let’s go.”

It was like he could feel the blood racing through all the miles of veins in his body. Dread and adrenaline and hope. That same rush that he got gambling, before the last card fell. Success or defeat just a turn away. Only this time, he was playing for stakes unlike any he had ever played before, and on a thinner hand. Sweat soaked the armpits of his designer shirt.

Hey, kid, don’t quit on me now. This is the game. Play it.

Slowly, he stood. His body hurt in a hundred places, and breathing took conscious effort.

“Remember,” he said. “More than two hundred thousand dollars. All of it right here.”

“So?”

“So please be careful where you’re pointing that thing.”

The man smiled. “Oh, I’ll be careful. But you should be too. If you’re wasting my time, I can promise you, the next hours of your life are going to be bad enough to erase every good thing you ever had.”

Ian shivered. No control over it, a feeling like an ice cube sliding down his spine. You have to do this. It’s the only chance.

He looked at Jenn, wanted to wink, to give her some sign, but didn’t dare. He could only hope that she had been listening, that she had heard him promise all of the money. The biggest bluff of his life, and he wasn’t sure if his partner was paying attention-or if she trusted him enough to follow his lead.

It didn’t matter. He’d made his play. No backing out now.

“You too, sister. On your feet.”

Shit. In his best-case scenario, he’d figured that the man might leave her here, figuring that he would be enough leverage to keep Jenn from trying anything. More likely, she’d be tied up, but that would still be better odds. It was a flimsy plan, but it wasn’t like he’d had a lot of time. He’d been winging it, hoping that if he could distract the guy, Jenn would have her chance. A better chance than a pair of three-inch scissors would have offered.

Now, though. What had he set them up for?

“Let’s go.”

Ian nodded, started across the room. He could feel every inch of his skin, every bruise and cut and blow and burn. A turn of the card. It all came down to a turn of the card. He moved as slowly as he dared, limping a little bit. His mind in overdrive, examining possibilities, looking for every option, coming up with nothing. The man kept a careful distance. No chance Ian could jump him.

Shit, shit, shit. What had he done? When the man realized he was bluffing, he would-

He had just started down the hallway when an idea hit.

More than a long shot. A Hail Mary.

And just like the game, it all came down to trust. Whether Jenn would trust him enough to see what he was doing. Whether he could trust her to recognize what was important.

Whether they had gone too far to ever make it back.

ALEX’S BRAIN WAS STATIC. Raw and unfocused and going nowhere.

Desperate to move, he sat still. He heard Mitch talking to Victor as the man poured himself a fifty-dollar drink. Trying to reason with him, or maybe just stalling for time, but not getting anywhere. Johnny had moved to the center of the bar, the gun held at arm’s length. Aimed with the loose ease of someone who had used a pistol before, who had looked down the barrel at another human being and pulled the trigger.

Alex’s head throbbed in time with his pulse, the pain back in full force, and yet the least of the pain he was dealing with. Thinking that all their discussion, all their debate, it came down to this. Four plastic bottles filled with death, and a man who had just admitted he’d sell them wherever someone was buying. That this might be used not in some faraway desert. That it might be used at an El station or a museum. A church, or a shopping mall, or a school.

That it might be used in the kinds of places Cassie went.

VICTOR SAID, “Now, if we’re done with the philosophy lesson, I’d like my merchandise, please. Put it in the bag.”

Mitch felt hollowed out. Pulled too hard in too many directions. He was standing in front of the devil, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Well, one thing. Small and pointless, but something. “No.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You want it, it’s right there. I won’t be part of this.”

Victor laughed. “Won’t be part of it? You are part of it. All four of you. Don’t you see? You had it for days. You knew it was dangerous. I’m betting that you had to know in your heart more or less what it was. Right?”

Mitch shook his head, but Victor only smiled, said, “Sure you did. You knew. You just didn’t want to admit it. Because if you did, you’d have to do something about it. And doing something, well, that’s not what the four of you specialize in.”

“What do you know about the four of us?”

“I know that if you really wanted to stop me, if you truly wanted to keep this from hurting anyone, all you had to do was go to the police. And I know that you didn’t.”

Words like ball-peen hammer blows. Part of him wanted to argue, to say that it was more complicated than that. And it was. But it was also that simple. They had not only failed one another. They had failed hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocent people. They had become everything they used to despise.

“You see? If you had never gotten involved, then you’d be innocent. But you had a chance to stop me. And you didn’t take it. Which makes you guilty, Mitch. When my clients use it-and they will-it will be your fault.” Victor paused, took a sip of his liquor. “Now. Put those bottles in the bag and bring them to me.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to know that you’re beaten. That you lost completely.” Victor’s smile was broad and bright.

Mitch knew it didn’t make a difference, but he didn’t care. “I won’t do it.”

“Remember when I told you to believe every word I say? Believe this.” The man’s voice hard, pure alpha dog. “You will put those bottles in the bag, and you will bring it to me, and you’ll thank me for the privilege.”

“I won’t. And meanwhile, the police are on their way. We told them about you. They’ll be here any minute.”

“I don’t think so.” Victor reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone. “Amazing gadgets, these things. Used to be, a phone was for making calls. Now they can give you directions, play music”-he turned the screen to Mitch-“even take pictures.”

No. Oh, no.

The image was small but clear. Ian and Jenn sitting on the couch in her living room.

“So you see, no police. And I think at long last you may be starting to take my word.” His voice hardened. “Put the fucking bottles in the bag and hand it to me. Or I’ll have my people start cutting pieces off your girlfriend.”

SHE COULDN’T BELIEVE IT.

OK, Ian had had his problems. The drugs, paying off the bookie. But those things had made sense in their way. They had been mistakes, but they hadn’t been malevolent.

But to actively sell her out? Not just to promise the money in trade for his own life-not theirs, his-but then to tell them about the scissors she’d palmed? He’d killed her. And for what? He couldn’t possibly believe this guy would let them live.

“Let’s go,” the man said. Ian stood and limped slowly toward the hallway, not looking at her. Coward. He started toward the kitchen, where an hour ago the three of them had planned to try to redeem their failures.

“Sister, you follow right behind him.”

Grimacing, she did as she was told. What was the point of this, anyway? Ian had promised all that was left of the money, more than two hundred thousand dollars. Which was impossible, because they had split-

Wait.

She looked up, clues snapping together with an almost audible click. At that same moment, she saw Ian stagger, fall against the wall with a hollow sound. For a moment he hung there, then he collapsed, hit the floor hard, not putting his hands out to catch himself. His limbs shook and twitched, arms and legs beating a pattern on the hardwood floor. He looked like he was having some sort of a fit, like demons had taken control of his body.

“What is this happy horseshit,” the man said. “Get up.”

For a bare half second, as Ian flopped to his back, his eyes opened and locked on hers, and in that moment, she knew what he was doing.

“Get the fuck up.” The gun swiveling.

“I think he’s having a seizure,” she said.

“So what do we do?”

“Let him choke,” she said.

“You’re all heart.” The man hesitated, then took a wary step forward. “Hey.” He nudged at Ian with his shoe. “Hey.”

The second time his foot touched Ian, the trader grabbed it with both hands, tucked it against his chest, and rolled. Caught off guard, the man’s knee buckled, and he came down hard onto Ian, who gasped at the weight. There was an explosion, loud and brilliant in the dim light of the hall, and drywall dust rained from a hole punched in her ceiling.

The guy may have been taken off guard, but he reacted quickly, spinning his other knee onto solid ground and then bringing the pistol down. Ian saw it, grabbed for the gun with both hands. The man lashed out with a fast jab that cracked Ian’s jaw. On his back on the ground, her friend looked like a child, thin and waxy-skinned and bleeding from his mouth. No chance he could win.

Not alone, anyway.

She was starting forward when Ian rolled his head sideways and stared at her. The look couldn’t have lasted more than a fraction of a breath, but it burned into her retinas. He saw her step forward and gave a tiny shake of his head. His eyes were locked on hers. Pleading with her.

His words on the couch came back to her, the ones she’d wondered about.

If you know you’re only going to play once, or if there’s something truly important at stake, something larger. Then you betray. You make sure you get out.

The emphasis on “you.” He had known what he was going to do then. He’d been telling her.

And he’d been telling her that he had already made a choice. That he had weighed the factors and decided what was truly important. He wasn’t trying to win. He was trying to keep them from losing entirely. It wasn’t chivalry or some misguided attempt to protect her. He had simply treated it like a game. He had set the cost of his life against the pay-off of her getting to the police and decided that it was a good move.

She stared at him. Thought about running to his aid, trying her kickboxing moves. An amateur against a professional; cardio classes against a lethal, armed criminal. As she watched, Ian took a vicious punch that snapped his face sideways, breaking their stare-and freeing the killer’s gun hand.

And she realized what would happen if she tried and failed.

Last game. If it’s the last game, and the stakes are high enough, there is only one thing to do.

Jenn turned and sprinted for the door.

ALEX LOOKED OVER MITCH’S SHOULDER, to where Victor held the cell phone, a smug expression on his face. Even from there, he could make out the picture. Jenn and Ian. Victor had them.

They had failed. Completely. He’d even failed to protect Cassie. It wasn’t that he believed that the gas would actually be used on her. He wasn’t stupid, could run the odds. But Victor had as good as said it would end up used on someone like her. Some innocent child who chose the wrong day to go to the mall. Someone else’s daughter.

“One more time, Mitch.” Victor’s voice was cold, but Alex could hear the anger beneath it. “Pick up the bag. Put the bottles in it. Now.”

Mitch. His friend, his doppelganger, the flip side of his coin. His partner in defeat. Alex could see in his eyes that the man was beaten. Mitch, who always had a plan. Beaten. Slowly, like his body was a wooden puppet under someone else’s control, his friend bent down to retrieve the black duffel bag from the floor.

Alex looked over at Johnny Love. His former boss’s hair was slicked back, but a clump had come loose and stood at odd attention. His smile was as slippery and self-satisfied as a television commercial lawyer’s. “I told you, kid. You don’t fuck with me.”

Mitch reached a shaking hand forward. Picked up one of the bottles. Slid it into the bag.

It was happening. It was really happening.

They were going to let these two assholes walk out with chemical weapons. They were going to put them in the bag politely, hand it over, and wait for Johnny to shoot them.

Or, maybe worse, wait for him not to. For him to walk away, and let them wonder when they would hear about sarin gas in a high school.

No.

Maybe they would be safe if they did nothing. But they would never be OK. They had to fight. Maybe it would cost them everything. Their lives. But it would be a cause worth dying for.

Mitch put the second bottle in the bag.

Alex gently slid one foot to the floor, shifted his weight, counting on Victor and Johnny to be watching Mitch.

If only they had a weapon. He remembered throwing the guns in the river, the heft of each and the plunk as they splashed into dark water. He would have given his arm to have one of them now. For a weapon of any sort: a knife, the baseball bat Jenn kept under her bed. A weapon, one little weapon. That was the only thing that was holding them back, keeping the odds from being even. A weapon-

Mitch put the third bottle into the bag.

Holy shit.

Alex would have laughed if it wouldn’t have slowed him down. Instead he slid off the stool, turned to grab it by the back, spun hard, and hurled the thing at Johnny.

It was a clumsy throw, awkward and overfast, and Johnny sidestepped easily, raising the pistol. But dodging had distracted him, and Alex put everything into a lunge, his shoulder down, feet scrabbling on the tile floor, the clean and perfect rush of motion, his insides piano-wire taut. He was going to tear Johnny apart, rip the smarmy fucker into pieces with his bare hands. Payback for a thousand minor indignities and one unforgivable sin. For Cassie.

The pistol in Johnny’s hand spat flame twice.

There was a sticky feeling like a thin finger poking through his belly, like a yellowed nail scraping through his intestines, and where it touched was agony beyond fire, and his feet were still moving, his momentum carrying him forward as he realized that he had been shot, that Johnny had hit him at least once, maybe twice, and that the gun was steadying again, centering on him, and everything disappeared but the gap, the horrifying gap between him and Johnny, six feet, five, the man so close he could almost see the pores on his nose-

Another explosion.

Alex staggered, his feet starting to tangle. His belly burned and his fingers were numb and his shoulder felt weak and he realized he had his tongue stuck between his lips and was biting it, and then he reached Johnny, the fat fuck’s face gone shiny. The pain was unreal, whirling and sharp, a spinning saw blade in his chest, ripping and tearing, and it took all his strength to lift his arms and clamp them on Johnny’s shoulders, then slide them around his back, to squeeze the man to him like they were dancing, Johnny’s aftershave sharp and chemical, mingling with the boxing-glove stench of his own sweat and a coppery smell from his chest, Johnny pinned with the gun between them, and then there was another explosion, this one muffled, and Alex felt part of his chest rip out his back and fly free and wet, and knew he was going to die.

It was OK. It was for Cassie.

He just had to do one thing first. One more thing.

He had to trust Mitch.

IAN SAW THE FIST COMING, couldn’t do anything about it, tried to close his mouth but only managed to get his tongue caught between his teeth as the blow hit. His head yanked sideways, white and black bursting. His fingers started to slip, and he made himself hold on, hold on, and he prayed that Jenn understood.

And then he heard the sound of the front door opening and knew that he had won.

“Fuck!” The man rose fast as a snake. With the last of his strength, Ian grabbed his calf. The man spun back, wound up, and unleashed a vicious kick. The foot exploded into his ribs with a crunching sound, and Ian’s grip broke. He flopped back on the floor, strength gone. His eyes were closed, but he heard the man stand up, his fast footfalls down the hall. But he had bought her something. Maybe enough.

For a moment, he just breathed, every inhale agony. Then he heard steady footsteps. He opened his eyes, saw the man standing above him, shaking his head, a smile on his lips. “That was your big escape plan?”

Ian tried to speak, coughed, blood and bile mingling in his mouth. He turned sideways and spit it on the floor. Looked back. “Yep.”

“The money isn’t here?”

“Nope.”

“Well, I give you credit for heart, brother. But you really are a fuck-up, you know that?”

Ian coughed again. Stared at the barrel of the gun. “Yeah.” He smiled through broken lips. “But I’m working on it.”

A finger moved on the trigger. There was a loud sound.

And then there was nothing.

MITCH’S HANDS WERE SWEATY on the plastic. His brain felt like a prisoner, walled away and forgotten as it screamed and threw itself against the bars of its cage. Every breath felt stolen.

He put the third bottle in the bag, aware of every sensation, the way the zipper grated against his wrist, the cool of the plastic leaving his hand, the pressure of the edge of the bar against his stomach. Victor was smiling, a wolfish, ugly grin. The look of a man winking at you as he fucked your girlfriend.

Then there was a squeak and a scrambling beside him, and his head whipped around to see Alex in motion, a bar stool hanging in the air like it was on wires, the big man surging forward at Johnny and his big chrome pistol. It lasted forever. The chair didn’t fly, it drifted, no kin to gravity, turning slowly, a play of light gleaming off the polished wood back. Alex was a freight train in slow motion, power and energy moving through jelly, shoulder down. The gun drifting lazily as Johnny took a step sideways to avoid the stool.

The sound was incredibly loud and terribly familiar. It jolted him, shook that secret center of him that was all he really was. The part that wore the rest of him like clothing.

A gunshot, just like the one he had heard in the alley, when he sighted down the barrel at the man on the ground and pulled the trigger.

A second blast followed, and a third. They sounded crass, unnecessary. Alex took the shots like a charging boxer tagged by jabs, slowed but not stopped, his body rippling where he was hit. And then he was on Johnny, had the man pinned in a bear hug, and Mitch wanted to howl, to scream his friend’s name.

The fourth shot was muffled, and a piece of Alex’s body blew out the back of him to spatter on the bar.

The moment broke like a mirror.

Mitch had the last bottle, felt the heft of it, light for so much death, but heavy enough in his hand. He turned to Victor, saw his mask crumbling. The man stood directly opposite him, a dark shape against the rows of glowing bottles, whiskey and tequila and vodka and gin standing side by side like soldiers. He thought about jumping the bar but saw Victor’s hands moving, realized he must be going for a gun. Thought of dropping to the floor, into the safety of a child hiding beneath a bed. Thought about rushing to help Alex, and turned to do it, only to see a twisting mass of bodies, Alex and Johnny, spinning and sliding and falling. Tumbling toward him. Somehow Alex, shot more than once, had kept hold of Johnny and yanked him toward the bar, the two of them embracing like lovers.

They slammed into the bar beside him, still scrabbling, Johnny red-faced and furious, spit flying from his lips as he yelled, a grunt of effort and pain, struggling to get his arms free. A moan wrenched from Alex at the impact. His skin skim milk. Mitch couldn’t believe the man was still standing, that his reserves of strength and fury and shock had given him the power to hold on, to drag Johnny here. Some part of him wondered why, what the point of the gesture was, whether it was a plan or just a reaction.

Victor’s hand behind his back.

Alex slumped, Johnny starting to push away from him. His friend’s head lolled, eyes wild. Staring. Staring at Mitch, and then lower. His lips moved, nothing coming out at first. Then a sound. A plea. The words more gasped than spoken.

“Do it.”

His eyes staring at Mitch but not. The will draining from his friend’s body like oil from a punctured drum. Johnny started to push himself free.

Do what?

He looked where Alex was staring. To the bottle in his hand.

Words in his mind.

Ian: Apparently, if you’re the kind of evil fuck who makes chemical weapons, you make them in two parts.

Alex: No wonder you freaked when you saw me drinking.

Jenn: Guess the Thursday Night Club isn’t done yet.

Victor’s hand swinging around, a blur of something black in his grip.

And for a moment, it all made sense. Every step of the confused dance that had brought them here. Every wrong move. A pattern that he had never suspected, like something had been conducting them toward this moment, playing each of them like an instrument, point and counterpoint, building to this crescendo.

Mitch turned at the waist, the bottle in his hand held parallel to the bar. His mind split, part of it cool and focused, the rest of the world gone away, nothing but this motion. The other part screening moments from his life. His father teaching him to ride a bike down leaf-shaded streets. Sunlight and Jimi Hendrix and the spray of water as he leaned back in a friend’s speedboat smashing the waves of Lake Michigan. The first snow of a forgotten winter, walking past the bookshop on Broadway as soft faint white fell around him. The cello curve of Jenn’s sleeping body in the moonlight.

He spun and hurled the bottle at the bar back with everything he had. It wasn’t just his arm that threw. It was his whole life. Everything he was, everything he had ever hoped to be, put into one perfect motion.

It could have flown a mile. Could have sailed into the limitless night and blown by the moon.

Until it hit the wall of shimmering bottles above Victor’s head and exploded, plastic and glass cracking and shattering, the force of the motion driving everything against the mirrored wall an inch back and then rebounding, the geometric precision of liquid spattering in perfect globes, a slow-motion film of a bottle hit by a bullet, the invisible immutable rules of the world taking over, a shower of spray rebounding, an arc like a dying sprinkler.

And through it all, his mind still showing the things that had made up his life. His mother fussing over his prom tuxedo. His ’86 LeBaron with the crooked-smile bumper. The kick of the pistol in his hand and the primal joy he had been afraid to acknowledge.

The night the four of them met.

Right here, at this same spot in this same bar. The recognition each had felt in the other, that strange glow of assumed camaraderie that came from nothing but some inner certainty that here were friends, that whatever was to come, however they might fail one another, they shared this sense of newfound completion, of being made whole.

Mitch was laughing as the liquid rained down on them all.

CHAPTER 34

LATER, Jenn Lacie would spend a lot of time trying to pinpoint the exact moment.

There was a time before, she was sure of that. When she was free and young and, on a good day, maybe even breezy. Looking back was like looking at the cover of a travel brochure for a tropical getaway, some island destination featuring a smiling girl in a sundress and a straw hat, standing calf-deep in azure water. The kind of place she used to peddle but had never been.

And of course, there was the time after. And all the days yet to come.

There was never just one picture, one clear moment. Everything came in juttering fits and starts, all of it snarled, one circumstance leading into another. Untangling it would be no simple feat. But it seemed important to try. That was her work now. Her tribute.

Tonight, though, the moment she kept coming back to was the flash of a second when Ian was on the ground and their eyes met. When she had realized what he was doing. When they committed to the right thing, even if it was hard. Yanking open her front door, sprinting down the steps, abandoning him there, that had been hard.

There had been crazy adrenaline, an energy unlike anything she had ever known. She had run with everything in her. She’d wanted to look back but hadn’t dared, just leaned into it, legs flying long and free as she sprinted toward Clark. There would be people on the street, and cars. Even if the man followed her, she knew she could make it.

It was when she heard the muffled crack from behind her that she almost screwed up. She’d known what it was. What it meant. Ian had gone all-in.

The feeling that climbed from her belly to her lungs to her mouth was raw and horrible, a recognition that life had stakes, consequences, and that they were playing for them. And with it, a furious anger at the forces that had come into her life, into her house, that had killed her friend. The rage made her fingers tremble, and for a moment, she wanted more than anything to stop. To hide behind a parked car and wait for the man to chase her. To turn from prey to predator, snapping a hard kick into his belly that dropped him to the ground. Then kick him again and again and again, kick until her toes were broken and there was nothing left to kill.

But there was the look in Ian’s eye. He hadn’t given his life for her to attempt an action-hero ending. He had played by the rules of the game, accepting the ultimate penalty to give her a shot to secure the most important outcome. And she had to play by them too, or she truly would betray him.

Besides. Ian was gone, but it might not be too late to save Mitch and Alex.

So she ran. Arms pumping, lungs burning, heart screaming, she ran. She might have run all the way to the police station if she hadn’t almost tripped in front of a cab cruising for partygoers.

Detective Bradley told her it had been the right move. That she had saved lives, the innocent men and women, cops and EMTs, who might have gone into Rossi’s without a warning.

She supposed he was right. But like most truths, it was comforting only to a point.

Bradley had been dubious, then interested, and finally incredulous as she told him everything. She spilled it all with a manic intensity, knowing that the faster she could get him to move, the more chance her friends had. Praying that even though she had been delayed, she might still be able to hold up her end of the plan and bring the police screaming down on Victor.

Because the alternative was too terrible to consider.

As Mitch had predicted, she had really had to sell Detective Bradley. It was the details that won him over. She told him everything, every step of the robbery, the murder in the alley, the discovery of chemical weapons, their response tonight. Inch by inch, she watched the screens behind his eyes lift as he began to believe.

The details worked. But they took a long time. And just as she was wrapping up, another cop came in the room. “Detective-”

“I’m busy here-”

“I know, but it’s about that restaurant. Rossi’s.”

Jenn had been leaning forward, forearms on the table, eyes locked with Bradley’s like a conspirator or a lover, but at the mention of the restaurant she jerked upright. She stared at him, knowing what he was going to say, dreading it. Until the moment she heard it, until a stranger spoke it, it wasn’t true. Alex and Mitch were strong and clever and good. They might have found a way without her.

“Dispatch got reports of gunfire. Multiple shots. That’s your restaurant, right? From the body the other night?” The cop continued, his lips moving, facts spilling out, but Jenn didn’t hear it, not another word.

They were gone. Her friends were gone.

Something had almost swallowed her then, as she realized with utter certainty that she was the last surviving member of the Thursday Night Club. It was panic, but of a different sort than she’d been suffering. A black and consuming loneliness, and a suffocating sense of failure. Everything in her wanted to collapse at that moment, to put her head down on the table in the dingy interview room and sob.

Later, she would remember that moment as maybe the one that saved her, that gave her a chance. Because instead of giving up, she told Detective Peter Bradley he had to hurry. That there might still be men there, dangerous, armed men. Men with chemical weapons. In calm, clear tones she told him not to let anyone go inside, to clear the streets and guard the door. That if there were men inside, they were armed.

He may not have believed her, not really. But he’d at least seen there was no point in taking the risk.

The rest of the night blurred into a succession of interview rooms and men in suits. Snatches of news gleaned from the things they said, the gravity of their manner. The whole police station came to wild and whirling life around her: shouts she could hear through the walls, phones constantly ringing, men yelling, men pointing fingers. When she was alone, she stared at the wall and fought the urge to cry. When cops came with questions, she answered completely and without thought of self-preservation. At one point, someone she didn’t know came into the room and cuffed her hands. When Bradley returned, he undid them, set down a cup of coffee. Touched her shoulder. “Ms. Lacie, I’m afraid-”

“I know,” she said. Two words that took all she had. “They’re dead, aren’t they?”

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded, wanting to cry from the emptiness, the loss. First Ian, and now Alex and Mitch. Gone. She closed her eyes.

“We found four bodies at the restaurant. We’re working the-”

Four?

It took a moment, and then she got it. She almost smiled. Good for you. I hope you made it hurt. “What about the DF, did you find it?”

“It was hard to miss. One of the containers had been broken and mixed with alcohol from the bar. Apparently there are pools of sarin spattered all over. Which is actually good news, means that it’s relatively easy to contain. If it had been strapped to an explosive device…” He blew a breath. “We’ve locked down the restaurant, kept everyone out. Hazmat teams are working it now. Homeland Security is involved, and the FBI, and-” He shook his head.

“And the man in my apartment, the one who shot Ian?”

“No sign of him. Not that we could really expect one. We’ll dust for prints, look for DNA evidence. With chemical weapons involved, it’ll get the full-court press.”

“Will you find him?”

The cop hesitated. “I don’t know.” They sat in silence. Then he said, “Can I ask you something? Why did you do it?”

“We had to. We couldn’t let that stuff get into the hands of-”

“No, I mean, why did you do it? How do four normal people decide to do something like this? Risk everything? I mean, from what you’ve said, your lives were OK, more or less. So why? Just money?”

Her head hurt, a dull throbbing ache. “Have you always wanted to be a cop, Detective?”

“Pretty much.”

Jenn absently picked at a cuticle. “You’re lucky. I never knew what I wanted to be. Not really. When I was a kid, I used to have these fantasies. The typical stuff kids think. That they’ll be pirates and astronauts and movie stars. That they’ll save the world. That they’ll… matter.” Jenn looked up. The detective was listening intently.

“But time just keeps passing, you know? And you don’t end up astronauts. You don’t save the world. And one day you wake up in your thirties and realize that this wasn’t where you meant to be. Not that it’s awful. It’s just not what you meant.”

“I can understand that. Life, liberty, and the entitlement to happiness. But talking about it’s one thing. Doing it…”

“It started as a game. Everything with us was a game. Even our lives. We sat back and watched the time pass and met for drinks on Thursdays.” She shrugged. “I think we were just playing. Until the end, we were just playing.”

“When did you stop playing?”

“Tonight,” she said. “We all stopped tonight.”

He grimaced, and she could see that he misunderstood her. That he thought she was talking about the fact that the others had died and that she was in a police station. He was missing the larger point-that there had been a moment when they had a chance to walk away, when all they would have had to do was pick the lesser of two evils. That, and live with their decision. And instead, they had decided that it was worth fighting for something. Even if it cost them. And while she never would have guessed how much it would cost, she also knew that even armed with that knowledge, they would have done the same thing.

In the end, game theory was one thing, and life another.

She thought about correcting him, figured it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t understand anyway. “What’s going to happen now?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “No one can decide if you’re a criminal or a hero.”

“My friends were heroes,” she said quietly. “I’m not sure I’m either.”

“Maybe you’re both.” He stood up. “Come on. It’s late.”

“Are you taking me to a cell?”

“Not yet,” he said. “Until I hear otherwise, I’m focusing on the hero part.”

He put out a hand, and she took it, let him help her up. Bradley led her to a small room off the detectives’ offices lined with thin cots. “You can rest here. No one will bother you.”

“I can’t sleep.”

“You should try.” He guided her to one of the beds, found a clean blanket. “This is just getting started.”

“No,” she said. “It’s over now.”

He passed her the blanket and walked to the door. He hesitated for a moment, his hand on the light switch. “You and your friends. The things you did. Robbery, homicide. Coming to us will help, but-”

“I know,” she said. “I don’t want a free pass.”

He looked at her strangely. For a moment, she thought he might say something else. Then he flipped off the lights and gently closed the door.

Jenn Lacie lay down on the cot. The springs sagged beneath her, and she could feel the outline of the people who had slept there before her. Detectives working cases, trying to save lives or avenge them.

As she lay there, the next months and years played out in front of her. The media would go into a frenzy. There would be questions upon questions. Days of explaining, over and over. A trial, and probably punishment. And why not? They may have done right, but they’d done wrong, too.

Those things, they didn’t matter. Not really.

What mattered was trying to unravel everything that had happened. Trying to find meaning in it. To give herself over to the long hours. The pain, the tears, the guilt. The time thinking of the things they had done. To honoring her friends by trying to untangle everything so that she could see it all plain. The good, the bad. The wasted years and the beautiful moments.

The others had paid their price. This was hers. Her burden.

And when it was all over, as it eventually would be, then her tribute to them would be simple. It would be about finding a way to make it all matter. To make her life matter.

For herself. And for them. The Thursday Night Drinking Club.

Her friends.