The Inner Circle

90

"Beecher…” Dallas warns through the phone.

“I’m already gone,” I say, shoving open the lobby’s glass door and darting out into the cold. My body bakes in the weird sensation from the heat in my winter coat mixing with the brutal wind from outside. But as I weave past the concrete benches in front of the brick building…

“Make sure Nico’s not following,” Dallas says, reading my mind.

I check. And check. And recheck again.

The glass door is shut. From what I can tell, there’s no movement inside.

“Get out of there!” Dallas adds as I run for the narrow black path that snakes through the snow and leads back up to the parking lot. I recheck one more time, but as I turn around, my legs feel like toothpicks, ready to snap and unable to hold my weight. But this time-all the times-I’m not looking for Nico. I’m looking for her.

For Clementine.

My mind swirls into rewind, replaying every moment, every interaction, every conversation we’ve had since she “magically” returned to my life. I thought I was lucky. I thought I was blessed. How many guys get to reconnect with the girl they used to dream of? The answer’s easy. None.

I replay our night on the bridge… and the homemade photo she made of us… and how she understood me in a way that Iris never did. I try to tell myself how stupid and cliche and dumb every precious moment was-but the toughest truth, as the bitter pain in my belly tells me, is how bad I still want every damn second of it to be real.

Still running on toothpicks, I tear as hard as I can, putting as much space between myself and the building as possible. My stomach nearly bursts, feeling like a rolled-over carcass. How could she do this to me?

“Beecher, are you-?”

“I–I saw him,” I tell Dallas.

“Nico?”

“No. I saw him. He’s here. I saw Eightball!”

“What’re you talking about?”

“He’s alive. We assumed he was dead-that Wallace killed him all those years ago-but he’s-” At the top of the hill, the path dumps me back in the parking lot that sits right across from Nico’s home building. Within seconds, I beeline for Dallas’s old Toyota and fish the keys from my pocket. “Don’t you see, Dallas? We were right-about Eightball… and the blackmail… That’s what they were doing. That’s how they found out what happened all those years ago,” I add as I whip open the car door and slide into the front seat. “Maybe they found Eightball… or Eightball whispered it-either way, they used that to blackmail-”

“I think it’d be best if you put down the phone now,” a soft gentlemanly voice suggests from the backseat.

“Whatthef-!” I jump so high, my head slams into the roof.

“I also highly recommend not turning around,” the man warns. “I see what you’re doing,” he adds as we lock eyes in the mirror. He’s an older black man with silver hair and a matching silver mustache. “I’m begging you, Beecher-this is the time when you want to use that big brain of yours. Now please… put the phone down, and put your hands on the steering wheel.”

His voice is kind, almost soothing. But there’s no mistaking the threat, especially as I spot his shiny silver weapon just above the back of my headrest.

At first, I assume it’s a gun. It’s not.

It’s a straight-edge razor.