“There’s nobody I trust more,” I said. “And nobody who’d give up the ghost if he made it to hell and back.”
“Heard he took a bullet,” Tristan said. “He still walks funny?”
“Yeah, but he’s still smarter than you,” I said. I heard the old, rusty laugh, the one that meant he was already on board. “Fine. You get thirty-six hours. I’ll have a place ready,” he said.
There were things I’d never said to Marco: that I resented how easy it was for him to make friends, how he could walk blind into a roomful of guns and walk back out with half of them convinced he was their best shot at salvation. He was the only person I’d trust to keep Jade alive, and the only person dumb enough to try.
I watched him pack the car—bottled water, protein bars, a battered road atlas, the thumb drive zipped into a pouch taped under the seat. He double-checked the oil and tire pressure and then circled the block twice to see if anyone had picked up the tail. When he came back, his face was pale and serious.
“You sure you can’t come?” he said. “She’s gonna be pissed.”
“She’ll get over it,” I said. “Just keep her off the grid until you hit Boston. Callahan’s people will take it from there.”
He nodded, but he didn’t look at me. “You really think Dad’s done with us?”
“Never,” I said. “But he’s distracted. Caruso’s making noise, and the feds are circling. That buys us a few days.”
Marco scrubbed a hand over his face, then grinned. “So that’s the plan. Run like hell, and hope the world’s too busy to notice?”
“For you,” I said. “Can you do that for me? Can you keep her safe?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Always,” Marco said. He held the grin for a second, then let it fade. “You take care of yourself, all right?”
“You take care of yourself too.”
He shrugged, like he was already halfway out the door. “Don’t make me regret this, big brother.” I watched him go, the back of his head ducking under the garage door, the quick, loose-limbed gait that always looked like he was about to break into a run. The day hadn’t fully started, not even the birds seemed awake.
“Are you going to say bye to Jade?”
“No,” I said. “I’ll see her again.”
I peered inside to see Jade still sleeping and then grabbed the keys to the other car.
It was a little after six. I put eighty-four miles between myself and the warehouse before I let my hands stop shaking. I wasn’t running—from Jade, from Marco, from the memory of my father with his eyes like a bottomless pit—but sometimes you have to build the future one hour at a time, and this was the hour I had.
Traffic was nothing, not even a cop the whole stretch, just the hiss of tires and the pulse of the horizon bleeding pale pink into a sky that looked like it might finally, finally clear. My phone buzzed once, then again, and I didn’t even need to glance at the screen to know it was Marco. He’d probably find a way to text me from a burning coffin if it meant getting in the last word. I waited, five minutes, then ten, then pulled into the parking lot of an all-night diner.
I ordered coffee and eggs. Didn’t taste either. Watched the waitress, the way she stood at the window and spread grape jelly onto toast with the edge of her nail. She saw me watching and gave a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, then turned away, shoulders squared. Everyone in this place had a story that didn’t forgive itself.
I sipped, waited, and finally checked my phone.
The first message was from Marco, picture attached: Jade, asleep in the car, seatbelt slung loose across her chest. Her face was turned toward the window, lips just parted, and she looked younger than I remembered, softer, like the sharp edges of the last week had finally dulled. Marco’s caption: “Boston-bound. ETA 2hr. :-)”
The second message was shorter, just two words: “Miss you.” I put the phone face-down on the table and let the words hang in the air, half-expecting them to burn through the Formica and brand themselves onto my palm.
I waited another hour before I moved. The news feed on the TV over the diner counter was already looping the Toronto story on low volume, the anchor’s voice a drone of scandal and denials. They hadn’t linked my name—not yet. The video edits focusedon Heller’s face, on the panicked blur of stock footage from inside the facility. No mention of Jade, no hint that the real meat was waiting for somebody hungry enough to dig.
Good. The longer they stayed off the scent, the better shot we had.
I paid in cash, left an absurd tip—old habits died harder than anything else—and walked back out to the car. The engine coughed, then turned over on the second try. I drove aimlessly for a while, circling the city, watching the skyline mutate from darkness to the stutter of morning. The world was waking up, and I was still in the same borrowed skin, waiting for the next move.
I made my way to the FBI headquarters office in NYC.
I parked a block away, ditched the car, and walked the last quarter mile with my hands in my pockets, head down like I was pissed off about the weather and not the fact that I was about to walk into a federal building with the digital equivalent of a dead man’s switch. The security at the door eyed me, but I’d long ago mastered the art of being invisible when I needed it. I signed in under a false name, let them wand me, and ignored the way my heart tried to punch through my ribs when the scanner chirped over the phone in my coat.
The waiting area was classic government: eggplant-purple chairs, a potted plant that looked like it had been purchased from IKEA in the Clinton administration, and an inspirational poster of a bald eagle soaring over a foggy canyon. I sat with my back to the wall and watched the flow of agents and support staff, each of them walking the same tightrope between boredom and dread. Nobody so much as glanced at me.
