Mostly.
I took a deep breath. “Look, I never thought I’d be saying this any more than you thought you’d be hearing it, but what about Keith? You’re planning to just leave him here to take the fall for you?”
He shrugged.
“He was your partner!” I exclaimed. “You were a guest in his fucking house. You playedgolftogether.”
“I played golf with him because I needed him to help me free slaves.”
“It sounds like you played golf with him because you wanted to fuck him over.”
“Fucking him over was Resi’s idea, not mine. But despite everything, I’m not going to stand here and say it wasn’t a good one. And what’s more, I dareyouto stand here and say that, and that he doesn’t deserve every goddamn thing that’s coming to him and more.”
No, I wasn’t going to say that because it wouldn’t be true. Not really.
I didn’t hate Keith Wainwright-Phillips, but my master certainly deserved to be hated, and normally, that would be enough for me to happily throw anybody under the bus.
Except.
“What about Louisa? Does she deserve whatever she gets?” My eyes flicked down below. Maybe it was my imagination, but the Datsun appeared to have moved from its earlier spot.
“Well,” Langer said matter-of-factly, “she could have been here now, and she’s not.”
“That’s just because I told her I hated her and plotted to destroy her and her entire family.”
“Well, fuck, kid.” He chuckled. “What the hell did you expect?”
“But I didn’tmeanit,” I insisted, like a goddamn child. “And she doesn’t believe it,” I added, with even less assurance.
“Look, only you know whether you think she believes it or not,” Langer said. “WhatIknow is that either that goon or the police or both are going to be breaking down my fucking door very shortly, and I, for one, don’t plan to be here when they do. Neither will my staff. And needless to say, ifyouare, you’re on your own.”
“But I need more time, Max.”
Time.
Why was I always asking people for time they didn’t have and that I didn’t deserve?
Still, I wrapped my hand once more around the formula in my pocket. I hadn’t intended to show it to Max. Then again, I hadn’t intendednotto show him.
“There’s something down there, on the computer. Something I missed.” I glanced warily down at the parking lot again, thinking of Noam and his muscles and his weapons. His muscles thatwereweapons. And then back up at Langer.
“Shit, kid, we don’thaveany more time. I’ve already spent way too fucking long waiting for you and your sister, and?—”
He was cut off by a sound like a buzzing wasp, tiny enough for me to want to bat it away. But it wasn’t a wasp. Wasps didn’t make entire rooftops vibrate, or quickly grow from tiny black dots on the horizon to something the size of a horse, then an elephant.
Before our eyes emerged the massive helicopter, the city lights reflecting off its whirring, hypnotic metal exoskeleton, its own lights a circus kaleidoscope of swirling pastels that illuminated its sides, bringing it alive as it soared closer and closer until it stopped and simply hovered, hundreds of feet above us, its blades echoing through the night air like a giant mechanical insect with a menacing roar that overpowered the sound of the traffic below.
Langer ran to the edge of the roof, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting something inaudible above the gigantic rotor blades, so strong they were kicking up miniature tornadoes of dust and sand. I could barely see or hear, the wind whipping almost painfully at my face and clothes. The copter was close enough now that I could make out the pilot behind its window—a black-clad man in sunglasses, pointing and shouting. Langergestured, and the copter rose by a few dozen feet, enough to give us some breathing space.
Langer turned back, and my eyes darted frantically from the helicopter to the roof to Langer.
“Listen,” I said, fingers curling weakly around the sticky note in my pocket. “Maybe we can?—”
“There’s no ‘maybe’ here anymore, kid. It was my money, my lab, my resources.” Langer raised his voice over the chilly wind whipping at us from every direction. In a second, he was going to have to start shouting. “There’s no weaseling out of this for me, kid. Even if somehow I can beat trafficking charges for the free girl, I’m still on the hook for theft and damage of the other slaves and defrauding my other investors of millions. They’ll make sure we go down hard. Believe me, these rich fuckers donotlike being taken for a ride. And I don’t blame them. What would you evendo, anyway?”
“Well, Keithisinnocent, you know.” I raised my voice to be heard. “At best, he’ll be ruined. At worst…”
“Hegets thrown in a mine? Oh, the irony.” Langer rolled his eyes. “What? Don’t look at me like that.”
