Dare You

  “Uh-huh,” Dad said. He’d gotten to the so-distracted-he-wasn’t-even-hearing-me-anymore stage.

  I pulled open the bottom drawer. It was full of old photo envelopes. God only knew what they were—pictures of me in a preschool music program or in the bathtub or something equally as mortifying. I opened the first envelope.

  And sat down hard under the wave of crimson.

  There she was, smiling at the camera, all teeth and cheekbones and hippie hair. I touched her face, ran my finger down the length of her body, my breath taken away by the flood of brown and cyan and crimson so thick it felt like blood on the back of my tongue. I flipped through the stack, faster and faster, some of the photos dropping onto the floor between my legs.

  Mom smiling under the sun. Mom lying in a pool of her own blood. Mom posing on a park bench. Mom stretching her hand out toward me, telling me to run. Mom sitting on a fire escape. Mom breathing that last guttural breath.

  How could it be the same Mom? I didn’t remember her like this at all. I only ever remembered her last terrible moments.

  “Did you take these?” I asked, my voice croaky and bent. Dad didn’t answer. “Dad? Did you take these pictures of Mom?”

  “Huh?” He barely glanced over. “Yeah, probably. She was my first model.”

  “Was I born yet?”

  “Depends on the picture. Some, yes. Some, no.”

  I opened another envelope of photos. There were more of Mom, this time holding my tiny hand. Dad with us, a huge hat dwarfing his face. Another one of her stretched back against a bar. Leaning heavily at an awkward angle. Her smile was only on her lips, and it looked tired and sick. And in that picture, I could see it—a tiny baby bump. Nothing that I would’ve noticed if I hadn’t been looking for it. I pressed my finger onto her stomach. Was that bump me? Or was it Peyton? Did Dad know about the baby when he was taking this picture?

  The next photo was one of Mom at a bus station, holding two suitcases, looking frazzled and nervous. A giant white wool coat engulfed her, making her look tiny beneath it. Behind her, ancient boards told the arrivals and departures of the buses in blues and greens and grays. Salinas, Modesto, Bakersfield—bubble blue, muted gray, spongy tawny. Colors you’d see on a forest floor. I could smell moss.

  “Where were you going in this one?” I asked, holding the photo out for Dad to see.

  He flicked a look, then studied it. “Oh. Not we. Just her. She had an assignment. Somewhere. I can’t remember now. We lived apart for a while, just you and me rattling around the old house without her.” He grinned sadly. “Who’d have known it would end up being a permanent rattle someday, huh?”

  I studied the photo again. It was impossible to tell what was under that coat. “How long was she gone?” I asked.

  “Hmm.” His hand paused on the mouse. “I guess about five months or so. Too long.”

  Five months or so. Long enough to have a baby?

  “What was the assignment?” I asked in mint-green puffs, a spearmint cold front.

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember. The project fizzled. Never got produced. Something about the funding being pulled. She was pretty torn up when she got back.”

  Oh, Mom.

  “I think she was pretty disappointed about it,” Dad said. “She went through quite a bit of depression for a few months. It was a tough time for her, even though we were certainly glad to have her back.”

  I forced myself to put away the picture of Mom at the bus station and opened the last envelope. It was a movie set, that much was for sure. I didn’t see Mom anywhere. Just props and random cast members and scenery that I didn’t recognize.

  And then a photo of a dinner. Dad in the foreground, his arm wrapped around a tall man whose skin was so tan and hair was so white, it looked like he’d been living on the surface of the sun. The white-haired man wore a huge belt buckle, the letters VP—candy cane and mustard—pressed into it. I wondered if VP meant vice president, and what he might have been vice president of.

  Both of them had their heads thrown back in laughter. I started to ask Dad who the guy was when something caught my eye. Papers scattered on each of the tables in the background, along with confetti and champagne glasses. Flyers, their tiny print coming at me in glittery lilac.

  A glittery, shimmery lilac I’d seen before.

  A lilac that made me feel stuck in gray-and-black quicksand.

  The papers were flyers for Hollywood Dreams.

  One of the photos slipped out of my hands and fluttered to the floor, swept under the desk on an air current.

  Licking my lips, which had suddenly gone very dry, and trying to look nonchalant, I slid off the chair and knelt to pick it up.

  Something pushed far back under the desk caught my eye. A black box. Metal. About the size of a shoe box. Closed, with a combination lock. A thick layer of dust—mint-green dust—coated the top of it. How long had it been there? And why had I never seen it before?

  Because I never really hung out in Dad’s office, that was why. It was boring. Plus, it was his space. He was territorial about it. Always worried that I would “lose something” or “ruin his work” or “leave a mess.”

  Or maybe he was worried about what I might find in here. So far, I’d found far more than I’d ever expected. Dad knew about Hollywood Dreams? He had to have known. No way could he have missed all those flyers at that party.

  And now, this.

  “I think she really had her hopes set on that project being her big break,” Dad said, still unaware that I was on the floor.

  “Yeah, probably,” I answered. I reached out and spun the combination dial with my fingers. Of course, it was still locked.

  I needed to find that combination.

  I needed to find out what exactly Dad was hiding from me. And why it was so important he had to lock it in a box.

  I had no idea what the combination might be. And I could hardly hang out on the floor trying to figure it out, with him right in the same room. I had to act like there was nothing amiss. Like I hadn’t seen anything, not even in the pictures I’d found.

  I pulled myself off the office floor, straightened the photos with shaking hands, and crammed them into their envelope, which I dropped back into its spot in the bottom drawer. I would leave them there for later, when Dad wasn’t around. When I could sit in here and try to figure out just what it was I was missing.

  I NEEDED TO think, and I always did my best thinking while smoking. Or at least that was what I liked to tell myself. So the first thing I did when I got back to my room was light a cigarette. I pulled open my window and sat with my legs hanging out, tapping my bare heels against the side of the house. I blew out a stream of smoke and took a deep breath. Already it was hot, and I wasn’t even out of my pajamas yet. If this heat kept up, it was seriously going to cut into my smoking time. Which, if you asked Detective Martinez, would probably be a good thing.

  I mentally catalogued every number that might be important in Dad’s life. His birthday. Mine. Mom’s. Our house number. Our phone number. Any combination of any of those numbers could open that box. Or numbers I hadn’t even thought of yet. Was it possible that I would ever figure it out? Probably not.

  I tossed my unfinished cigarette to the ground and swiveled back into the air-conditioning, lifting my hair off the back of my neck, which was already getting sweaty.

  My phone buzzed. Jones.

  Coming over today?

  I chewed the side of my nail. I really wasn’t in the mood for more babysitting, courtesy of the most caring boyfriend on earth.

  Can’t. Staying in.

  He must have been waiting for me to respond, because I’d barely pressed send before it buzzed again.

  Want me to come over?

  A memory of Jones’s bare chest, his powerful hands on me. A flash of violet that made my legs feel weak. But . . .

  No. Hanging with Dad.

  Later?

  May be going to dojang later. I’ll call.

&nb
sp; That was the second time this morning I’d mentioned going to the dojang. It wasn’t until I pressed send again that I realized that I did actually feel like going to LightningKick. It was the only place I felt like going to. I couldn’t walk around in fear all the time. And the more I kicked the shit out of a plastic dummy torso, the less fearful I would be. I took a quick shower, let my hair hang loose and wavy down my back, and climbed into a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. When I got out, I noticed that I had another alert on my phone.

  “Damn, Jones, give it a rest,” I said aloud, folding my legs underneath myself as I sat on my bed. But it hadn’t been Jones. It had been Detective Martinez.

  I hit call.

  “Nikki,” he said, picking up after the first ring.

  “Miss Kill,” I reminded him for the thousandth time. I could hear an exasperated puff of air into the phone, but I knew that if I were with him, that puff of air would be accompanied by the slightest grin, leaving me wondering what his eyes looked like behind his sunglasses, and guessing they would be smiling. “What’s up?”

  “You didn’t listen to my message?”

  “Nope. Didn’t even notice that you left me one. What’s the deal?”

  He sighed, sounded impatient. “I need to see you.”

  Ordinarily, this would leave me annoyed. He was always needing to see me—almost as bad as Jones. Seven months ago, he was constantly following me in the name of “protection.” It annoyed the shit out of me. But right now, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself, much less out loud, I sort of didn’t mind the protection. Plus, I had gotten kind of used to him. In a passion-fruit kind of way. Even thinking the word passion while on the phone with him made me blush. God, Nikki, get your shit together. He has a girlfriend. And the last thing you need is a crush on a cop.

  Cops were definitely not my favorite people in the world. Cops had screwed up my mom’s investigation and eventually just shelved it altogether. Cops had put me and Dad off for months, maybe years, before we finally gave up. Cops couldn’t help Peyton. Cops couldn’t save Dru. Cops couldn’t put the Hollises away. Not even Luna, who they had right in their hands.

  “Negative,” I said. “I’m staying home today.”

  “It’s not a request,” he said. I heard a door open and close. “It’s an order.”

  I laughed out loud. “I take orders from you now? In that case, I really don’t think so. I’m staying home.”

  A woman’s voice in the background. See you tonight. The sound of a kiss close by, like someone had just pecked him on the cheek. I rolled my eyes. I knew in theory Blake Willis was supposed to be helping me out. But I also knew that if we couldn’t find Rigo and prove my innocence, she would be right there in the courtroom taking me down. It was her job.

  “There’ve been some developments that you should know about,” Martinez said.

  “What developments?”

  “I really feel like we need to discuss these things in person.”

  I leaned back against my headboard, pulling a string on the seam of my yoga pants. “Okay,” I said. “I’m going to LightningKick. You up for a little sparring?”

  “You just can’t get enough, can you?” I could hear the smile in his voice again. I could almost taste passion fruit on my lips.

  16

  YOU HEADING OUT?” Dad asked, still absorbed by the photo spread on his computer as I walked by.

  I jumped. “Huh? Oh. Yeah. Off to the dojang.”

  He swiveled to face me, pushing his glasses up on his nose to study me. “It’s been a while,” he said. “You’re up to it?”

  I nodded. “I guess I’m about to find out.”

  I expected those words—the prospect of fighting again—to make me nervous, but found that they didn’t.

  The last thing I’d kicked was the back of Luna’s head.

  I needed to kick something again.

  TECHNICALLY, IT WAS time for the four-year-old class. Mommies led impossibly little boys and girls, swimming in crisp doboks, by the hand through the front doors. Every time someone pulled a door open, I could see my instructor, Kyo Sah Nim Gunner, standing at the front desk, ready to check everyone in. I could tell he saw me, too, but was waiting to see what I would do.

  Even I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do.

  You’re going to get out of your car, Nikki, and you’re going to go in there. And you’re going to kick the hell out of the sparring dummy and prove to yourself that you can do it.

  I wasn’t sure. I was a good liar, after all, even to myself. But I knew I would never forgive myself if I didn’t at least try.

  Gunner was leading the kids in a stretch, but he got up when I walked in. “Keep stretching, guys, I’ll be right back.” He jogged over to greet me.

  “I thought that was you,” he said. “I was starting to worry that you wouldn’t be coming back at all.”

  “Just needed a break,” I said. “I was kind of burnt out. Busy with schoolwork. Getting ready for graduation, that type of thing.” Lies, lies, lies. But the kind of lies I needed to tell, if I was going to do this.

  He nodded, looking skeptical. He knew what had happened with Luna and the Hollises. He knew I’d beaten them using my skills. And he probably knew that was what had scared me from coming back. He gestured toward the mat. “I’ve got the tigers class, so I can’t really talk.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I was just hoping I could hit the dummy a few times? I know it isn’t open gym, but . . .”

  He looked uncertain, which surprised me a little. Usually Gunner treated his black belts like part owners, giving us unending trust and our run of the dojang pretty much anytime we wanted it. “Yeah, okay,” he finally said. “Just try to keep it down. I’ve got some easily distracted ones over there.”

  “No problem.”

  I turned toward the locker room to put on my dobok, but Gunner touched my shoulder, stopping me.

  “Hey, listen. I haven’t had a chance yet to tell you I’m sorry about what happened to you a few months ago. Had I known the situation was so dangerous . . .”

  I smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Gunner. You were there, even though you weren’t technically there.” I tapped my forehead. This seemed to please him. I gestured downward. “I broke my foot, though.”

  He grinned. “Sounds like you gave it your all, then.”

  “Have you ever known me to give it anything less?”

  “Not once.” One of the moms jumped up from her chair, leaned over the half wall that separated the viewing area from the floor, and yelled at her kid to stop messing around. “I should get back before I lose them,” Gunner said. “Whose idea was it to start a four-year-old group?”

  “Well, you know you’re all about the money, money, money, Mr. Greed.”

  He laughed out loud. “Yeah, that’s it.” Then, just before he bowed at the edge of the mat, he turned again. “It’s great to have you back, Nikki.” He ticked his head toward the sparring dummy, looking pasty and suffering on his base. “Go easy on him.”

  “Now why on earth would I do that?”

  I WAS ALREADY twenty horse kicks and half a dozen four-knuckle strikes into the sparring dummy by the time Detective Martinez arrived at the dojang. Sweat poured down my forehead, and my dobok stuck to my chest and lower back.

  Every strike, every kick, was accompanied by the same thought, over and over: Dad is hiding something. Dad is hiding something. Dad is hiding something.

  But was he really? Lots of people kept important papers in locked boxes, right? Things like mortgages and marriage licenses. And death certificates.

  No. I knew where Dad kept those things—in a short file cabinet in the basement.

  And then there was the photo of him, all those Hollywood Dreams flyers on the tables surrounding him.

  Why would he have a secret box under his desk? Did he know who owned Hollywood Dreams? And what else did he know that he wasn’t telling me? Did he know about the affair? Did he know about P
eyton?

  God, how mixed up was my family in all of this?

  Just thinking about it made me nauseated.

  “Save some energy for me,” Detective Martinez said, shuffling out onto the mat. He was in a pair of skintight gray sweats and a police T-shirt that stretched across his pecs. I could almost see the six-pack beneath, lit up in violet lines. I shook my head. I didn’t have time for violet, not now.

  I turned and bowed to him. “I’ve got plenty to go around, Detective. Glad you came to get your share.” I dropped back into my fighting stance.

  Detective Martinez liked to fight close. He relied on the grab, on the takedown. I was a distance fighter, using my feet as my weapons. I knew if I let him close the space between us, I would lose. I hated to lose.

  “So what is this about?” I warmed up with a few front snap kicks to his midsection. After the first one, he blocked them all, batting them away without even looking.

  “Mostly it’s about checking to make sure you’re okay.” He jabbed, but it was listless, tentative. He knew that going easy on me would piss me off and I would do something rash, giving him plenty of opportunity to take me down. I was not going to bite. Go ahead and throw your wimpy swats, Detective. I’ve got all day.

  “Oh, so we’re back on that, are we? Will you listen to me if I tell you I’m fine and you don’t need to bother, or am I just wasting my breath?” We danced a little, feinting and pulling back.

  “Probably a little bit of both.” I went in for a forefist jab—not my strongest move, and almost a total mistake. He blocked my jab and rushed toward me with a quick right-left block-strike that knocked me off balance. Instead of taking me down, though, he simply pushed me away and grinned. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think Luna will mess with you.”

  I let out a laugh, regained my balance, danced a little. Threw a light hook that he batted away. “What on earth would make you think that? Luna lives to mess with me. And if she can prove that I was the one who attacked Peyton—something she’s already done a pretty good job of proving, by the way—things will get much easier for her. All she has to do is say I was there to finish her off, and Dru got caught in the crossfire of self-defense. Done. Nikki goes to prison and Luna continues her life as a drug dealer, high-dollar hooker, and general pain in the ass.”