The Thief

  I don't know you anymore, she thought.

  "I am going back to work," she said.

  "Of course you are."

  She jabbed a finger at him. "I am not the bad guy here."

  "And neither am I."

  "Then why are all those candles burning in there. And while we're at it, nice shirt." She eyed his naked chest, the circular scar on the pecs signifying his membership in the Brotherhood. "Next time you attempt to convince me you haven't been with another woman, try not being half naked."

  "Jane. We need to talk this out."

  "We just did. There is nothing else to say."

  When he reached out to her, she took a sharp step back, and the sensation of something penetrating her flesh made her look down at herself.

  She had gone through the glass panels that ran as a safety railing around the edge of the terrace. In all the upset, she had become ghostly enough to find the spaces within the molecules.

  "Go then," Vishous said coldly. "Bury yourself in work. If you ever come up for air and want to talk, you know where to find me."

  And there it was, she thought, the condescension and reserve she knew so well. Vishous was back behind his gates, holed up and encapsulated, removed even as he stood right in front of her.

  "You're so damned superior," she muttered.

  "I'm the son of a fucking deity. You want me to be average?"

  She stared past his shoulder at all those lit candles. Those "toys" of his. That rack. "Just so you know, I wish I had never treated you back at St. Francis. I wish I had been off that night when you came in."

  "Well, that's one last thing we can agree on then. Cheers to us."

  They both turned away at the same time, he to go back into his den of iniquity, she to disappear.

  For a moment, it was tempting to just let herself drop, to call her corporeal form into being fully and allow gravity to do its thing, grabbing her and snapping her down to the pavement. But the impact would only matter for however long she kept herself intact. As soon as her hold on herself lapsed and she became invisible, she had to believe she would be back to non-normal.

  Or perhaps she would warp on contact with the ground. Or maybe her exterior would crack and fly apart, leaving her ghostly core uncovered.

  She wasn't going to find out. Of all the things she would never allow herself to do, at the top of the list was getting broken by a man. A male. Whatever.

  There was pain, yes. Disappointment in spades. A sense that this was either a bad dream or a case of her destiny having followed the wrong set of MapQuest directions.

  But she refused to let this sink her. V was being utterly unreasonable, unfair, and had his head up his ass if he thought he could blame her for their problems.

  As she traveled back to the Brotherhood compound, her first thought was to go to the training center and get right to work. There were always drug orders to put in and records to update and then that appointment with Layla and her young. But instead, she landed herself at the Pit's front door and hoped that Fritz was finished with the rugs.

  No such luck.

  When she walked in--or rather through--the entrance, she caught the old-fashioned, vaguely minty spice of Spic and Span, and sure enough, the doggen had switched his black jacket for a full body apron and was up to his elbows scrubbing the kitchen sink.

  "Mistress!" He seemed confused as he turned to her, yellow rubber gloves held up at the elbows as if he were a surgeon about to go into a patient's chest cavity. "You are back?"

  "Just to pick up a few things. Don't mind me."

  Fritz bowed so low, his jowls nearly brushed the tops of his polished black shoes. "I could have packed for you if you two are staying overday--"

  "Don't worry about a thing. The floors and kitchen are much more important."

  His smile was of relief and pleasure, making the lie worth it. The truth was, she didn't care about the floors or the kitchen. The roof or the chimney--did the Pit even have a chimney? It was no longer her concern.

  "I'll just get my things," she murmured.

  "Mayhap I shall just help you--"

  "No." She recast her tone. "This is private."

  "Oh, but of course, madam." The butler blushed a little. "I shall carry on then."

  "Thank you, Fritz. As always."

  While he happily resumed his scrubbing, she marched down the hall like Joan of Arc, all loaded for bear. When she got to the doorway of what had been her bedroom, she didn't even hesitate, she went over to--

  Jane slowed. Stopped. Stared at the bed with its messy lineup of pillows and wrinkled duvet. There was a quantum physics textbook on one bed stand, his not hers, and a glass half filled with water, hers not his, on the other.

  It was impossible not to think of the day before, when she had filled up that tumbler in the kitchen and come down here as she always did.

  You rarely knew when you were doing something for the last time. No, that realization usually came later.

  After she'd gotten her H2O, she remembered sitting on her side of the bed and hanging her head because she had been so exhausted. Her shoulders and the back of her neck had been on fire from tension, and her hamstrings had been aching from her having been bent over Tohrment's lower leg. He'd popped his Achilles tendon again and she'd had to fix it in surgery. Pretty normal course of things--but for the fact that what should have been no more than an hour had taken three because of a bone anomaly and tons of scar tissue.

  She had flopped back and tried to hold herself corporeal because she'd been hoping V would unplug from his computers and come and join her. In the end, the tantalizing peace that fading out offered had proven irresistible, and she had let herself go, disappearing so that the only trace of her was a dent in those covers, the place where her weight and her body had once been.

  "Yeah, because I was helping his Brotherhood," she muttered as she went to their closet and grabbed a duffel.

  She took stuff out of the chest of drawers without paying much attention to what it was. Then again, her wardrobe mostly consisted of scrubs...and more scrubs. Bras and underwear were the only other things she needed. In the bathroom, she grabbed her toothbrush and her tube of Crest.

  He used Colgate.

  See? They never should have gotten together in the first place.

  On that note, she stalked out of there, proceeding down into the underground tunnel, returning to where she was both needed...and wanted.

  EIGHT

  The following day at around eight a.m., Sola walked to her neighborhood market with a grocery list her vovo had insisted be filled. It was good to feel like there was something she had to do. Something that was normal and uncomplicated, but necessary nonetheless.

  Distraction was key. Otherwise, she was going to start packing and head for Caldwell.

  Which would be a really stupid idea.

  Entering the store, which had as much in common with a Walmart as a horse and buggy had with rush-hour traffic, she was embraced by her heritage. In the cramped little space, all the aisle markers, the price listings, and the labels were in Spanish. Overhead, Latin music murmured softly, more like a pleasing scent in the air than anything registering in the ear. And the patrons all had dark hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin like her.

  Well, she would have had dark hair without the dye job. God, she hated the blond. Next month, she was going as a redhead, damn it.

  Checking the list, she read her grandmother's scribbles as if they were her own, the quirky construction of the vowels and consonants indecipherable to others, easy for her.

  She was going to need--

  Habaneros...locotos...pequins? And a ghost pepper--which you could get here even though it was of Indian derivation rather than South American?

  Was her grandmother trying to kill her through capsaicin?

  "I saved you some plantains," a male voice said in Spanish.

  Sola glanced over her shoulder and forced a smile. The guy coming up to her was holdi
ng what seemed like--yes, actually, they were a really good-looking lot of plantains, and they were on her list, too.

  "Thanks," she replied.

  "I will get you a basket." He hurried over to a stack of them by the door, popping free the top one. "Here."

  As he held out the yellow plastic holder with its double handles, Sola pulled the bill of her baseball cap down lower. It wasn't that he was skeevy. He was a nice young Latino guy, who had a gold cross around his neck, friendly eyes with thick lashes, and a good shave and haircut. He had probably lived in this neighborhood his whole life, and either his father or his uncle or maybe a cousin owned this business. Naturally, he was looking to get married and have kids with a nice Latina girl because that was what the women in his family would be pushing him to do. And undoubtedly, he would take over the running of the shop after the generation above him passed.

  There was absolutely nothing controversial, scary, or threatening about him. And he was staring at her with respect--and hope.

  You have no idea who I am, she thought.

  Sola accepted the basket. "Thank you." What she wanted to say was, Stop it. "But you don't need to save things for me."

  "You always buy them on Tuesdays."

  Did she? She needed to fix that. Predictable habits were bad news for the likes of her.

  "I'll just find what's on my list and get going."

  As the screen door creaked and banged with another entry, she measured the man who came in. Forty. Loose jacket. Dark sunglasses. Could have been law enforcement. Or a drug dealer. Or a regular Joe getting his lunch on the way to his work.

  "Can I help you with what you need?" The supermarket guy nodded down at her slip of paper. "If you want me to ever bring you things, I can do that, too. We have a delivery service."

  "No, I'm good. Thanks."

  Loose Jacket Man walked by without seeming to notice her or check her ass when he thought she wasn't looking. But that didn't mean anything. Maybe this was Benloise's crew finally catching up with her.

  Sola fell into step a little distance behind him and watched the fall of that jacket, looking for signs of a shoulder holster. When he paused by a display, she popped her list up and re-traced her grandmother's writing with her eyes. Perfect timing--she was in the canned-tomato aisle.

  When the man continued on without pulling anything off a shelf, she resumed the trail.

  He ended up in the refrigerator section, grabbing two pre-made, microwavable chicken tortillas and a Coke. He left money next the register, calling out to her friend with the baskets and the plantains in Spanish. Then he was gone.

  She took no deep breath of relief and there was no easing of her tension.

  This was life now. Anywhere she went.

  Doubling back, because she had missed a lot of stuff during her skulk, she got everything and then went to check out at the counter. The young guy came over and first processed the man's lunch purchase; then he started scanning in bar codes, moving the boxes, cans, and cartons, over the reader.

  "We have a lot of regulars," he said. "My pop, he owns this place, can remember their fathers and grandfathers."

  "Loyalty is good."

  "We're getting more and more new faces, though. People are moving in from other places." He looked up with a smile as if he were hoping she would fill in her particular blank. "Where are you from originally?"

  "Nowhere." She got out her billfold and tried to estimate how much it would be. "I'm not from anywhere."

  "I was born here, but my parents, they came over from Cuba. Oh--I have a coupon for these." He leaned down under the counter--

  And she went for her gun, tucking her hand into her jacket.

  Stopping that instinct before she blew his head off, she forced herself to keep in control. And sure enough, he popped up with a battered old folder full of colorful flyers, instead of a weapon.

  "It's okay," she said as he started going through the pages. "Really."

  He glanced up. "I'd like to help."

  "I'm kind of in a hurry."

  "Oh. Okay." He shrugged and put the thing away. "Busy day ahead?"

  She made a show of inspecting the lottery-ticket selections behind him, the rolls of tickets lolling out of their vertical slots like dog tongues in August. "Have you ever sold a winner?"

  He nodded and smiled. "We had fifty dollars last week."

  "Outstanding."

  When everything had been added up, she pushed her money at him and bagged for herself as he made change. Then she was out of there with a quick bye.

  She was going to have to find another place to shop, and that sucked because his market was so close and had really good--well, plantains, among other things.

  On the street with her plastic bags of her vovo's list, she walked fast, searching the faces of every person who came toward her as well as the pedestrians across the street and those behind her. There was no fear for her, though. No paranoia, either.

  Okay, fine, maybe there was a little paranoia. Bottom line, she was living out that last scene of The Sopranos, waiting, waiting, for the end to come from an unexpected angle--only there was no Journey soundtrack and she had a better hairline than Tony had had. Waistline, too.

  Going back to Caldwell was not going to help any of this reality, she reminded herself. The people who were after her weren't going to grant her a mercy pass because she was up there on a humanitarian mission. They were going to look at her conscience as a stroke of luck for them.

  Assuming they hadn't found her already and only had yet to reveal themselves.

  By the time she stepped out of her building's elevator on the fifth floor, she was feeling no better about anything. Not Assail. Not the shadows still thrown by the life she had lived. Not--

  As she opened the door to the condo, she stopped and cursed.

  There was a suitcase by the armchair that had been briefly relocated earlier. As well as a duffle bag, a pair of winter coats, two sets of gloves and scarves, and her grandmother's pocketbook.

  "Vovo," she groaned.

  Her grandmother came out of the back, where the bedrooms were. "We go now. Drive through. Get there eight tomorrow morning if we no stop."

  "No."

  "You right. Closer to ten."

  Her grandmother had changed out of her housecoat and was in one of her handmade dresses. She even had hose and short-heeled pumps on. Her hair had been curled and sprayed, looking like a washed-out version of Sally Field's Steel Magnolias brown football helmet, and yes, there was lipstick involved.

  "This is not a good idea, Vovo." Sola let the door close itself behind her. "It's not safe in Caldwell."

  "They will keep us safe."

  Sola looked around the condo, taking in all of the anonymity. Then she stared at her grandmother with hard eyes. "You know what kind of man Assail is. You know his business."

  "And."

  As those old eyes glared right back at her, she wanted to curse some more. But she knew better. And she should have known "criminals" and "against-the-law" were relative terms to her vovo. The woman had a long history with people who were less than on the up-and-up.

  Make that loved ones who were not all that law-abiding.

  Fine, time to bring out the big guns, Sola thought.

  "He's not Catholic."

  "He will convert."

  "Vovo." She shook her head. "You need to stop this. Even if we help him--and honestly, what can I do for someone who's terminal?--he and I are not going to get married or anything."

  "We go now. Why we talking?"

  The old woman bent down, draped her winter coat over her arm, and picked up her pocketbook.

  Jesus, Sola thought. Now she knew what people had to deal with when they crossed her: Brick. Frickin'. Wall.

  She closed her eyes. "I made a vow to God. I promised Him, if He saved me, if I got to see you again, I would leave...that life...forever."

  "Assail, I called. I called him that night when you were taken. He
came when I needed him. God brought you back to me through him. So now we go. We help who helped us. That is the way."

  Sola shifted the plastic bags of groceries around to relieve the pinching of her hands and fingers. When that didn't help, she put the weights down on the floor.

  "I don't know if I can protect you up there. Or protect myself."

  "And I say they will take care of us."

  Will you forgive me, Vovo, she wondered. If something goes wrong, will you forgive me?

  Will I forgive myself?

  "You are all that matters," Sola said hoarsely.

  Her grandmother came forward. "We will go. It is God's way."

  "How do you know that?"

  The smile that came back at her was old, and wise, and very beautiful. "I, too, prayed. To the Virgin Mary. I prayed you see Assail again, and then God sent those men to our house last night. We will leave now. Come."

  With that, her grandmother, who not only had no driver's license, but couldn't reach the pedals on anything other than a tricycle, headed for the door.

  "Bring the groceries with the suitcases, Sola" was the command over her shoulder.

  NINE

  It was a little after ten o'clock two evenings later when Vishous materialized into the alleys of downtown, re-forming in the lee of some crappy-ass walk-ups on the east side of the city's armpit of skyscrapers.

  By a stroke of luck, the normal rotation schedule had not required him to be on deck the evening before, so he had managed to isolate himself from everyone for a good forty-eight hours, crashing at the modest ranch Layla had lived in during her estrangement from the household. V had not contacted anyone, not even to ask Fritz to bring him food and drink.

  Learned that lesson well enough, fuck him very much.

  And hey, Arby's had been good enough back in his bachelor days, and it was good enough now.

  As his time to calm the fuck down had come to a close, there had been a part of him that had debated going off the grid and pulling a permanent relocation. Shit, there were plenty of places to disappear to if a male wanted to not get found. In the end, however, he decided he wanted to fight more than he wanted to be in a pussy's retreat.

  On that note, the Hummer he was looking for came around a street corner like a predator stalking dinner, its headlights off, its running lights glowing softly, the steam coming out of its tailpipe curling up orange and red. As it stopped in front of him, the passenger door opened, a long leg with a shitkicker at the end landing treads-deep in the dirty, packed snow.