“Still in New York. We found one of the doctors who’s working with AAE. Do you have a pen?”
You can hear her as she shifts papers on her desk. A drawer slides open and closed. “Ready . . .”
“His name is Dr. Richard Reynolds. He’s at Bellevue Hospital. He was the one who supplied them with the drug, and he knows the head of the organization. Some guy they call Cal. He said they met a handful of times in New York.”
“What do you mean, ‘he said’? Did you go to talk to him? You shouldn’t—”
“I’m sorry, but we had to. We needed answers. But now AAE knows we found him.”
There’s a long pause. You stare out into the diner parking lot, some place called the Golden Coach. As you listen to the sound of her breathing, you pick at the edges of one of the stickers, working it away from the metal. Celia doesn’t respond. You can’t bring yourself to tell her about Salto. “We were trying to get help.”
“I know.” She sighs. “But for now make it your job to stay alive. When you have something concrete, call me, and let me handle the rest.”
“I gotta go.”
She says something else, but the receiver is already away from your ear.
Maybe you should’ve just called her and told her about Reynolds. AAE would’ve never known you were looking at him. She might’ve been able to find some other way to bring him in. If you had, Salto might not have gotten shot.
You cut through the lot to the car. Rafe parked across from the Laundromat, the stolen Accord sandwiched between two minivans. It was your idea to get a car from the parking garage by the hospital. It took a stop into a Starbucks bathroom, and a change into the dress, scarf, and shoes you wore on the train. You told the attendant you’d forgotten your ticket, and pointed to one of the silver cars all the way in the back. “That’s mine,” you said.
Thirty-two dollars later, and it was.
“What did your cop say?” he asks.
“She said she’d look into it.”
“No way she’ll ever find him. He’s probably long gone.”
You rifle through the glove compartment, passing Rafe a red-and-white mint. He unwraps it, pops it in his mouth. The Wash-o-Matic is closed. The front windows are covered with brown paper, and the whole complex is dark. The Chinese restaurant next door is shut down, a sign on the front reading OUT OF BUSINESS. You’ve been here for two hours and you haven’t seen a single person go in or out.
“We could try to break in,” you say. “It’s just . . .”
“Cameras,” he says. “I know. If they’re watching, we’re screwed.”
You stare at the side of his face. His jaw moves as he sucks on the candy. His eyelashes are so long they look fake. You haven’t talked about Ben yet, haven’t dared to say his name aloud. “You don’t have to worry about Ben,” you say. “Whatever doubts you had—”
“They know by now he’s helping us. Which means they’re going to come after him.”
“They’re coming after all of us,” you say.
Rafe turns, spits the mint out the open window. “It’s different.”
“He got us a contact—he got us here. That’s more than we had before.”
“Yeah,” Rafe says. “Tell that to Salto.”
“That’s not Ben’s fault,” you insist.
Rafe rubs the back of his neck and looks at you, his eyes narrowing. “You really think it’s a good idea to have him around? Someone who was working for AAE?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know. That it was a mistake, that you shouldn’t have brought him back. We don’t need him anymore and you’re the only one who can tell him to go home.”
“He can’t go home, Rafe.” You don’t mean to raise your voice but you can’t help it, you’re upset. “They’re watching him now. And whether you like it or not . . . in that sense, he is one of us.”
Rafe laughs, shaking his head.
“What?”
“You want him here.”
“I don’t,” you say. “I didn’t.”
You feel a surge of guilt, and you wonder if Rafe is right. Your mind drifts to when Ben pressed his lips to your forehead. He told you that he loved you—how can you push him away after that?
Rafe’s mouth thins into a line. “I just . . . I hate that he’s here.”
“I know.”
“I hate that he was the one in LA with you. It seems unfair.”
“It is. It’s all unfair.”
He lets his head fall forward, staring down at your hand resting on the center console. He grabs it. A warm feeling spreads up your arm, waking every part of you. His fingers fold around yours.
“I want you back,” he says. “I hate feeling like this.”
You stare out into the street. A car passes. Rafe’s face is momentarily lit up by the headlights, his dark eyes turning a bright, brilliant gold. When you finally look away it takes a moment to notice the motorcycle parked on the side of the Laundromat. “That wasn’t there before, was it?”
Rafe looks up. “Definitely not.”
You get out of the car, Rafe coming around the side. He pulls the cap out of his sweatshirt and puts it on. “There aren’t cameras on that side of the building,” you say, studying the edge of the roof.
“Whoever rode that in must’ve gone inside already. We’ll have to get them on the way out.”
Rafe heads for the bike, and you take the knife from the back of your belt. You push the tip of the blade into the front tire, working at the rubber, until you hear the hiss of air.
Rafe cuts the back tire as you check the bike, looking for anything that might reveal who the person is. They’ve taken the helmet with them. There’s a bungee cord strapped across the backseat for carrying things, but nothing is being held down. You pause as you hear the back door of the Laundromat fall shut, and then the hollow sound of heels on pavement.
Rafe gets to the corner of the building before you do, just in time to surprise the woman. She doesn’t have a chance to reach for the gun at her waist. Her motorcycle helmet falls out of her hands as Rafe grabs her and twists her arms behind her back.
You pull the gun from the holster at her hip, where it’s half hidden beneath a leather jacket. Her light brown hair covers her face; she can’t be more than thirty. Her cheeks have deep acne scars on them. Her eyes are rimmed with thick, uneven black liner.
“Who the hell are you?” she asks. “What do you want?”
You tuck the gun in the back of your belt, then search the front pockets of her jacket. There’s a thin wallet, keys, a phone. She has an envelope filled with cash—all hundreds.
You open the wallet, looking at her license. Krista Pollack. Her address is in Long Beach, NY. Inside there are three crinkled singles and an unused scratch-off lottery ticket.
“This is your payment?” You hold up the envelope. “For what? Are you a Watcher? A Stager? What are you doing for them?”
She tries to get away from Rafe but he holds her there. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“AAE,” you say. “Spare us.”
Rafe nods to you, and mouths something. It takes a moment for you to realize he means the gun. You pull it from the back of your belt and raise it, taking aim at the brick wall beside her. Even holding the weapon makes you uneasy.
“We need to know how you’re involved with AAE and what you’re doing here,” Rafe repeats.
She eyes the gun, and her body starts to shake. “A Stager,” she says finally. “I’m a Stager. That’s my payment. Okay?”
“You just pick up your money here?” you ask. “Or have you met people inside? We need names.”
“I’ve never met anyone. There’s no one person. There’s no first name, last name, no contracts. I don’t even know the name of the person who hired me. I don’t know, I swear I don’t . . .” She trails off, her eyes still on the gun.
“Give us something we can use. The name of your hunter—what do you know about the
m?” You keep the gun raised.
She stares at the pavement, her voice quavering. “I swear, I told you, I don’t know anything. I responded to an ad for work I saw online and from that point it was all done over the phone. I never met anyone.”
“Bullshit,” Rafe says, though you’re not so sure. You think back to what Ivan, your first Stager, said that night in Griffith Park. How he’d been approached, what he knew—it matches up. “So how do you get your instructions?”
“I picked up an envelope about two weeks ago, here. It had a device in it. I was supposed to be following the movements of someone wearing a tracking device. I was just supposed to follow him. I didn’t know what I was really doing until the end. . . .”
“The end? Why don’t you say what you mean: You’re collecting your nice fat wad of cash because some innocent kid is dead.” Rafe takes one arm and wraps it around her neck. His features change as his brows draw together, and for an instant he looks like a stranger. He puts pressure on her throat, just below her chin. “I’m going to say it again. Give us something we can use.”
Your hands are unsteady. It’s hard to keep your grip on the gun. Krista closes her eyes, but she can’t hide her expression. Her chin is tense and wrinkled, the tears streaming down the sides of her face.
When she speaks, the words are low and strained, her voice raspy from Rafe’s forearm on her throat. “When I came here to pick up my instructions, there was already someone inside the building. I didn’t go in. I didn’t know who I was dealing with then, so I waited in the alley, by my bike. A man was on the phone and I heard him through the window when he said something . . . something about meeting on the ones. I hid so he wouldn’t see me when he left.”
“Meeting on the ones?” you ask. “Where? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I waited till he was gone to go inside.”
You nod at Rafe, but he doesn’t move. His arm is still around her neck. “Enough,” you say. “Ease up.”
He releases his grip and motions for you to pass him the gun. You hand it over. “We have to go,” you say.
Rafe doesn’t turn away from the woman. He points the gun at her back, between her shoulder blades. “Rafe,” you say. “Come on. Leave her here.”
“Get me that cord.” He points to the back of the bike.
You bring him the bungee and he tucks the gun into his belt. He ties her hands, winding the thick rope around and down, then back through her wrists. When it’s tight, he secures it to a valve jutting out of the brick wall. Before you leave her, you take her phone, scanning the contacts and messages for anything useful. There’s nothing. You take out the battery and grind it into the pavement with your heel.
“She doesn’t have a phone, and her bike’s got slashed tires. She has no way out of here,” you remind him. Still, it takes him a moment before turning away.
The woods are thick behind the Laundromat. He could toss the gun back there, but he keeps it in his belt. He’s silent as he follows you to the car.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“WE DON’T NEED it,” you say, hyperaware of the gun, just visible beneath his shirt. You’re back in Manhattan. The entrance to the warehouse is somewhere ahead—Aggy texted directions to the new base camp, telling you to look for the dark red metal doors in the sidewalk that lead to a storage space beneath the warehouse. You ditched the car ten blocks away, in a different parking garage, hoping that leaving it there will buy you a day or two before anyone notices it’s stolen.
“We won’t need it until we do,” Rafe says. He adjusts his shirt so it covers the back of his belt. “And then we’ll really need it.”
It makes you uneasy, the thought of him using it, even if he needs to. He was the one who’d been so insistent that you not cross that line. On the island, when you were being hunted, he hadn’t wanted the game to change you. He said you weren’t like them.
“We have Krista’s name now,” you say. “And her driver’s license, with her address. I can direct Celia to her.”
“And Celia will . . . what? Question her? What is that going to do?”
“I don’t know, but at least we’re getting closer.” You lower your voice as you cross the street, walking past two women in four-inch heels and dresses that shimmer under the streetlights. One throws her arm up to hail a passing cab. When the taxi speeds off you approach the metal doors, which are locked from the inside.
“We have to be realistic,” Rafe says. “They might get to us before we get to them. We have until the morning, tops, before someone notices our friend by the Laundromat.”
You look to the corner, making sure there’s no one coming. There’s a cluster of people walking in the opposite direction down Forty-Fourth Street. Their backs are to you.
You rap on the door with two quick knocks. It only takes Ben a minute to open it.
“What happened?” Ben asks. The first thing you notice is his shirt, the dried bloodstain from where he was holding Salto. He’s still in the same clothes from the hospital.
“How is she?” When you get underground you see Salto is asleep in the corner, using someone’s knapsack as a pillow, her arm bandaged with a clean T-shirt. The concrete room smells of sawdust. Wooden palettes are stacked against one wall, and a single lightbulb hangs in the corner. Devon and Aggy sit up when they see you.
“She was really hurting,” Ben says. “It took her a while to get to sleep.”
“We shouldn’t have gone.” Aggy gives you a look when he says it. His eyes are barely open, the skin underneath them red.
You sit down on the floor, pulling your knees to you. There’s no arguing it—you told them to trust you, and Salto got hurt. Now you have to tell them you’ve got nothing to show for it.
“What did you come up with?” Devon says.
“We found a Stager, but she didn’t have much. Just something about a meeting ‘on the ones’ . . . whatever that means.”
Devon and Aggy shrug at the phrase.
“Tomorrow’s October eleventh,” Ben suggests. “Maybe they have a meeting, something with the hunters? She didn’t tell you anything else?”
You shake your head. It’s how AAE has survived as long as it has: an elaborate network of people, all doing specialized, individual tasks, kept almost entirely in the dark.
“I’ll give her info to my contact in LA,” you say. “She might be able to turn up something.”
Aggy shakes his head. “Yeah . . . right. Let’s keep waiting on that.”
“So where does that get us?” Devon asks.
“It doesn’t get us anywhere,” Rafe says, looking at Ben. “And now the hunters know that we’re after information about AAE. We’ve lost the advantage.”
Ben’s face tenses, and he replies, “You never had the advantage. I was trying to help you get one. Without me you wouldn’t have—”
“Without you, Salto wouldn’t have gotten shot.” Rafe leans forward when he says it. You can see the subtle change in his stance, one foot in front of the other, body turned as if he’s preparing for a fight. It’s not a threat, but close.
“I was the one who said we should go,” you say. “If you want to blame someone, blame me.”
Rafe moves around the narrow cellar, away from the group. He pulls a clean shirt from his bag. You wonder if he’ll mention the gun to them. But then you see him slip it into his knapsack, hiding it under an old pair of jeans.
“We’ll figure it out in the morning,” Rafe says. “Lena will call her contact.”
As Rafe places his pack on the floor, Ben comes to you, and you sit in a corner together. Rafe angles his head to watch.
“You okay?” Ben asks. Your hand rests on the floor between you, and he covers it with his. The warmth of his palm is comforting. You know he doesn’t blame you. He might be the only one.
Ben grabs a blanket from the top of a palette and passes it to you. You give him a small smile, grateful he’s here. “I will be. . . .”
You lay your head down
on the blanket, watching as Devon reaches up to turn off the light. It takes your eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dark. You feel Ben squeeze your shoulder before retreating to the other side of the cellar.
Soon the sound of soft breathing fills the room. It’s just after midnight, and everyone else has passed out. You want to sleep, but you can’t stop thinking of the code, meeting on the ones. If they are meeting tomorrow—tonight—on the eleventh, it would make sense for it to be somewhere in the city.
You sit up, feeling around the floor for your bag. You take out your torn notepad and start to scribble. Could Ben be right? October eleventh? You play around with a few possibilities, and after a while you flip open your phone to check the time. The screen reads 12:14 A.M.
Could the code be a time? Like 1:11 A.M. or 1:11 P.M.? Or—you think suddenly of Connor’s graffiti and how it was actually a code. This could be a location. First and 1st. One Hundred Eleventh Street might be too far from here to be a convenient meeting spot, but you could go there, too. Maybe it’s not a lead. Maybe it’s nothing. But it’s worth it to find out.
You change out of the dress and into your street clothes, careful not to wake anyone else. They’ve risked too much for you, and you won’t make them do it again.
Tonight, you’re on your own.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THE PARK IS closed, the gates locked. You had to climb onto a Dumpster to get over the fence. From the top of the playground there’s a good view of the corner. You sit there, hidden behind a plastic slide, and watch.
It only takes a few minutes before someone else approaches. A man, about six two, wearing a crisp blue button-down. His hair is graying at the temples. He doesn’t look like the type who’d be in this neighborhood at one in the morning. He goes over to the newspaper stand on the corner of First Avenue. He grabs a free paper and heads north up the block.
You check the time on your phone. 1:02 A.M. He’s the fifth person since you got there. It wasn’t obvious at first. You were watching the opposite corner, scanning the restaurants and bars to see if there were signs of people going into one specific place. But it was a green plastic newspaper stand that people kept coming back to. Free Press is written on the side. One by one, they took a paper and headed north.