Boone quietly sets the textbook down and then heads to his bedroom, Licks on his heels.
But so am I, kicking his door shut behind me. “Tell me that Viktor isn’t with the f**king mob.”
He doesn’t turn around.
“Boone!”
“I don’t know for sure, all right!”
“No. Not all right! Are you f**king kidding me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
He spins on his heels to face me. “That’s not exactly the kind of thing you talk about. And it’s not like they carry around business cards to announce themselves.” He lowers his voice. “Look . . . I’m just starting to work my way into Rust’s circle. You don’t just stroll in there, unannounced and uninvited.”
“Rust’s ‘circle’?” I make air quotes around the word. “Are you telling me that Rust is Russian mob? What the hell have you gotten me mixed up in? What are you getting mixed up in?”
“No! Rust is not with them. He’s got several businesses—two that are legit, one that technically isn’t . . .” This is the first I’m hearing that Rust may not fully be aboveboard either. “And he’s making a ton of money that I want in on. That’s all. Some of his connections may be to guys like Viktor.”
“And Viktor is mob.” It’s not a question.
“I don’t know one hundred percent, but it’s probably a safe bet to assume so. Look, I hear shit! They have a lot of business conversations around that table and they have no f**king clue that I might understand what they’re saying.”
Nausea burns my stomach as panic sets in. I rebuilt a car for the damn mob. I’ve had the wife of a Russian mobster in my bed for the past six nights. Dropping my voice, because I don’t want Alex to hear, I ask, “Is he capable of something like that?”
Boone’s mouth opens but he doesn’t speak right away, like he’s trying to choose his words. “I’ve heard that he has a bad temper.”
Would finding out that his wife is leaving him set it off? How about for the twenty-four-year-old gearhead who he hired to fix his engine? “Why wouldn’t you warn me?”
He shoots a finger at me. “I did warn you. More than once, remember?”
“No. Not about this, you didn’t.”
“Dude, what the hell was I supposed to say? I told you about the stolen cars, didn’t I? That should have been fair warning that Viktor’s not some office chump who will roll over for the guy screwing his wife.”
“Fuck you, Boone. You’re an ass**le.” I march out of his room, slamming his door on my way.
Alex is sitting on my bed, her cheeks wet with tears. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t. I’m so sorry.”
I drop to my knees in front of her, taking her hands in mine. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“What have we done?” she whispers, her eyes pleading with me. “He’s going to kill us.”
“No he’s not, because he’s never going to find out. That couple on TV—they were probably being stupid about it. That’s why they got caught. We’ve been careful. You haven’t even left the apartment since Sunday. No one knows you’re here except Boone, and he’s not going to say a thing.” Boone’s the one who brought me into the fold. I’m sure he doesn’t want to go down with us.
She dips her forehead into mine. “He’s not going to just let me leave, is he?” The defeat in her voice squeezes my heart.
“We’ll figure it out. We’ll get you away from him. I promise.”
That night, I hold her tense body against mine as we both stare out the window, not speaking, not sleeping.
And I feel it.
Everything has changed.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Water
now
“The usual, Water?” Lauren asks with a smile, reaching for two large Styrofoam cups.
“No. Not today.”
The short, apple-figured cashier and daughter of Poppa—the owner of Poppa’s Diner—freezes midway. She prides herself on knowing what the regulars want. Now she’s looking at me like I’ve thrown a wrench into her weekday routine and irreparably damaged her flow.
“The usual for Dakota,” I quickly correct. “But can I have a large with,” I cringe, “two-and-a-half milks and one sweetener?”
She cocks her head. “Honey, a what?”
I have to repeat my order three times before Lauren gives up and slides a carton of milk and a few packets of Splenda across the counter with a black coffee. “I’ll just screw it up.”
After paying, I shift over to an open table to mix my coffee, inhaling the delicious scent of bacon and home fries. Everyone and their children and their grandchildren have eaten at Poppa’s, a staple in Sisters for sixty years this summer. The white-haired man behind the grill opened the place when he was twenty-two years old and still works seven days a week, double-time on weekends, when the town packs the small place. Even now it’s buzzing with light chatter, half the tables occupied by the retired population.
“Excuse me.” I look up to find an older woman with short auburn hair standing opposite me. “Are you Ginny Fitzgerald’s cousin?” Her blue eyes glance over the right side of my face and I can see her mentally adding a check mark next to “giant scar.” Whoever gave her my description didn’t neglect to mention that. I wonder where it was on the list of my identifying features.
“I am.”
Her face softens. “I’m glad to meet you. My name is Hildy. Ginny and I used to be best friends.”
“Really?” I can’t keep the surprise from my voice. Ginny had a best friend?
She chuckles. “Yes, for most of grade school and into high school. We were going to move to Seattle together, the summer after we finished our senior year.”
“Were going to” obviously means that they didn’t.
Hildy doesn’t elaborate on the reasons why, but she doesn’t need to. “I went anyway, and then met my husband, and got married. Then I had children and we just . . . we lost touch.” Her brow pulls together in a way that tells me she genuinely feels bad about that. “I’ve thought about her over the years, but you know how it is. Well, I suppose you’re still too young to lose touch with people, but you’ll understand one day.”
I stifle my derisive snort. Lady, you have no idea how out of touch I am.
“Well, didn’t my granddaughter go on about the amazing ranch where she just brought her horse, Lulu, for boarding. I didn’t put two-and-two together until she started describing the barn and the corral. I realized I had been there before. Plenty of times, actually.”
“You’re Zoe’s grandmother?”
Her head bobs up and down. “She’s a good girl, that Zoe. Too bad she has a schmuck for a father.” She pauses. “I would like to come visit Ginny when Zoe and Teresa go again. Do you think Ginny’d be okay with that? I’d love to see her. Talk to her again.”
“I’m sure I can talk her into it.” Ginny could use a friend. One that doesn’t walk on all fours and harbor fleas.
“Thank you so much.” She reaches out to pat my forearm, and my chest instantly fills with warmth. “My daughter said you were a kind girl. Ginny’s lucky to have you.”
I watch Hildy leave Poppa’s, her words clinging to me. Ginny’s lucky to have me. I’ve always thought of it as the other way around.
I finally dare take a sip of my coffee.
I don’t believe it.
Jesse was right. I am a two-and-a-half milks and one sweetener.
Or maybe I just want to be?
“What are you drawing now?” I lean over Dakota’s shoulder to peek at her sketchbook, watching her black pen fill in a frog’s belly with steady strokes.
“Tina wants to get this on the back of her neck for her eighteenth birthday, to symbolize her transformation,” she explains, leaning against the counter on an elbow, her chin propped in her palm.
Tina is Lauren’s daughter, and Poppa’s granddaughter. I’m guessing by “transformation,” she means Tina’s extreme weight loss. The high school senior has apparently lost eighty-five pounds in the last year through diet and exercise. “How’s Poppa going to feel about that?” Tina serves at the diner on weekends. I’ve only said hello to him in passing once or twice, but he doesn’t rub me as the kind of guy who wants his staff displaying neck tattoos.
“Well, rumor has it Lauren got knocked up at eighteen and they had trouble identifying who Tina’s father is, so I would think a tattoo won’t be a big deal to Poppa. But Tina can deal with that. Or Lauren.”
Another few months and I probably won’t be able to look at a single person in this town without having to push their dirty laundry out of my line of sight. Dakota doesn’t gossip with malicious intent, the way Amber’s friends seemed to. She simply has an archive of information that she shares liberally with me.
“They’ll know who enabled her, though.” My eyes drift to the dream-catcher tattoo that stretches across the top of Dakota’s back from shoulder to shoulder, on display thanks to a black tube top and a sleek ponytail. She has several more on her body, all similar in style and all designed by her. Dakota’s sketches are distinctive—curvy pen strokes, with tribal undertones. Most depict what she calls “spirit animals,” something Dakota seems very into. I thought this was a tie to her own native heritage but apparently she’s been studying spirit animals and their meanings for years, adopting other tribal beliefs and traditions and adding her own unique flare.
“Do you want to annoy the woman who makes our coffee every morning?” I remind her.
She smiles, her teeth all the more white against her dark complexion. “She’ll still love me.”
I chuckle on my way over to the old cedar chest that’s serving as a table and begin tidying the stack of blankets. Dakota’s laissez-faire attitude is a refreshing change from what I deal with from Ginny. Nothing seems to ruffle her. Not even the fact that we haven’t had one customer step in in the last hour and she probably doesn’t need to be paying me to stand here. “It’s a weekday. Everything’s slow on a weekday,” is her only response.
“You know that you could charge people money for those designs,” I suggest.
“I know.” She hums softly as her hand slides over the paper. “Hey, do you have any tattoos?”
“I do. A small water symbol, right here.” I pat the right side of my pelvis, silently wondering what I was wearing—or not wearing—when I had that done.
There’s a long pause. “You should let me design one for you.” The end of her black pen is tapping rhythmically on the counter.
“What did you have in mind?”
She frowns. “I’m not sure yet. Frogs are tied deeply with water, but it doesn’t feel right for you. Your aura,” her fingers swirl with her words, “says resilience and agility.”
Resilience. There’s that word that Jesse wrote in my journal. Every time I hear it, I smile.
“But your spirit hasn’t spoken clearly to me just yet. I’ve heard mere whispers.”
“And what do the whispers say?”
She continues working away at her frog sketch. “That your soul is scarred but it will survive, once it finds what it is searching for. There’s great inner conflict. I see that, too.”
A shiver runs down my back. Some people—Amber included—would probably roll their eyes at Dakota’s ramblings, writing them off as airy and weed-induced and borderline creepy. But I would be happy to sit here until her uncanny skill can shed some light on my spirit.
The door jangles, pulling me away from thoughts of my aura and right into the dark eyes of Jesse Welles.
My heart leaps.
I haven’t spoken to him in days, since the night of the storm. His car has been sitting in his garage, but he hasn’t come out and I haven’t had the nerve to venture over. I’m afraid that I may wear out my welcome. Instead, I’ve sat in my nest of pillows every night, staring at his words in my journal, hoping to hear his footsteps up the stairs.
“Hey.” The side of his mouth kicks up in a smile as he strolls down the aisle, coming to a stop a few feet away from me, sliding his hands into his jeans pockets.
I feel my face burst with heat at the simple word. “Hey. What are you doing here?” Jesse doesn’t seem like the kind of guy in the market for recycled art.
He juts his chin across the street. “On break and grabbing coffee.” His T-shirt reads “Hart Brothers Forestry.”
“Did you find a new job already?”
“Through a buddy I went to school with. They need help clearing after the forest fire. It’s good money. And it’s temporary.”
“No mechanics jobs available yet, I guess?”