Rooke

by Callie Hart

  Jericho slowly shakes his head. “I found a hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars underneath your bed, though. Saving for a rainy day, hijo? You know, squirreling away that amount of money might look suspicious to some people.”

  Jake looks absolutely stunned now. A hundred and sixty-three grand is a shit load of money. I get that. “Does it matter?” I roll my shoulders, cracking my neck. “If you’re going to kill me, can we get on with this? If not, let Jake go. He’s hardly—”

  In the time it takes me to pause between words, the strangest thing happens. Jake, sitting on the step with his mouth hanging open one second, does the unthinkable: he gets to his feet.

  The next three seconds are a blur. Somehow, from somewhere, Jake has a gun in his hand. A deafeningly loud shot rings out, and then one of Jericho’s guys is on the floor, laying in a pool of blood. A moment passes. Jake stares at the gun in his hand, and Jericho and his boys stare at the guy on the ground, their eyes made of glass.

  “What the—”

  I react. I have no choice. I’m reaching for the gun I’ve been carrying around all day, the one I’m meant to use on Casper, and then it’s in my hand, and I’m pulling the trigger. A pop of light bursts, white and red, and then another, and then another. They’re not all from my gun. I lunge, driving my fist into the throat of the closest guy, who’s spinning around, about to fire on Jake. He staggers away from me, the back of his head hitting the wall behind him. The cramped space inside the hallway is a confusion of moving bodies. I can’t tell who is who. Someone shouts, a sound of pain, of surprise, and then there’s the sound of another body hitting the floor.

  Another gunshot.

  “FUCK!”

  I don’t know where the cry comes from. It could be Jake. It could be any of the other men. Everything turns gluey, time slowing, my vision tracking wildly through the smoke and the arms and legs, and I see Jericho, raising his hands, aiming, about to shoot.

  I beat the bastard to it.

  I fire, my arm kicking back, and Jericho slams into the bannister, crying out.

  It’s as though reality snaps back into place, time racing to catch up with itself, then. Everyone is turned to Jericho, who is sagging in a heap on the floor, releasing strained, agonized gasp after gasp as he clutches at his chest.

  Two of his men are dead on the floor. The other two are staring down at their boss like they can’t comprehend what just happened, or what they should do next. And Jake…

  Jake has been shot, too…

  He holds one hand to his stomach, and blood is pouring out from beneath his fingers, thick rivulets of crimson fluid trickling from his body. My arm is still held out, gun in hand. Jake holds his out in his other hand, too, a look of cold fury in his eyes.

  “Get the fuck out,” he hisses.

  “You’re going to fucking pay for this, cabron,” one of Jericho’s guys spits. Alfonse. I think his name is Alfonse. His sister brings him his lunch at the garage every day. He stoops, reaching for Jericho, but I block him.

  “Don’t think so, asshole.” If Jericho makes it out of here, Jake and I are fucking dead. Alfonse and the other guy will shoot us both in the head as soon as they make it out of the door. If we have their boss and he’s still alive, there’s a chance they’ll back off and wait to see what happens.

  Alfonse spits blood at Jake. “Better leave the state, fucker.” He points his gun at Jake, then at me. “We got you pegged.”

  “Go,” Jericho gasps. “Go. He won’t kill me.”

  He’s mighty sure of himself right now. I don’t really see that I have much of an option. Hardly going to contradict him right now, though. Alfonse and his friend step over the bodies of their dead friends, and they leave.

  So fucking surreal. Once the door closes behind them, the three of us just exchange looks. How did we get here? That was really fucking unexpected. Where do we go from here?

  Common sense returns pretty damn quickly, though. I stride over the dead men in my hallway, and I grab hold of Jericho by the throat. He grimaces up at me, baring his teeth, his gold grill spackled and stained with blood. I don’t try and hide my fist as I pull it back. “Guess it’s time for you to arrepiente, motherfucker.”

  My right hook knocks him clean out.

  ******

  Blood in the snow.

  God knows how there aren’t cops lining the street yet, but the place is deserted. A woman walking her dog watches me carry Jericho down the steps from the house and doesn’t bat an eyelid. Jake’s bleeding out all over the place; he needs a doctor and fast. The Skyline’s right where I left it, parked directly in front of the house. Jake opens up the rear passenger door, and I bundle Jericho into the back. I almost drop his unconscious body when I see what’s already taking up space on the other side of the console.

  A head.

  A severed fucking head.

  Jared Viorello’s lifeless eyes stare up at me, his neck a mangled mess. He was obviously balanced upright on the seat, but the movement of me shoving Jericho back there jostles the car and the head topples over, revealing blood and sinew, bone and tendons.

  “Fuck. Me.” I give Jericho one last push and slam the door closed. On the other side of the street, Jericho’s heavies are leaning against the railings of a tall walkup. Alfonse points his fingers at me—a makeshift gun—and fires. “One hour. If he’s not back at the garage in one hour, you’re fucking dead men,” he shouts. “Your girls. Your families. Your friends. All. Fucking. Dead.”

  Three seconds later, Jake and I are burning through the snow in a stolen Nissan with an unconscious gang leader and a decapitated murder victim as cargo.

  “How bad is it?” I try and pull Jake’s hands from his stomach, but he holds them there tight. He’s ghostly pale and shaking.

  “About as bad as you’d expect,” he says evenly. “I’ve been shot in the stomach. I’m probably fucking dying. Go on. You can say it.”

  “Say what?”

  “I should never have grabbed that guy’s gun. I should have sat fucking still. I should have—”

  “Shut the fuck up. Right now. Shut the fuck up. This is on me, not you.” I punch the steering wheel, growling under my breath. This is not good. This is seriously not fucking good. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna get you fixed up.”

  Margot is the last person who will want to see me right now, especially after this afternoon’s encounter, but there aren’t any other options. Jake passes out on the journey to her place. I park in the underground lot beneath her building, and then I drag Jericho’s still lifeless body out of the backseat and I heft him into the trunk. Skylines aren’t known for their roomy storage space; it takes three attempts to get the damn thing to close. I take off my jacket and I throw it over Jared’s head, still on the back seat, and then I’m carrying my best friend to the elevators. His gunshot wound seems to have stopped bleeding now, and I’m fairly sure that’s not a good thing. He’s probably just out of blood.

  On the fifth floor, I stand outside the door I practically hammered down only a couple of hours ago, and I do it all over again. I smash my fist against the wood until Margot opens up. She takes one look at me and shakes her head.

  “Oh no. No way. You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE BRIDGE

  SASHA

  A watched pot never boils. How many times have I heard this during my lifetime, and why do I keep on staring at this damn cell phone? I physically cannot stop myself. He hasn’t called. He hasn’t texted. It’s been three hours and I haven’t heard from him at all.

  “For crying out loud, Sasha, quit bouncing your knee. You’re making me nervous.” Ali puts the third cup of coffee she’s made for me down on the coffee table, shooting a hateful sideways glance at Andrew in the process. He’s standing at the window, looking out onto the street, his back to us, but I’m pretty sure he must be able to feel the fire and brimstone Ali is sending his way. He hasn’t said more than three words since we got he
re.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Ali hisses. “What the fuck is he doing in town?”

  “I can hear you, y’know. I came because I was worried about Sasha. Is that a crime?”

  “A bit late to be showing your sensitive side now, isn’t it?” Ali snaps.

  My head is spinning and I feel sick to my stomach. I am going out of my mind with worry. “Stop! Just stop. Please. Jesus wept. You’re driving me mad. Can you both please just…not? The deafening silence was better than you two bickering.”

  Ali sits down, dealing me a cool look. She’s just trying to protect me, I know, but I’m wound too tight right now. I shouldn’t have snapped. I should be keeping my head but it’s so hard when—

  My cellphone bursts into life. I nearly drop it in my haste to answer, adrenaline firing like gasoline through my body. “Hello? Rooke, god, where are you?”

  “Ms. Connor?” The voice on the other end of the line does not belong to Rooke. It belongs to someone much older, far gruffer, if that’s humanly possible. The hope that just flooded my body disintegrates in a heartbeat. “Ms. Connor, this is Detective Jacobi. You may remember we met at the hospital recently?”

  Jacobi. How could I forget? I can’t hide the disappointment in my voice. “How can I help you, Detective?”

  “I thought you’d like to know that we’ve apprehended the man who broke into the museum and assaulted you. His name is Casper Reins. An ex-Marine. He was found wandering the streets in the early hours of the morning, disoriented and badly injured.”

  I lean forward, elbows on knees, pressing the phone against the side of my head, unable to blink. “You found him? He’s in custody?”

  “Yes. He suffers from severe schizophrenia. And you were right. You hit him pretty hard by the looks of things. He was admitted to Mount Sinai this morning.”

  “Am I in trouble?”

  “No. No. You were defending yourself. And he admitted to killing the security guard. There’s still some paperwork that will need to be—”

  He talks on the other end of the phone for a while, but who knows what he says. They have him. The cops have Casper. The relief I experience is crushing. I can hardly catch my breath. No more worrying that I’m going to wake up in the middle of the night and he’ll be there, standing at the foot of my bed. No more looking over my shoulder.

  So, then, where is Rooke?

  “Ms. Connor? Ms. Connor? I didn’t quite catch that.”

  I must have asked the question out loud. “I’m sorry. Nothing. I can come by the station in a couple of days? Would that be okay?”

  “Fine. Just, please, don’t talk to the press until we’ve made an official statement.”

  “I won’t.” I hang up and immediately check my phone. No missed calls. No messages. I close my eyes.

  “Would someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” This is Andrew’s best, most authoritative voice. His investment banker voice. His I-earn-six-figures-even-in-Texas voice.

  Ali clears her throat. “Sasha’s dating a twenty-three year old ex-con with a penchant for romance novels.”

  I could kill her.

  “What? Is that true?”

  I open my eyes, and Andrew has finally turned away from the window and is looking at me like I’m a stranger. I am a stranger to him now. We shared a past once upon a time, but now we’re both different people. We don’t recognize each other anymore. I’m suddenly struck by the awful realization that I never loved him. “That…that is so reckless, Sasha,” he chides. “Honestly, I knew you were struggling, but that is ridiculous. How can you—”

  “Fuck you, Andrew.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I said, fuck…you…Andrew. Leave. Now.” He blinks, his eyelids shuttering, as he clearly tries to process what I’m saying. “Go back to Texas, go back to Kim. Go back to your new son, who I will refuse to call Christopher until the end of time. Go. I don’t want you here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  Ali makes a choking sound when I mention his new kid. She jumps up out of her chair, her arms lifted as if jumping into action but she doesn’t really know what she’s meant to be doing. “You have another child?”

  “You’ve changed,” Andrew whispers. “Are you still drinking?”

  I cross the room and I slap him across the face. I’m done exchanging words with this man. I’m done looking at his face. I am done breathing the same fucking air as him. If he won’t leave, then I will. I turn, and I leave. Ali calls after me, but I don’t stop. I leave her apartment, and my body feels so much lighter. Andrew has had that coming for a very long time, and the knowledge that Casper is in police custody is almost enough to make me weep. My ribs, my face, my leg…everything feels almost back to normal. All I need now is for Rooke to show up and I’ll really believe that this nightmare is on its way to being over.

  I’m in no hurry to get home. When it snows like this in New York, the city continues to throb and hum, always moving forward, surging to the beat of a persistent drum. The drumbeat slows a little, though. People seem a little more aware of their surroundings. Of the other people on the street. Of the smoke and the steam, and of the cold, the way it makes you feel alive.

  I walk slowly, remembering the times I walked back from Ali’s with Christopher. I always wondered how he perceived the world without all of the chaotic noise; it seemed to me even back then that life would feel so much calmer without the sirens, the screeching of tires, the thump of helicopter blades and the chatter of street vendors. He would watch, studying the streets and the houses around him so intensely. He really looked at people, at their faces and their hands. He saw way more than most people.

  God, I miss him.

  I’m almost home when a silver Audi pulls up alongside me. I don’t think anything of it at first, but when the window buzzes down and a dark-haired guy leans out, I see that his shirt is flecked with blood and I really do start to think.

  “Ah, Ms. Connor,” he says in a heavily accented voice. “You are far more beautiful than the photograph on the back of your book, hermosa.”

  ******

  ROOKE

  Jericho is gone.

  It’s not hard to pop open the trunk of a car from the inside, and he’s worked around cars forever. If anyone’s escaping from the luggage space of an automobile, then it’s that man. I curse as I slam the trunk closed. There will be hell to pay for what happened this afternoon. He’s not going to catch me sleeping, though. No fucking way. If he hasn’t already bled out and died in a snow bank somewhere, if he has somehow made it back to the garage, I’m going to be ready for him.

  ME: Are you still at Ali’s?

  There’s no read receipt from Sasha. No little bubble that shows she’s typing. I have this sick, twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me I need to find her. Now.

  When Ali opens the door at the address Sasha texted me earlier, I can see from the look on her face that all is not well. “Where is she?” I demand.

  “I don’t know. She had a fight with Andrew and—”

  “Andrew?”

  “Yeah. He showed up. Wanted to make sure she was okay after everything with that guy. Oh, the cops phoned they caught him. He’s in the hospital.”

  What the fuck is happening right now? I was meant to deal with Casper. I was meant to dole out justice to him, and now the police have him? Well, fuck. And on top of that, I just played a part in killing two gang members, my best friend is potentially bleeding to death in a sham hospital right now and I don’t know where my girlfriend is.

  “When you see her, tell her I’m mad at her,” Ali calls after me as I leave.

  “Nope,” I mutter under my breath.

  When I head back out onto the street, a police cruiser is pulled up next to the Skyline and there are two officers standing next to the vehicle, peering in through the windows. One of them is talking into his radio. My face is a blank mask as I casually leave Ali’s apartment building and continue walkin
g down the street right past them. It’s only after I’m around the corner that I allow myself to be pissed off that my ride is gone. And then nearly half a block later when the dread begins to sink in. Jared. My fucking jacket’s hiding his dismembered head on the back seat. Great.

  I call Sasha, but her cell just rings out. I call her again, the cold stabbing at my lungs, my feet freezing from the snow. Eventually she picks up. Only it’s not her that answers.

  “You’re too late, Cuervo.”

  An indescribable fear claws at me from the inside. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing. Yet. But by the time you get here, your pretty little girlfriend will be long gone.”

  “Jericho, let me speak to her. I need to talk to her.”

  “I needed for you to not shoot me in the chest and cram me in the trunk of a shitty sports car, but look how that turned out. We don’t always get what we need, huh, Cuervo?”

  “What are you going to do?” Bile is rising up the back of my throat, burning, searing, making my throat close up. I will fucking kill him. If he hurts one hair on her head… If he so much as looks at her wrong…

  “Rooke!”

  I hear Sasha’s panicked cry on the other end of the phone; she sounds terrified. God, I want to go back. There was a point this morning, just before the sun came up, when I was laying next to her, naked, stroking her hair. I made a decision. Instead of staying in bed and enjoying those quiet moments with her, I chose anger. I chose retribution. I chose revenge. And now, it looks as though that decision is going to get her killed. If I’d stayed in bed with her, I would never have been at the garage. Jared wouldn’t have been able to tell that stupid, outrageous fucking lie, and Jericho would never have come to find me at the house.

  A chain of events was triggered by the decision I made. A chain of events I will never be able to undo. The dye is cast. The wheels to my destruction are in motion. If she dies…