Trust Me

by Romily Bernard

  Except apparently Hart’s people did connect it. They figured out Lily was the hidden piece.

  I close the folder, feel cold sweat roll beneath my clothes.

  “Now,” Hart says, leaning closer. “Tell me what really happened.”

  “Joe killed my mother. He knew she was informing on my dad—on him—so he dragged her to the top of an unsecured building, told her if she didn’t jump he would kill my sister and me.”

  “And what did you do with that information?”

  “I told Michael.” It sounds so innocent when I say the words like that, but it’s not. I did not put the knife in Joe’s stomach, but by telling Michael, I might as well have.

  “And you knew your dad would respond like that?” Hart asks.

  “I had a hunch.”

  “Interesting. Do you think he loved her?”

  I blink, try to fit my head around Hart’s sudden detour. “Michael beat my mother. Badly. That’s not love.”

  “Maybe for him it was. He could destroy her, but no one else could.”

  I sneak a sideways glance at Hart. Something ahead of us has caught his interest, and in this unguarded moment he looks different. Without the smile, Hart’s face is hard, angular . . . watchful. His skin’s pale and a little waxy like he doesn’t see sunshine much. And as I watch, his right hand drifts backward, like he’s thinking of going for his pocket . . . or his gun.

  It stops, but he continues to watch the window. Whatever he’s seen bothers him, but I can’t tell what it is.

  “Are we being followed?” I ask.

  Hart considers me. “I want to lie and say no . . . but, somehow, I think that would be a very big mistake with you.”

  A tiny part of me likes Hart more for recognizing this. It would be a mistake because I could never trust him again. But I don’t get the chance to tell him anything because just as I open my mouth, an SUV slams into us.

  3

  Our car fishtails to the left as the SUV plows into our right and keeps coming.

  The force slings me to my side, the seat belt slicing into my ribs. I brace one hand against the seat and suck in a single breath before we’re hit again.

  Hart swears, scrounges for something on the floorboard. I don’t know how he can even move. My seat belt is cutting into my neck, my stomach. I flatten one hand against the door and then the seat.

  They hit us even harder this time.

  My teeth jam together, crushing my tongue until I taste blood, and I still can’t stop watching. I don’t understand. This isn’t a random accident. They’re coming after us, almost pushing the town car sideways.

  The SUV slows and our car straightens, accelerates. I slump. Escaping. We’re escaping.

  Then the other driver guns it again. He rams us and I’m spinning above it all, watching my door buckle under the larger car’s grill.

  I twist, bracing both hands on either side of me as we’re shoved under the shadow of an office building. Our car skids . . . skids . . . collides.

  My head smashes against the cracked window. Pain. Colors burst behind my eyelids and I grab my head. Worse.

  The air smells like gasoline and my mouth tastes like pennies. Hart moans. I force my eyes open. Blink. Can’t focus. Blink again. Still can’t see straight. Everything’s smeary. Something’s crunching.

  Glass.

  I shift, my surroundings snapping into focus. We’ve stopped and the SUV is reversing, bits of windshield spitting under its tires. The driver door opens and a guy in a black ski mask hops onto the pavement.

  Walks straight toward me.

  Panic hums in my ears and I scrabble at the seat belt, fingers numb. It clicks loose and I fall sideways. He yanks at my door. Won’t open. He takes two steps back.

  And then charges forward.

  I shrink down as a huge boot kicks in the window, spraying me with glass. He uses one arm to knock the last bits away and then reaches into the car and grabs me. I shriek. He pulls me through the window.

  My knees hit the pavement in a bright white pop of pain. I kick both feet under me and slip. He hoists me up, half dragging me toward the SUV’s passenger door. Through the window, I can see the silhouette of shoulders and a head. Someone else is in there.

  Someone else is waiting for me.

  I dig my Chucks into the pavement, hear something scraping behind us. Feet. Coming fast.

  Hart hits both of us at a dead run. I land face-first, getting a mouthful of gravel, but even before I can spit out the bits, Hart’s forearm is hooked around my waist. He flings me backward, pinning me behind him just as there’s an unmistakable click in the air.

  Pistol. Hart’s pistol.

  “You need to leave,” Hart says. It’s so quiet I don’t think the ski mask guy could possibly hear it, but he must’ve. He retreats one step. Two. His eyes stay on me though. They never leave my face.

  Because he’s memorizing me?

  Or because I should know him?

  I scrape one hand across my lips and smell him on me. Cigarettes and the leather from his gloves. I gag.

  Hart gestures toward the SUV with the now-cocked gun. “Go.”

  This time, the guy doesn’t hesitate. He walks around the ruined front grill and jumps in the driver’s seat. The SUV peels off and Hart turns to me, checking me so closely we’re breathing the same damn air.

  He put himself between us. He shielded me. This isn’t . . . it was never supposed to be . . . I swallow and taste bile.

  Hart wipes a touch of blood from his face and grimaces at his reddened fingertips. He looks so much less plastic now, so much less together. If it weren’t for the blood—and how that blood happened—it might be a much, much more approachable look for him.

  We study each other in silence until Hart breaks first. “I warned you. Do you believe me now?”

  Yes. Hot tears prick my eyes and I inhale hard, fighting them. “Who was that?”

  “Hard to tell at this point. One of Michael’s competitors? One of Michael’s men? Someone else? All I really know is they’re coming for you, Wick. Next time . . . they won’t go so easy. There will be more.”

  “And that means you’re going to save me? What if something like this happens to Bren? To Lily?”

  “We’ll stop them.”

  Our driver limps to my side, cell phone in one hand.

  Hart ignores him. “We know what you did when you got those recordings of your mother,” he tells me. “We know about Joe Bender and what you engineered.” The statements should sound accusatory—at least hateful—but Hart’s tone wobbles between guidance-counselor understanding and . . . just plain proud. “Do you regret what happened?”

  What happened was I had Joe Bender killed. Why can’t he just say it? Why can’t I?

  I did it to save my sister. Joe hurt her to get to me. The murder should feel justified. It should be easy to confess.

  I meet Hart’s gaze. “I don’t regret it.”

  “Good.” There’s a faraway whine of sirens and we both tense. Hart watches the closest side street, index finger tapping against his knee. “There are terrible people in this world, Wicket. They make nothing but misery. What if you could help that?”

  My stomach sinks. “I’m not into playing God.”

  I’ve heard this line of reasoning before and it makes me nervous. The night Detective Carson escaped, he told me all about how he had wanted to make me a hero—that’s why he blackmailed me into working for him. He thought he was making me Good by siccing me on people he thought were Evil. And the thing is . . . they were evil. He was right. But he was also deciding whose sins were the worst, who deserved punishment, and who deserved a pass.

  “Don’t think of it as playing God,” Hart says, eyes still skittering over the side streets. Our driver returns to the ruined town car, holding his cell to one ear.

  “Then what is it?”

  He turns to me. “I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you for standing up. You did an ugly thing—the right thing is oft
en ugly, and that’s what makes it so hard for most people to recognize it.”

  We stare at each other. I want to tell Hart that’s not really an answer to my question, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Call it ugly. Call it the truth. Call it whatever. I’m getting less and less impressed with labels. The only time they matter is when you’re figuring out the person who’s using them.

  “You can’t tell anyone what a gift you gave to the world,” Hart continues, watching me. “But I’m bringing you somewhere you can tell people—because we understand.”

  “I thought you were bringing me somewhere to keep me safe, not egg me on.”

  Hart’s smile is thin, faint. Bitter. “Don’t kid yourself, Wick. These people saw you. They see you. You are now known. You looked into the dark and it looked back. I know you know this.”

  I do.

  “Why do you want me?” I ask.

  “Looking Glass specializes in internet securities, virus removal—you’re good at that, aren’t you?”

  Slowly, I nod.

  “Please trust that I can help you,” he says.

  “No one ever says ‘please’ to me.” Not entirely true. Griff does. Or he did once upon a time when we were together and I was pretending to be someone I’m not. I look at Hart and tell myself I don’t care about how Griff is past tense, how Milo is probably long gone, and how my entire life as I knew it no longer exists.

  Too bad I’m not that good a liar.

  Hart sighs. “Yeah, I know. It hasn’t been easy for you, but things can be different if you let us help you.”

  I hesitate. Hart seems so . . . sincere. I don’t know what to do with that or the fact that I want to believe him. I pick gravel from my palms instead as the sirens grow closer.

  “Boss?” The driver appears at the side of our car. He’s holding his neck like it hurts and his eyes are wide. “Someone’s reported the accident. They’re maybe five minutes away.”

  “‘They’?” I ask.

  “The police,” Hart says, and nods to the driver, who disappears around the front of the town car. “We have scanners in all the vehicles.” He digs into his coat pocket, pulls out a packet of wet wipes, and hands them to me.

  Guns and hand sanitizer? There’s a joke about Boy Scouts and always being prepared somewhere in there, but my brain’s too scrambled to connect it.

  “I don’t think I want to ask why you carry wet wipes around with you,” I say.

  “You’re probably right, but unless you want a trip to the ER for that scratch on your head, I’d suggest you wipe off your face and take down your hair to cover that cut. We have doctors at the office. It’s safer for you to be examined there.”

  It’s not a bad point, but I still take the packet a bit reluctantly. Hart isn’t what I thought. He’s . . . I don’t know. Probably best not to think about it. Besides, anything’s better than being sticky so I spend a moment cleaning off my face and hands, barely noticing how the cuts sting.

  “Ready?” Hart asks, straightening his clothes.

  I nod, eyes pinned to another black town car approaching us. It pulls to the curb just as a police cruiser rounds the corner and heads straight for us. Another black-suited driver opens the door to the second town car. He leans against the frame, watching us and waiting.

  “Don’t say anything,” Hart says as the police officer approaches. The car stops, lights still rolling. “Just let me handle it.”

  “Gladly,” I say and hang behind. Hart and the driver talk to the officer, who in turn calls in another cop and a tow truck. There’s a lot of gesturing: hands waving around, hands resting on belts, hands slapping shoulders . . . until one of the officers finally notices me. He nudges the first guy and they both wave me closer.

  “Miss? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Absolutely.”

  “Your father says it was a hit-and-run.” The officer’s eyes slide back and forth between us. Cataloging all the flaws in calling Hart my father? We look nothing alike, but I guess we could be related . . . if Hart knocked up my mom in his very early twenties. Still, the officer doesn’t comment.

  Because he really hasn’t noticed?

  Or because Hart lied so confidently it made everything feel like the truth?

  “Is that true?” the officer asks.

  Hart’s gaze meets mine. His smile hasn’t moved, but there’s something in the way his shoulders have stiffened that reveals his worry. He doesn’t think I’ll go along with his story. He doesn’t trust me even though he’s asked me to trust him.

  Trust me, he said. We’re the good guys, he said.

  I saved you, he didn’t say, but it’s still true.

  At Bren’s when Hart said he was one of the good guys, I’d wanted to laugh. This whole thing seems so impossible. There are no good guys, no such thing as heroes. I know this.

  Then again, considering my previous track record of not recognizing a good thing when I had it . . . maybe . . . maybe?

  “Miss?” the officer asks. “Was your father right? It was a hit-and-run?”

  I look at the officers, lower my chin, and wobble my lower lip until I look like Tragedy Girl just trying to be brave.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “He’s right. They came out of nowhere.”

  4

  We leave our first driver to wait for the tow truck and take the second town car. The interior is exactly like the first, right down to the cup holders and the leathery smell.

  “How many of these things do you have?” I ask, buckling the seat belt.

  “Enough.”

  We pull away from the curb. Second Driver has a lighter foot than First Driver. I’m grateful. Between the smack to the head and getting yanked around, nausea is rolling up from my stomach.

  “Shouldn’t there have been more paperwork?” I ask, keeping my eyes on the police cruiser as we drive past.

  “Don’t worry. It’s all taken care of.”

  I flick my attention to Hart, searching for anything under his tone and finding . . . nothing. He’s completely unconcerned.

  “I appreciate what you did back there,” Hart continues after checking the glass screen that divides us from the front seat. Once he’s certain the driver can’t hear us, he settles, adjusting and readjusting his jacket. “I’m glad to know you understand what we’re up against.”

  “Honestly?” The word’s awkward in my mouth, like it’s made of only edges and corners. “I’m not sure that I do understand. Carson said that people would be looking for me and he’d been . . . protecting me or whatever.”

  “He was. It was a mistake of course. Detective Carson—with all due respect—didn’t have the ability to protect you like we can.” Hart pauses, staring into space and probably reflecting on the fact that Carson never got me rammed by an SUV.

  “Do you know where Carson is?” he asks at last. “Where we could find him?”

  “No.”

  “And you have no clues as to where he might be?”

  I hesitate and I can’t tell whether it’s out of habit . . . or because I’m still not entirely on board with Hart. The safest thing to say here would be something along the lines of I have no idea and No, Carson never said anything about where he might hide.

  It’s also the truth.

  But if they’ve been watching me, Hart might already know I went to Carson’s house the night he disappeared two months ago. If it’s a test . . . “I did see him—that last night, when they caught Ian Bay and his half brother. Carson was freaked. He kept saying people were after him.”

  Technically, Carson also said people were after me. Looks like he was right.

  “He said something about the ATF finding explosives?” I screw up my face to look like a suitably confused teenage girl even though I’m not. I’m actually sort of, kind of at fault here, because around the same time Carson blackmailed me into working for him, I met Milo—a supergenius inventor who enjoys computers, spy equipment, explosives . . .

  And me.

  Some
times it feels like we were made for each other. The whole thing started when I did Milo a favor and he repaid me by framing Carson as a terrorist. Which he wasn’t, but when the ATF searched his storage unit they found evidence that Carson wasn’t the honest, upright cop he was pretending to be, and just like that, I was free.

  Or I was for a little while.

  I don’t bother elaborating even though I can tell Hart’s waiting for it. There’s no way they know about Milo.

  And there’s no way he’s in danger because Milo’s too careful. Not to mention, sniffing around his place is dangerous. Like can-get-you-blown-to-kingdom-come dangerous.

  I rub both palms against my knees. “What do you want with Carson?”

  “We have our reasons.” Hart’s gaze travels over my face, my body, and snags on my hands. “Tell me about Griff.”

  The name is like a blow: fast, hard, and leaves me breathless. William Reed Griffin. Goes by Griff. Only.

  Always.

  I can’t tell Hart how it was my fault. Carson was going to use him, ruin him actually. So I took Griff’s place. I let Carson use me because I thought that would fix everything. It saved Griff, but it ruined our relationship. We haven’t spoken in almost two months now—something I probably shouldn’t be so acutely aware of since I’ve been dating Milo for almost as long.

  “I don’t have anything to say,” I manage at last.

  “Liar.”

  It should be an accusation, but Hart’s smiling—almost laughing.

  “There’s lots to tell about Griffin,” he continues and his smile is slippery, widening every time he says Griff’s name. “I know there’s more. You know there’s more. We haven’t been able to get a good read on him, but others could. Others will. As far as we can tell, the only time Griffin shows is when you’re around. You disappear? He disappears. Makes me think you’re the corrupting influence.”

  Probably.

  Hart’s gaze latches on my face. “Or that he wants to save you.”

  “It’s not like that.” It’s exactly like that. I hold Hart’s eyes and feel Griff’s hands all over me, pulling me apart.