by Atkins, Dawn
“Wait a minute. What do you mean like Cassie? How do you know where Cassie went?”
“I asked at the van office and went to see her.”
“Why would you do that?”
“To find out what she knew. She was in accounting. I thought she’d know if Beth gave NiGo money. She told me NiGo is blackmailing gamers for big bucks.”
“You did all this behind my back?” He’d hunted Cassie, asked her questions, all while lying to Rena about wanting to be a Lifer. She shook her head. “I knew about the blackmail,” she said. “Maya told me they fired the employee responsible. Cassie took money not to talk about it. That was really why she was evicted.” Her voice faltered as she finished.
“That’s horseshit. Cassie never took a dime,” Gage said. “You can ask her yourself. Come with me to see her when we get back.”
“I can’t see her and neither can you. She’s in rehab. Maya just told me.”
“Maya told you? Maya tells a lot of…stories. Twisted stories…to control you. No way Cassie went to rehab…on Maya’s say-so. She despises her. Ask Cassie yourself.”
“Addicts lie,” she said faintly.
“She was sick, you know, and she went to the health center… Said she felt like slivers of glass were slicing her veins.” He took a breath, shook his head as if to clear it once and for all. “Beth’s boyfriend described it as burning blood. Your precious health center wouldn’t treat either of them and the next thing you know they’re out on their asses as Lost Lives.”
“What you’re saying is crazy.”
“Not as crazy as what NiGo has done to you and to Beth and to Cassie and every other Lifer. Your precious Blackstones have tricked you, used you, addicted you to Electrique and brainwashed you so you believe whatever they tell you.”
She slapped him so hard his head rocked back, but he didn’t falter.
“It’s true. Who knows how many Lifers they’ve killed—with poisoned tattoo ink or injected drugs or who knows what? NiGo is evil.”
This time she used her fist. Gage was spewing bile over all she loved in the world. He blocked the punch, but she kept at him, too furious to land a decent blow. “Get out before I call the police,” she hissed.
“Hear me out, Rena,” he said, grabbing her wrists.
She wrenched away, going for the bedside phone to call security.
Gage lunged and knocked it from her hand. She scrambled after it, but he caught her legs and yanked her beneath him. “Listen to me. You owe me that much.” His eyes were desperate and he was breathing hard.
“I owe you nothing. Every word you’ve said is a lie.” She fought, but he bore down on her.
“You feel betrayed, I know. I told you all the truth I dared.”
“Bullshit.”
“They’re using you, Rena. They use all the Lifers for what they can get. They took the thirty grand I set aside for Beth and they wanted her trust fund when she came of age. She signed over the money the day she turned twenty-one and they killed her that very day.”
“You’re making that up.” The idea was horrifying. She could hear the twisted logic in his story, but he was the one who’d twisted it, not Maya or NiGo.
“I can prove it about the trust fund. For the rest, I need time to investigate. If you love the Life, help me find out the truth about it.”
“I know the truth. Let me go.”
He stared down at her, his eyes red with fire, his breath hot whiskey. “Help me investigate. If the Life is right, we’ll both be sure. Cassie said that if you knew someone was hurting the Life you’d want to know, to fix it. I believe that, too. You’re a good person. You have honor.”
She gritted her teeth, furious, dying for a chance to escape, to hurt him, to get him thrown in jail.
“Trust me, Rena.” His voice went soft. “Trust yourself. Trust what happened between us. That was real, that night together. Trust that.”
She spat at him.
He didn’t react, didn’t wipe his cheek, just kept his red eyes on her, glowing with hellfire, never letting go. “You know me, Rena.”
“I know you, all right. You’re a user and a prick.” Like all other users and pricks in the Dead World. Nigel and Naomi wouldn’t use her. She remembered Nigel’s loving words, how like him he’d said she was. She recalled how she’d pressed her palms against his temples to relieve his pain. And Maya was her friend, her sister, who’d saved her from death and booze. Naomi was the warm mother of her heart. Nigel evil? Naomi fake? Maya a liar? No. No. No.
Gage was piling shit on her home, on the people who loved her, the place she belonged. He was making it as hateful and ugly as the Dead World.
Her body became a knot of power. She lifted her knee into his belly at the same time she slammed her head into his chin.
Groaning, he fell away and she stumbled across the room, going for her purse and her cell phone. Gage hauled her back by one foot. She kicked with the other, connecting with his crotch, gratified when he groaned and released her, rolling into a ball of pain.
She pushed 911, ready to hit send, when Gage said, “Please, Rena. Before you throw me out, let me tell you all I know.”
She wanted to say no, she wanted to toss him out the window herself, but she needed to know the extent of his lies. She would listen to his story and then she would destroy him. “You have ten minutes,” she said. “Make it good.”
…
Ten minutes would have to be enough, Gage thought, rubbing his aching jaw, his balls mangled and burning. At least the whiskey cut the pain a bit. And if the assault had taken the edge off Rena’s fury so she could hear what he had to say, he’d happily limp for a month. He’d drunkenly blown his cover, now he had to make it work for him.
Rena was breathing hard, her face full of hate. He’d attacked what she held most dear. But she was smart and sturdy, with a strong sense of right and wrong. Once she stood on true ground, she’d make a good partner.
He’d start with her soft spot. “You don’t believe Cassie took a dime from the Life.” He caught an infinitesimal softening in her face. “She saw the accounts by accident when she got onto Thomas’s computer. NiGo’s taking money from perverts banned from EverLife.”
“Maya said they fired the person who did that.”
“I doubt that, but even if it’s true, Cassie did not take any money. She asked me to find out what’s wrong with the Life and fix it.”
Rena’s face didn’t change, but she seemed to be holding her breath.
“Leland didn’t turn Cassie in. I know that from talking to him. He seems like a decent guy. Maybe he’ll help us investigate. We need proof to take to the authorities. If we could talk to more Lost Lives, find out why they were fired, what they know. Some of them may have been killed, too.”
“Stop saying that shit or this conversation is over.”
He shook his head, fighting for a clear thought. “I know this is tough to take in.” He had to show her something more. He grabbed the pages from Beth’s locker. “Beth was onto something. She hid these in a locker and disguised the key as a necklace. She also kept a phone number and she left a message for me written on her skin.”
“For you? Come on.”
“It was my name in the code we used as kids.” He flipped open his phone to the photo of the scrawled writing on her arm. “It’s hard to see, but…” He held it out to her. “She knew she was dying and hoped the police would find me.” His throat squeezed tight. It hurt to picture her last desperate moments, the hope against hope Gage would get her message and find justice for her.
“Looks like grease smears.”
He pushed back his grief and focused on Rena, on getting her to believe. “She lost her life over this. It means something. I know it does.”
Rena’s eyes flicked to him and away. She was thinking. It was a start.
“What her arm says is check #, which must mean the numbers on these pages. Then something like Think & G. The and sign could be an S or a dollar sign. It
could mean the money or maybe the banished accounts. Or maybe the money they stole from her. I don’t know. That’s what I have to find out.”
“So, what you know—your proof—is some scribbles on a dead girl’s arm, pages of numbers from the clinic, and weird things Cassie said while drunk? This makes you think Nigel and Naomi are murderers?” She snorted. “You’re a smart guy. Couldn’t you cook up a less crazy story?”
“Truth is more complicated than lies, Rena.” He knew his investigation hung on Rena’s response. If she told the Blackstones about his suspicions, they’d cover their tracks before he could even get to the police.
A thought leaped into his head. “Maybe Nigel and Naomi don’t know what’s going on. The crook could be their money guy, Rockingham.” The Blackstones knew all, Gage was certain, but he could tell he’d hit the mark with Rena. She tilted her head, her mind racing behind her sky-blue eyes.
“They’ve got money troubles and that’s his area,” he continued. “I found a newspaper article about them selling the Seattle Lounge to drug dealers—D&G Enterprises.”
“D&G doesn’t meet our profile. They told us in the meeting.” Her sneer masked relief. He was getting through. She had enough doubts to give him room to move.
“The fact they even considered that means there are serious financial problems. Rockingham could be stealing from NiGo.” He let that sink in. “Now that you’re a manager, you can ask questions I can’t. You can pin him down, find out what’s what.”
“Your ten minutes are up.” But he could see his words had hit home. She must have her doubts about Rockingham already. She flipped open her phone, but slowly, without fury.
“If you tell anyone, Rena, Rockingham will cover his tracks.”
She hesitated.
“And they’ll kill me, just like they killed my sister.”
“That’s crap. You’ll be fired and banished. No one’s going to hurt you. Get out of my room or I’ll have you arrested for assault.”
“Give me time, Rena.” He crouched close, at eye level with her. “If you won’t help me, at least don’t report me. You have Cassie on your conscience. Do you want me there, too?” It was a low blow and he saw it was a mistake.
Her eyes turned to blue steel. “Cassie’s in rehab and you’re a lying sack of shit.”
“I was too late for Beth,” he said, swallowing hard, his voice shaking despite his efforts to stay strong. “Now she’s dead. I don’t want to be too late for you. Or the others—Zeke, Bull, Baker, Ji Jin. Do you want them hurt?”
Her eyes flashed worry for just a second.
“Maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe the bad stuff can be fixed. Help me root it out. Help me save Lounge Life.” Had he gone too far? He clicked to the picture of Beth’s face and held it out to her. “My sister did not deserve to die.”
“I don’t even know that’s your sister.” But her words were faint.
“You would have liked her. She was smart and funny and fearless like you. She could whistle like you, too, loud enough to bust an eardrum. She used to bite into her ice cream cone, instead of licking it. She only had to hear a song once to memorize it. If you told her no, she’d fight like hell for yes.”
She was listening.
“I watched out for her when we were kids, protected her from Mom when she had her rages. I made sure she took her vitamins, gave her boyfriends the third degree. Saved up money for college and a business for her and then I let her slip away. I let her be killed.” Emotion rose in him and his throat shut down. “I’m telling you the truth, Rena. You know I am.”
“All the truth? This time?”
“All of it.” He held his breath while she pondered. She was torn, he could tell. She could cling to the Life and turn him in, or give him a chance to find the truth. She took his wallet from the table, flipped it open and took out the photo of him and Beth. “This is you and her?”
“Yeah. That’s us at Big Surf. After we moved to Tempe from Denver.”
“She did the paintings in your trailer?”
“She did. She was very talented. I set aside the money so she could open a graphic design business when she graduated. NiGo took that money. Leland Thomas showed me on a database.”
She fingered her phone, bit her lip. “Why would Leland show you our database?”
“I asked about donations. Where they went, how much she’d given.” He realized he had to be honest with her. “I told him I had a bet with her about how much.”
“So you lied to him, too?”
“I had to if I expected to get to the truth. I’m not lying now.”
“If something happened to your sister, it wasn’t because of the Life. It couldn’t be.”
“Maybe you’re right. Help me prove it. You want the truth. I know you do. You want to have faith in something good. This is how to find out.”
“I already know it’s good.” But she went still, thinking through her own doubts, the things that fit with what he’d told her. A few seconds later, her face went still, her expression determined. “One week,” she said. “Show me proof in a week or I report you.”
“Good. Okay. Great.” He blew out a breath, still fighting the effects of the whiskey. “Will you do some checking on your own?”
She shook her head. “I will not drag one Lifer through the scum of your accusations. You have one week. That’s it.”
“Starting when we get back? Tomorrow’s our last day here and I can’t do shit from the road.”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Okay. Six days in Phoenix, how’s that?”
She gave an almost imperceptible nod.”
“And you’ll come with me to see Cassie?” That was his ace in the hole. Showing that Maya had lied would hit Rena hard. “As soon as we get back, we’ll go straight to the shelter.” In the meantime, the Seattle Times reporter might have learned of dead bodies with pale tattoos or Georgia at IFO would have proof of something. Once Rena believed, he’d be able to move faster, take action. He’d have a teammate.
She shrugged, not speaking.
Just as well. He was too exhausted to form another thought. “You want me to leave?” Where the hell was he going to sleep on a rainy night?
She didn’t speak, so he picked up his muddy jeans, slid his wallet and phone into damp pockets, feeling her eyes on him. He leaned down to pull the stiff, cold denim up.
“Sleep there, for God’s sake.” She tossed a pillow onto the short horror of a sofa. He’d be better off on the floor, but he said, “Thanks, Rena.”
She’d let him stay. It was a start.
…
Rena stared up at the ceiling, listening to Gage thrash around on that squeaky, cramped couch. Gage’s sister was dead. Rena believed that much. But murdered by NiGo? Impossible.
Rena wouldn’t be in this mess if she’d insisted Maya banish Gage in the first place. Now she was so tangled in his nest of lies and accusations she didn’t know what to think. Three things had arrowed to her heart: Cassie was no thief; Mason Rockingham was not trustworthy; and Rena did want the truth.
There were financial troubles, she knew from Nigel’s migraines. Nigel and Maya and Mason all wanted more money from Rena. If Mason was stealing from gamers and Cassie had discovered it, Rena wouldn’t put it past him to have her evicted. He was buddies with the badass Watchers, too, like Roland, who’d clearly done more than one eviction. If Mason was up to no good, then it was Rena’s duty to stop him.
Gage had lied to her, betrayed her, used her like any Dead World creep, but, dammit, she half believed him. His sadness was real. The naked agony in his eyes could not be faked. She could picture that Big Surf shot of him and Beth as kids. The boy in the photo had the same dark eyes, square jaw, straight-on look as Gage. The boy and the girl had looked so easy with each other, so happy, secure in each other’s love. What a great thing to grow up with. Now Beth was dead.
She had given him a week. Was that wrong? Did it show a lack of faith in the Life? If there
was no crime, he’d find no evidence, right?
She dozed off, then awoke with a start to realize she was lying on Gage’s chest, his arm across her body. He’d climbed into her bed after she’d fallen asleep. She didn’t really blame him—that couch was a disaster.
She was tempted to enjoy the secret comfort of being in his arms, but she rolled away to embrace the chill of the room. She had to stay clear of him, of the cozy warmth he offered. She had to find the truth and she would not let him influence her, not even in her sleep.
…
Shoved out of bed at dawn by a glaring Rena, Gage could tell she wanted to turn him in, screw the week she’d promised him. His only hope was that her need for truth outweighed her desire to hide in the fantasy of Real Life Lounge. It was anyone’s guess which way she’d go.
Battling the fog of his hangover, a queasy gut, and sandpaper-scraped eyes, Gage downed burned coffee and dry toast in the pitiful lunchroom attached to Ruby’s Rooms, then mounted his bike to make it in for his Lounge shift. Kick-starting the bike sent a stake of pain through his body.
Even drunk, he’d realized a new truth: Rena mattered to him. When he’d stumbled into her room, he’d wanted the comfort of her arms, as stupid as that had turned out to be. They’d connected that night in the woods and he’d counted on her feeling the same. In the gray dawn, the bitterness in her eyes told him that ship had sailed.
He’d barely slept, tormented by a nightmare: a terrified Beth kept scrawling a single question on every inch of her pale skin. Where were you, Gage? Over and over on her arms and legs and hands and feet and face and belly, the letters tiny and desperate and black with accusation.
Why hadn’t she reached out to him before this, when he might have saved her? Had he made her too independent? Turned her into a loner, too? Or had he simply been too distant, too judgmental for her to trust him?
Now, he felt dead inside. Losing Beth had stopped a vital engine in him. The electric hum was absent, the silence terrible.
…
Three hours into his shift, Gage spotted Rena in a booth at the café. The woman eating with her was just leaving, so he headed over and took the woman’s place across from Rena. He had news to report.