“Sorry, I was too busy seeing red to check my inbox. I swear, I heard that Kill Bill murder music in my head.”
“Well, I got a resounding hell no. I don’t know where her mind is half the time.”
“It’s never anywhere but her head. She’s never where her body is. Always somewhere else. I used to think it’s what made her a great artist, but now I’m not so sure. It makes her impossible to deal with sometimes. I love her, but…she can be a nightmare.” And that was the tamest way to put it. More like hell on wheels in a lace vintage dress. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. I’m going to tell her what trying to make friends with Jeff has done. That should be a nice smack in the face. She was always going on about how he’s so lovely, isn’t he nice, why don’t you try to get to know him better? I can’t believe she was so wrong.” I snorted, shaking my head. It had to happen sometime, didn’t it? “I can’t even remember a time she’s been wrong. Exempting her current predicament.”
“I’d say don’t sugarcoat when you talk to her, but I get the impression that won’t be on the agenda.”
“Tough love, baby.” Nicholas slunk into the room, slight shoulders undulating. “Looks like I’ll be able to take him off your hands now. You must be thrilled.”
He stretched out his legs, propped one foot on the coffee table. I’d never seen his bare feet. They were gnarlier than a ballerina’s. “Actually, I’ve been thinking of getting one of my own. Which may not be manly, but he’s good company. It’s nice not to come home to an empty apartment.”
I knew what he meant. Coming home to a condo sans Caroline had been an alien hell back in September, like her absence had removed my ability to function. I’d never known a time without her. Now I wondered if I’d be ready for the whirlwind that was my sister if and when she finally made it back.
***
“My long-lost, famous sister arrives! To what do I owe this very great pleasure?” Caroline swung herself onto the couch beside me in Breakthrough’s lobby, her smile brighter than the light panels above us. “I think I might have a pretty good idea. Does it rhyme with…” her eyes rolled up in thought. “Flea jargon?”
“I think you’d be wrong,” I said flatly.
Her eyebrows crashed into each other before one shot halfway up her forehead. “Are you on your rag or something? What’s your problem?”
“It’s about Jeff.”
“What happened?” She shifted on the cushion to face me head-on. “Did he try to hit on you? Touch you, or whatever?”
“Of course not.” I had to laugh, but nothing was funny. “He doesn’t have the balls.” I shook my head, suppressing an eye roll. “Caroline, he’s the one who’s been stalking me.”
She stared at me for a few seconds and uttered a loud snort. “Sure he is. And I’m the queen of England. Bring me my scones, Jeeves.”
“He is. I may not have evidence that would hold up in court, but I know it’s him.” Digging through the black hole of my purse, I unearthed the carbon copy papers. I spread them out on the coffee table, pointing to the first set. “These are the first ones I found, when I had to call the police that night because someone was screwing with the main breaker switch.”
She leaned forward, silky hair falling into a curtain, obscuring all but the tip of her nose as she examined the sheets. “Okay…?”
I slapped the newest sheet. “This is from last night, when he came over. I saw his Vans, thought I’d err on the side of caution, and slipped a sheet beneath the welcome mat so I’d get his prints when he left. They’re identical, Caroline, not just similar. It’s him. It’s been him this whole goddamned time.”
She sat back into the couch, arms snaring around her midsection. I waited in vain for her to say something, anything, but she didn’t, just sat there silently, still but for one tapping finger.
“Well? You have nothing to say, no input, not even a grunt? This guy’s a fucking nut bag, Caroline. He’s your friend, and he’s been stalking me. Do you even care at all?”
“Lose the melodrama, okay? If it is him—”
“It is!”
She cut me a poisonous look. “If it is him, then rest easy, babe, because he’s tame to the last degree. He’s all bark and no bite. He’s probably doing it for attention. It’s a pathetic ploy to get closer to you, that’s all. You should be happy it’s just him, not some serial killer.”
“As if that makes it all right. Poor thing just wants attention, so what, get over it, that’s what you’re saying? Give him some head pats and send him on his merry way?”
She tipped her head back, glaring at the ceiling. “You’re deaf if that’s what you think I’m saying.”
“You were wrong about him. You’ve been wrong about him this whole time. You were wrong then, just like you’re wrong now, not accepting this stupid plea bargain. Kyle told me you denied it. You’re out of your mind.”
“So that’s what this is all about?” She rolled her head to the side of the cushion, sending me a sideways deadpan. “This is some attempt to guilt or strong-arm me into taking a deal I have no intentions of accepting?” She nodded at the papers blanketing the coffee table. “Then how do I know this isn’t all some elaborate ruse? You could have doctored these. They could all be from the first night you found the prints, you never showed me those papers. It’s not like they’re time-stamped.”
“Do you honestly think I’d do that? You really think I’d lie to you about this? I’ve never lied to you. Why the hell would I start now?”
“I think you’re a lot like me in that you’re going to do whatever it takes to get your way. You’re tired of all this, you’ve said it before. You want it over with quickly. Who cares if I have to do time, right?”
It’s just three years, I wanted to scream. You should do time, you did it, you did it without knowing or caring if he was inside, and all because he’d had the nerve to break up with you. That’s no reason at all. Who do you think you are, exactly? I don’t remember God abdicating his throne or taking an extended vacation.
But any mentions of God would earn me nothing more than disdain. God’s not real, all that’s real is us, and even if he did exist, he’d probably send everyone straight on to hell anyway, find something better to do, leave all this behind to play poker or craps. There’s no job satisfaction being God, is there? Fielding prayers and counting Hail Mary’s, what a barrel of laughs.
I pressed my eyes shut, inhaling a shuddering breath. “You really are impossible. You know how much I love you. I’ve bent over backward trying to get you out of this mess. I didn’t want to do these stupid press conferences, go on fucking Karen Stone’s show, but I did it because I wanted to help you, any way I could. This deal is a good thing. The best thing that’s happened in months, and you’re letting your pride ruin it. It won’t work, you know.”
She pinched a sleek strand of hair between her lithe fingers, pulling it through to the feathery ends. Feigning a split end check, I gathered, biding more borrowed time. “Ah, but it’s already working.”
“A trial is the last thing you want,” I said, slashing both hands through the air. “It could go badly. You have no idea how much worse this can get.”
“It won’t.”
Tell me that again during your cavity search, Caroline, when they’re watching you shower and telling you what to say and do and when to say and do it. You think they boss you around here? You won’t want to meet any corrections officers.
“I don’t know where you get your certainty.” I flapped my arms around the cold, sterile lobby. “Look around, Caroline. Look where you are. You’ve got it easy here, compared to being in a cell for the rest of your life, which I suspect is not something you want. This deal gives you a light at the end of the tunnel. A trial doesn’t come with promises. You’re risking everything because you’re too fucking proud for your own good. It’s going to kill you in the end. At the very least, steal twenty-five years of your life. You should be thanking your lucky stars this was offered at all. Kyle�
�s worked his ass off to get to this point.” I lowered my voice, sliding a quick glance the secretary’s way. She wasn’t at her desk. “All of us know you’re guilty as shit. This is the equivalent of a slap on the wrist, and it’s for a murder, Caroline. A murder. Deals like this don’t come around every day, or ever, for that matter.”
“Thanks for the info, teach.”
I inhaled another deep breath, counting to ten before speaking so my words wouldn’t waver. “If I had any self-respect, I’d walk out that door and never come back. It’d serve you right for stomping on your only lifeline. Who else do you have? Any other visitors I don’t know about? Kyle’s only bothering to come see you because Victoria Rasmussen’s footing the bill. I’m all you’ve got, and you know it.” I stood, swinging my purse over my shoulder. “I wish you didn’t know beyond all doubt that I’d never leave you out in the cold. Maybe you’d stop being such a bitch to your only friend.”
***
Jeff fell into place beside me, just as I knew he would, while I made my way through the art department and toward Professor Lawlis’s classroom an hour after leaving Caroline alone and seething in the Breakthrough lobby. I had to return his gun now that I knew I wouldn’t be needing it any longer.
“You figure out which pieces you want to contribute for the June edition?” he asked, but I didn’t even look at him, just glared at the Vans on his feet, keeping pace with my ratty old rubber flip-flops. “Hey, are you okay? What’s the matter?”
I came to an abrupt halt by a patch of swaying flowers. He didn’t notice and kept walking for a few moments, then stopped and doubled back, his face a mask of confusion.
“This is going to be the last time we have any sort of interaction, so I want to get everything out of the way quickly.”
He opened his mouth, but I held a hand up in his face as a hot gust of wind blew by. “No, don’t talk. I don’t want to hear it. Just listen. I know it’s been you stalking me all this time. You’re probably the jackoff who called the media when I showed up at the New Artist’s Spotlight thing, too, but that doesn’t bother me. I hope you got your fifteen minutes of fame during your little talk with the reporters, though it didn’t seem like they cared too much about your stupid magazine. You’re officially off my bandwagon.”
Blood drained from his face and pooled around the parts of his clavicle I could see around his V-neck shirt. I didn’t know whether it was just my imagination, but I thought I saw his pulse fluttering on the side of his throat.
I sighed, using the side of my hand as a shield against the blinding sun rays. “I’m not sure what the hell you were thinking, or what you could have possibly wanted, but it ends now. Now you know I’m aware. Don’t ask me how, I don’t want this turning into a long conversation. Just know that I know, and if you try anything else, I’ll report you. The only reason I haven’t already is because the evidence I’ve got doesn’t exactly hold up in court. I do have security cameras now, for what it’s worth, before you get any ideas.” I walked backward toward the music building. “If you ever touch my cat again, I’ll fucking kill you. I don’t want to hear from you ever again, and I don’t want you contacting my sister, either. I don’t care if she reaches out to you first. If I find out you’ve been speaking to her, I’ll tell Professor Rasmussen and anyone else who’ll listen what you’ve been doing. They may not fire you, but it won’t endear you to them, either.”
I took a few more steps backward, until the shadow from the music building fell over me. He still stood there, blinking through late May sunshine with his jaw hanging slack, binders pressed against his chest.
“I’ve got a gun permit, too. Just stay away from me, Jeff.”
***
I’d blown off the rest of my classes that day, knowing my confrontations with both Jeff and Caroline wouldn’t be conducive to concentration, but when I got home, I couldn’t even pay attention to the television.
Which was why I found myself knocking on Kyle’s door yet again, pissed off and restless, unable to stand still, even for the few seconds it took him to answer my knock.
“Hey.” He leaned against the doorjamb, stuffing one hand in his pocket, looking confused but not unhappy.
“Can I have a beer?”
He laughed, shaking his head as he stood aside. “Yeah. Swell day, I take it.”
“As usual.” I followed him around the corner and into his kitchen, where he motioned for me to take a seat on the stool by the counter.
He pulled the fridge open. “I got Corona, Blue Moon, Hangar 24, Bud Light, and…” He moved a carton aside. “And a giant bottle of vodka.”
Well, I was Russian, right? Weren’t my genes supposed to call out for the strong stuff? “What do I do with the vodka, just take a shot?”
“I might have some tonic somewhere.” He turned around, rummaging through his cabinets.
“My sister’s a bitch,” I told his back. “Is there a special I hate my family drink?”
“That’d be three fingers of straight vodka, I think.”
“You have any cyanide to mix it with?”
When he turned around, he held a pair of bar glasses. “Sorry. Fresh out.” He unscrewed the cap off the bottle, sloshed two fountains of vodka into each glass. “What happened?”
“What I expected, that’s why I don’t even know why I’m so pissed off. I knew talking to her wouldn’t get her to change her mind about the plea bargain.”
He took a sip of his vodka, pushing the other glass into my hands. “So she was snotty about it?”
“You could say that. You could also say she acted like a complete sociopath. She hardly even reacted when I told her about Jeff.” My face twisted as the huge slug of vodka I inhaled wove a hot trail down my throat. He slid into the stool beside mine, smirking at my expression, but I waved him off. “I told her it was him, that I knew it, had proof, whatever, and she just shrugs like, oh, well, shit happens. You’re lucky it’s just him and not a serial killer, she said. She seriously said that, verbatim. Fucking M. Night Shyamalan was standing in the corner going, I gotta write this shit down.” Kyle choked on his vodka, but I spoke over the racket. “It was unbelievable. But then again, so like her.”
I closed my eyes, as if it would somehow keep my second surge of swelling anger at bay. Just when I thought I calmed down, I’d remember that look she wore during our horrible conversation and get mad all over again.
You’re going to miss me when I’m gone, Caroline, I thought, biting into my tongue so hard I tasted rust. I don’t know how much more of you I can handle.
“Did you see Jeff today?”
I nodded, running a fingertip around the rim of my glass.
“He have any explanations?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t let him get a word out.” I pressed my knuckles into my forehead, exhaling loudly. “I know it was him. What could he possibly have to say that would justify it?”
He rubbed my shoulder, staring into the vodka he kept swirling. I didn’t know if he could feel my eyes on his profile. Didn’t seem like it. Maybe the vodka vortex in his glass had hypnotized him.
“Why do you like me?”
He gave me the side-eye, bringing the drink to his smiling lips. “Well, I think you’re pretty. Your winning personality and sunny outlook on life has nothing to do with it.”
I drained the contents of my glass and pushed it aside. “And you say I’m the one who falls back on pithy comments. Pot, meet kettle. You’re black.”
He sighed, finished his vodka, turned so he looked me head-on. It looked like he was going to say something. I expected him to, when he cupped his palm over my knee. But when he opened his mouth and looked at the floor, all he said was, “Do you want another one?”
I surrendered my glass with an eye roll. “Wow. Are you this much of a chicken in the courtroom?”
“No. I just remember this one girl who about lost her mind and had a coronary the last time we had a conversation like this.”
I tilted my he
ad from side to side, knocking on my temple. “Nope. My mind’s still sloshing around in there.”
He squinted at me over the stream he poured into my empty glass. Usually his thoughts were easy for me to read; he didn’t always need words. Maybe the alcohol racing through my bloodstream had removed that particular skill. I couldn’t read them now any more than I could read Hebrew.
This is a bad fucking idea, Kat, the voice in my head that sounded like Caroline droned. I half-expected to turn around and find her lounging on Kyle’s sofa, swinging one leg over the other in one of her sheer dresses, an un-approving eyebrow raised over the rim of a teacup.
He pressed the glass into one of my hands, laced his fingers through my free one.
Jesus Christ. This is quite possibly the most idiotic thing you’ve ever done. And I’m counting that one time you asked me why it was called stainless steel.
She couldn’t seriously be lecturing me on this shit after the fiery wreckage she’d left smoking in her wake.
“You look like you’re having an entire conversation with yourself,” he said, squeezing my hand.
“Not with myself. With my sister.”
“What?”
I took a sip. “What?”
“I might have to book you a bed in Breakthrough if you keep this up.”
“Well if you make me room with Caroline, make sure they straight-jacket me. I wouldn’t trust myself not to kill her. Or at least pants her.” It felt like an alien had manipulated my vocal cords, speaking for me after an enormously pregnant pause. “I like you, too.”
“I know.”
“Ugh.” I pushed back in my stool, trying to wrench my hand from his, but his grip just grew tighter. “I’m over everyone’s arrogance. You’re all exhausting.”
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