“Not now that I know what he is.”
“Don’t do it for him. Do it for me.”
“I am doing it for you! I can’t go back because of what he’s done to you. He’s made you a killer.”
I glance up in time to see him wince. It’s what he is, though, what he did. It’s what he’ll keep doing.
“I was born into this just like you were,” he says evenly. “Neither of us chose it. If I can forgive you for being a Cruz, you should be able to do the same.” He stops for long enough to put my hand back on his chest and hold it there as if it belongs there. “It’s the only way we can be together.”
My fingers look spindly and weak between his, like they could be easily crushed. I don’t know what to say. I don’t trust myself. If he kisses me again, I might give in. “No,” I say.
“Is it Lucien?” He doesn’t hide the twinge of bitterness in his voice.
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s getting paid to watch you, remember? He’s getting paid to give you money, and kiss you good night and whatever else—”
“Stop it!” I yank my hand away. “I take enough of it from Marcel. I can’t stand Lucien. I put up with him because it’s better than begging on the street.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You did mean it.”
“Something about him irks me. And Marcel is dangerous—you should stay away from him.”
“Trust me, I try. Marcel is just . . .” I stop, distracted by the tiniest fragment of a possibility. It’s like something tickling the back of my neck, a thought but barely a thought. “I wonder if I could convince him not to tell.”
“Lucien?”
“No. Marcel. I wonder if I could convince Marcel not to tell Lucien.”
Emilio shakes his head. “Too risky.”
“But what if it worked? You could go back and pretend you never saw me.”
“We’d still be apart,” Emilio says, and pulls me closer.
I have to look away to keep my thoughts straight. I have to not think about his grip on my waist. “But Papi wouldn’t suspect anything, and we’d have time to figure out what to do.”
“I’m not so sure Lucien didn’t see us going into that room. Or coming out. He must’ve been watching if he was supposed to report back to Victor.”
“But he was cold when he found me. I remember. I asked him why, and he said he’d been out on the balcony looking at the fountains. I need to talk to Marcel before he says anything to Lucien. Wait, do you think Marcel works for my father too?”
Emilio snorts. “No.”
“Why is that funny?”
“Victor doesn’t trust users.” He takes both of my upper arms in his hands, turning me to face him, his fingers like cuffs. “We have to think through this rationally. What if Marcel’s already told him?”
“He hasn’t. They were fighting tonight. Lucien was going home, and Marcel is probably still out partying.”
“So he’ll tell him tomorrow then.”
“That’s what I’m saying—I’ll convince him not to.” My stomach twists at the thought of begging Marcel for anything. I picture his leer, his skinny hands. I push it out of my mind. “He’ll listen to me.”
“And why is that?”
“He just will. He owes me a favor,” I lie.
Emilio leans back and sighs. I can see the defeat in his face. He’s caving. “It’s too risky,” he mutters.
“But it’s worth it. It’ll buy you time.”
“To do what?”
“To figure out a plan,” I say. “What do you need to get your family somewhere safe?”
“That doesn’t exist.”
“If it exists.”
He rubs the side of his neck, and I see again how tired he looks, how much older. “Money.”
I can’t help but smile. “Lucky for you I know some rich people in Miami you can rob blind.”
He doesn’t think it’s funny. “Stealing from your father is suicide.”
“Then steal from Lola. She’s got so much stuff, she won’t even notice.”
Finally, it’s there—the hint of a smile, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “This is insane.”
“No, it’s genius.”
“So I’ll fly back in the morning like I’m supposed to,” he says, “and you’ll persuade Marcel not to tell Lucien that the two of you bumped into me. Lucien will tell your father the truth—that he took you to the gallery but he didn’t see me, and then”—he stops, takes a deep breath—“and then I’ll get some money together, and get my family out of Bogotá.”
Hope balloons inside me. I’m afraid to breathe, afraid it’ll puncture and collapse. “And once they’re safe?”
“I’ll come back for you.”
I want to kiss him again, but he looks too lost in worry. Guilt thickens in the back of my throat, refusing to be swallowed. “Promise?”
His lips turn upward in the shape of a smile. If only it were real. “We’ll go somewhere he can’t find us.”
“Siberia?”
He snorts. “Never. And not the Congo. I’ll think of somewhere better while I’m trying not to think about all the ways this could blow up in my face.”
“Don’t worry about Marcel. I can handle him.”
“You don’t know Marcel as well as you think you know him.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just be careful,” Emilio says, glancing at the clock.
“I will.”
“I have to leave soon.”
“But it’s only one thirty. Your flight isn’t until morning, right?”
“I have to pack up, and take care of a few things.”
I stand, instantly colder without the heat from his body. “What do I do if you don’t come back?”
“I’ll come back.”
“When?”
“One week. I’ll need a week.” He stands too. He picks up the tuxedo jacket from the chair it’s draped over and slides back into it.
The smell of chocolate is suddenly too much. My stomach aches. A thousand terrible things could happen in seven days.
Emilio helps me hide the evidence: straighten the chairs, turn out the lights, relock the door from the outside with another tiny tool. And his time he holds me up as we walk over the fresh snow, back to my apartment, so I don’t slip or put weight on my blisters. We memorize new cell phone numbers to reach each other at, but don’t put them in our phones or even write them down.
“Don’t ever call my other phone,” he makes me promise. “Victor doesn’t know I have this one. Emergency only.”
“Emergency only.”
I trust him.
Except I notice that he glances over his shoulder and into the alleys. I notice that his hand flies to his hip when a sound explodes from behind us, then drops when he sees it’s just a dog barking. I notice that before he can kiss me good-bye he has to pull me under the steps where the shadow is thicker than mud.
But trust doesn’t have to mean not noticing, does it? It could mean noticing and ignoring. I think.
I decide for certain while he’s kissing me: of course I trust him. The pressure and rhythm of his lips beg me to. It’s not angry like before, but it can’t be gentle or easy, either. Urgency overrides both of those things.
“I have to go,” he whispers, hot breath on my frozen cheek. “But first I need something.”
I wait. Whatever he wants.
“Run up and get my mandolin.”
Except that. I pretend to think about it, listening for the impossible sound of snowflakes landing on snowflakes. All I hear is wind. “I don’t think so.”
“What?”
“You can have it back when I see you again.”
He shakes his head. “Good to know you haven’t lost your nerve, Jane.”
“Don’t call me that.”
I let him kiss my forehead, while I close my eyes and fight the urge to clutch his jacket and not let go. He slips away before I can say I love y
ou. He didn’t say it either.
I’m alone in the shadow.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
TWELVE
Seven minutes.
I told Emilio I was sure. That was a lie, and now I’m paying for it with paralyzing indecision. I’m not sure of anything anymore—definitely not sure I can convince Marcel to keep my secrets. The earth is shifting beneath me. Shale. Quicksand. Sludge. Ice. I have to take my single step, but I’m sliding before I even plant my foot. I have to do it, though. I’m going to do it. I am.
I’ll leave in seven minutes, at noon, before Marcel wakes up and recalls whatever fragments of last night aren’t permanently lost to another booze-narcotic haze in his booze-narcotic haze of a life, and hopefully before he sees Lucien at all. The trick will be getting Marcel alone. I don’t have his number, or even a place where I can find him without finding Lucien too. I have to just show up at the apartment and send Lucien out on some errand, to go get croissants or something. That should be all the time I need.
Picturing Lucien running out to a bakery just because I ask him to is mind-blowing enough. I’ve never ordered him to do anything for me before—he’s the one who gives out the orders. I don’t even know if he’ll obey.
I suppose I could flirt with him if I have to. In theory.
Six minutes.
Marcel probably won’t be up yet, but it’s late enough that I should be able to force his eyes open. That might actually be fun.
I go over what I’m going to say, but that doesn’t settle me down. I’m screwed. Marcel doesn’t care about anyone—why would he agree to keep my secret? And yet, I can’t think of a single way to spin it so it’s in his best interest and not simply a favor to me. With any luck, he’ll have partied too hard to remember anything about last night.
And there’s something else I have to do today. It came to me last night during the hours I spent lying on the cot not sleeping. I need to ask Lucien for an advance. Six or seven sittings’ worth—just one painting. I’ll tell him I’m moving to a nicer apartment and need it for rent, and after last night and that painfully awkward kiss, he might say yes.
Of course, I won’t be around to actually sit for the painting, but it’s not like it’s his money anyway. It’s not even his father’s. It’s my father’s.
Lucien must wonder who I am to Victor Cruz, but he doesn’t know. I’m sure of it. If he’d guessed I’m Victor’s daughter, he’d treat me like a grenade. Soft hands. No sudden movements. He’d never talk down to me about art, and he wouldn’t paint me over and over with such earnestness and be so blind to the pitiful results. He wouldn’t have kissed me.
Five minutes.
Emilio’s plane has already landed in Miami. I wonder if he’s going to his apartment or straight to my house. No, not my house. My father’s house. I close my eyes and picture Emilio there. I see massive bay windows, red-on-white decor, walnut floors, wall-to-wall art. I can picture him coming out of Papi’s office with that earnest expression and a freshly lit cigar wedged between his fingers. Papi pats him on the back.
What brilliant actors—Emilio playing the son Papi never had, and Papi playing the father Emilio lost. The fact that I believed their charade must make me the biggest idiot in the world. Emilio hates Papi. And Papi . . . who knows what Papi feels about anyone. Or if he even does feel.
The fear hits me hard and swift, sits high in my chest, practically in my throat: I’m scared for Emilio. If Papi’s as ruthless as Emilio says he is, I should be scared.
Four minutes.
There’s always the possibility that Emilio has changed his mind. With a few thousand miles between us, his pulse is undoubtedly slower, his head clearer. The taste of my lips and the pressure of my hand over his heart are gone, and he has to at least be considering telling my father the truth again.
It makes sense that Emilio would think of his family. No doubt he’d earn an impressive reward, too. Papi doesn’t skimp on gifts.
Or maybe Emilio’s mind didn’t need time and distance to change. Maybe he knew all along that he’d be telling Papi the truth. He said and did exactly what he needed to do to make me stay right here and wait patiently to be collected like a docile little lamb. Papi could be boarding a plane for Montreal right now.
But Papi can’t force me to go home with him. Or maybe he can. I’m a minor in a foreign country, and he is my father. For all the things I didn’t see about Papi, I’ve always seen his gift for intimidation. His temper. He gets what he wants.
I should run.
Three minutes.
But if Emilio was going to tell Papi, why wouldn’t he have called him immediately, or started insisting I come home with him the minute he saw me last night? Instead, he pretended he didn’t know me. He didn’t out me to Marcel. He didn’t try to force me to go back with him. He started risking his life for me the second he saw me.
So I’m gambling on his loyalty.
Gambling is an art. I’ve always loved watching Papi do it, and he used to let me bet on anything and everything: blackjack, roulette, poker, football, jai alai, bowling, cockfighting (just once, in Brazil, and never ever again), chess, boules. He didn’t care when I took forever to pick my winner, or if I threw his money away on a lost cause.
I used to tell my sisters I was going to be a professional when I grew up, and they’d give me that indulgent half smirk you give to a child who says she’s going to work in a toy store. They didn’t understand that the games Papi played were more than just chance, that skill and intuition were the real wild cards.
Papi always said my problem was not knowing when to let go of a lost cause. But once I’ve picked, I’ve picked. I don’t abandon my dark horse.
Two minutes.
Without that clock, I could convince myself time had stopped existing in the middle of the night. My mind is weaving in and out of yesterday and today. I’m not sure I slept at all. As soon as I curled up in bed, all the panic-pleasure-pain bled together, and even now, showered and dressed, I feel like my undreamt dreams are making me crazy.
Champagne, oyster, shock, betrayal, chocolate, kissing. It’s an ingredient list for insanity.
I replay the moment when I first saw him last night. Long strides advancing, closing space, fast, his face full of hope and fear. I’m so tired, I could be delirious—the memory might be a dream. But if I’d imagined it, I wouldn’t still be able to feel his hands in my hair or his breath on my neck.
Trusting Emilio is a gamble, but I can’t walk away.
And now, to beg Marcel.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
THIRTEEN
“Bonjour, ma chérie.” Lucien’s doorman offers his cursory greeting with a quick glance in my direction.
“Bonjour,” I mumble, and point to the elevator. I’d rather point and wait and nod and gesture than attempt more than a word in French. As Lucien doesn’t mind telling me, my French “reeks of Spanish accent.”
He picks up his phone. “Un moment.”
I watch the switch phone light pulse red. The light blinks and blinks until we both know Lucien is not going to pick up, but the doorman waits. He’s wrinkled and tube-shaped, and at the moment, uncharacteristically nervous. He’s let me up before when nobody was there to answer, but maybe there’s another reason he won’t let me up. Maybe he saw Marcel go up last night with friends—wasted friends, female friends, user friends. I have no idea, and I don’t really care.
“It’s okay,” I say, holding up the key Lucien gave me. I’ve only had it for two weeks and haven’t had to use it yet, but he pushed it on me after he got stuck in traffic and left me sitting in the hallway for an hour. He was annoyed that I left before he finally showed up.
The doorman sighs, mutters someth
ing I can’t make out, and presses his magic button. The doors make the clicking sound of the lock releasing.
“Merci,” I call over my shoulder. Next time, if there is a next time, I’ll bring him one of my white chocolate bars.
The elevators here are nothing like the jerking death cages that service my building. They glide upward without a shudder or lurch, but I’m too busy reformulating my plan to enjoy it today. A woman up there might complicate things. If that’s what it is, hopefully she’ll be asleep. Hopefully she’ll be dressed.
With each step down the long hall my legs become a little weaker and my purpose a little more nonsensical. I’m Alice and the hall is growing, or I’m shrinking, and I couldn’t be any more lost if a grinning cat was my guide, so I focus on the details of my story, on the way I’m going to ask—not beg—Marcel to play along.
I’m here. I lock my knees and stare at the peephole. If I think anymore, I won’t do it, so I don’t think. I knock. I do it too hard, though, and when I pull my hand back, my knuckles are ringing.
No answer. He must still be asleep, or maybe he crashed somewhere else.
I pull out my key, slip it into the door, and turn. But the key doesn’t catch—it isn’t locked—and the door floats open. Lucien must not be here. He doesn’t forget things like that. And considering that Marcel was slurring his speech by nine and stumbling around the gallery by ten, the open door makes sense. By the time he got back here he probably couldn’t spell his name, let alone manipulate a key.
The main room is immaculate as usual. Except for a coat on the floor and a crumpled program from Les Fontaines on an end table, it looks as if the cleaning lady was just here polishing glass, setting square pillows in perfect lines, raking lines into the carpet. The blinds are pulled tight. A muted glow coats the room, the afternoon beyond seeping in through the cracks.
Marcel’s bedroom door is open. Wide open. I don’t even have to take a step to see in. The light is on and his bed is made up tightly, the cleaning lady’s corners still razor sharp. I don’t want to do it, but I feel myself taking a step toward his open door.
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