“Let’s take a fifteen-minute break,” Janice said. “If you would like, you may practice your presentations one-on-one with me in my office. The rest of you may practice in front of each other or finish preparing them.”
The rest of the interns released a collective exhale for fifteen minutes of freedom. The three of us stayed at our table while the other interns stood and stretched. We were all congregated in the House Members room where tables and chairs had already been set up along both sides. Summer afternoon sun poured in through the windows and lit the plush, red carpet with a soft glow. The carved wooden paneling on the walls stretched over our heads into an intricately patterned ceiling that took my breath away. Almost every ceiling at the LOC deserved a round of applause for their ornate designs. They gave me a neck cramp, but it was so worth it.
A blush spread between Nicole’s freckles. “I don’t want to practice in front of you two until Friday.”
“Fine.” Charlotte leaned back in her chair, wincing. “I’m just going to wing mine.”
Nicole frowned in disapproval then turned her gaze on me. “Do you need to practice, Paige? Is yours finished?”
“It’s done.” I’d been writing it in my head for the last six weeks, right down to the exact wording, until I had it engrained inside my head. I’d even dreamed about it. For good measure, I’d transcribed it onto paper, but I knew I wouldn’t need to look at it again because it came from the heart.
So did practicing it with Sam. He had been acting strange since he’d returned from his top-secret man stuff on Saturday, closed-off and moody one instant, and in the next, kissing me, touching me, like I was his source of oxygen. And when he looked at me with those baby blue eyes that charged my heart, I felt...electrified. Plugged in somehow to a different way of seeing the world, one not so heavy with shame. A lighter, better way that fixed a smile on my face when I thought about him, that made me miss him even when we were together.
But I wasn’t so sure his shifting moods were because this was the last week of my internship and quite possibly our waning time together. Something was eating at him, and I didn’t think all of it had to do with his brother, either.
It probably wasn’t the same thing that weighed heavily on the back of my mind. Maybe I’d ruined my own future by refusing to give in to Rick’s demands, or maybe I did exactly what I needed to—hang in limbo for a while so I could allow myself to look over my shoulder into the past. Maybe it was time to realize that because I had the courage to sacrifice my dream job, I had the lady balls to call Her.
What would she sound like? Was she funny and smart? Did she like to read? Oh the horror, what if she didn’t? But most importantly, would she love me as much as I’d always loved her?
My eyes stung at the memory of her kicks and somersaults, of crossing my arms protectively over my swollen belly every night while I slept, of her first red-faced cry.
“I’ll be back,” I said, my voice thick, and stood.
Nicole stopped scribbling in her notebook long enough to say, “We’ll make sure we’re not here by then.”
Charlotte snorted. “I think my sarcasm is running off on you. That’s my line.”
I walked away quickly, wishing I could scoop them both into my pocket forever. I would miss them. Terribly. And Sam... If I left here, if I left him, I hated to think what it might do to me. Unless I somehow convinced him to come to Wichita and meet Her. And stay there. With me.
“Paige?”
So lost in my own thoughts, it seemed to take forever for me to turn around and register who was speaking.
Janice stood outside the House Members room, her entire face made up of thin, straight lines and a hard glint inside her eyes. “May I see you in my office?”
26
Sam
FRIDAY, 1 PM.
Abandoned warehouse.
Don’t be late.
Hill’s text had arrived a long two days after my shrivel-dick apology. My fake shrivel-dick apology. I had to let him think he still held all the power, that I had no idea it was Rose who had leaked the information about Riley, that he could still ruin Dad’s career if I slipped up one more time.
And I wouldn’t.
I knocked on Tony’s apartment door. It opened a crack, enough to let out an orange cat. He blinked green eyes up at me and then sideswiped my leg in greeting on its way to the elevator.
“You supposed to be out, Major?” I called.
He swished his tail, a signal for me to mind my own business. Okay, then.
Tony appeared in the doorway with a wet spot on his yellow T-shirt that read ‘31 Flavors’ over a cat head licking its paw. He had bags under his eyes, and his massive shoulders sagged. Dude looked like shit. “I make a small change to that cat’s obstacle course, and he pukes on me.”
“That’ll teach you,” I said and pushed past him into his apartment.
In case it wasn’t crystal clear, the guy had a thing for cats, Major in particular. After eighth grade at the same school, Tony had moved to South Carolina just before his parents died in a car accident. With no living relatives and because of the horror stories he’d heard, he tried to make it on the streets instead of going to foster care. He skimmed over some of the details of what he’d gone through, but basically he and the then homeless, but just as feisty, cat Major helped each other survive. Now, back in D.C., Tony made a living filming all of Major’s tricks and posting them on YouTube for his three hundred thousand subscribers. Genius idea for a cat man. And after one look at him and hearing his story about his love for all things pussy-related, the ladies practically beat down his door. Usually one lay sprawled somewhere between the hundreds of cat toys and carpeted ramps mazing through the rooms, but not today.
Down the hall, the elevator door opened for the cat, and Tony shut his apartment door behind him with a sigh. “I could come with you, you know. Give Major a chance to cool that temper of his.”
I shook my head. We’d already talked about this. Because I had no idea what Hill’s true intentions were, today was all me, and it would end with Hill behind bars for pimping out Rose, for ruining her life, for crawling out of the goddamn pits of hell. Revenge would be short and so sweet.
“Stay here so you can roll a doobie for Major.” I smiled so he would know I was half joking.
Tony reached for the ramp he’d nailed above the front door and grabbed a small black box with a lens attached to it. “Remember how to use this?”
“Yep,” I said, taking the camera from him.
“Remember how expensive it is?”
I put it carefully inside my jacket pocket. “I even remember the threat that went along with borrowing it. Something about an ass squirrel?”
“Just hope you don’t find out what that involves.” He slapped me on the back and then took something else from the ramp above the door. A gun.
I froze. He held it out to me, but I didn’t take it. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but this was Hill I was about to deal with. If anything, I could expect the unexpected with him. Slowly, I reached out to take it, the cold steel icing my fingers.
“You know this is a trap, right? I don’t know what he’s after, but you’re about to walk right into it,” Tony said.
“I know, man. But why pretend there is a debt when there isn’t? Why say he’s going to turn my brother and Dad’s dick pics over to the press when he doesn’t have shit? Why have me be his delivery boy these last two months? I need to know.”
Tony crossed his arms over his chest, wrinkling the shirt’s cat paw so it looked like it was giving me the finger. “I get it. Hill’s a shit bandit. But what if he hired Sam Cleary for a reason? What if you’ve been the target all along?”
“Then I need to know why,” I said and tucked the gun into the back of my jeans. We had gone to the shooting range plenty of times, so I knew how to use it without blowing off one of my own fingers. “Look, I’ll call you if things get crazy. I’ll use a safe word like...” I remembered Paige’s sa
fe word for when things got too out of control between us, and it sure seemed to fit this situation. “Apocalypse.”
“Fine.” He opened the door for me. “If there’s an apocalypse, I’ll come running.”
Hopefully he wouldn’t have to.
NEVER BRING A CROWBAR to a potential gunfight.
In the backseat of my Chevy, I still had the crowbar that Hill had used to gouge my knuckles. Not a shovel like he had originally requested all those weeks ago. Sneaky bastard forgot to remind me to bring one, and now I knew why a shovel would come in real handy.
A chain link fence wrapped around the warehouse. Climbing up and over was out of the question unless I felt like being sliced and diced with the three-inch long needles of barbed wire on top. So while kicking up dust and following the thin, curved tracks a horde of snakes had left behind through the dirt, I circled the perimeter to look for a gate. Only there was no gate. Not that I could see. No padlocks. Nothing.
Which left me one choice—dig underneath the fence. With a shovel I didn’t have. Goddamn that fucker Hill.
Was he laughing it up somewhere with some of his druggy buddies from the inside of the warehouse? Somehow I didn’t think so. The fence was obviously a way to keep people out, but there had to be another way in. Too bad I hated riddles almost as much as prostitution and blackmail.
So, I took off my jacket and became an excavator with a crowbar. Luckily it had rained recently, so underneath the dry topsoil, the earth was damp and cool. I worked quickly, shoveling a hole I hoped wouldn’t be the first few feet of my own grave. The sun beat down on the back of my head. Soon my shirt and jeans clung to places they really shouldn’t. By the time I showed up to Paige’s presentation at three o’clock, I would probably look like I took a dive in a swimming pool of dirt, sweat, and my own snapped nerves.
What if this didn’t work? What if I was walking into something bigger than a trap? And what if I never walked out again?
If it meant Hill was behind bars, then it would be worth it. He had pimped Rose out in exchange for her daily fixes, my little sister who could be so much more than a hat-knitter with a junkie past. Bile climbed into my throat. I stopped digging to fight it back down. A man like Hill didn’t deserve to live, let alone string more innocent girls along until desperation made them strike a deal with the devil. He had to be stopped, for good, one way or another.
Which could destroy any future I might have with Paige. I loved her, much more than I ever thought I did as a kid. But she was part of the reason I was here, too. I had to continue to play Hill’s games so I could put a stop to them with concrete evidence I could hand to the police, not just the word of a twenty-year-old first semester college dropout. Then I would come clean to her, lay everything on the table. Hope I could be enough.
The hole now looked large enough for me to slide underneath the fence, so with the crowbar still in hand, I stomach-planted myself and wormed through. The bottom of the fence snagged my T-shirt and jeans, but I made it under.
Dirt caked my front, but I hardly noticed. My gaze locked on the steel door of the warehouse. Get in. Get out. Go see a hot librarian make her presentation. I could do this.
The door groaned open easily. I blinked into the dim warehouse. It smelled like rust and wet fur. The hot, stale air rolled that stink across my sweaty skin in slow, nauseating waves.
Several broken second-story windows circling the width of the warehouse allowed enough light inside to see about three feet in front of me. The lower-story windows were smudged with black paint. That didn’t make me feel any better about being here. Neither did allowing the door behind me to close, sealing me in.
Darkness pressed into my eyeballs. I toed the ground carefully with my arms outstretched in case I bumped into something or the concrete floor had buckled into a gaping hole. Hey, stranger things have happened. I wasn’t about to kill myself by falling down some rabbit hole designed to catch anyone who dared outwit Hill.
My ears burned for a hint of sound other than the wind creaking across the ceiling, dirt crunching under my boots, my heart drilling a heavy metal beat into my rib cage. Each footstep echoed loudly between the metal walls. Step-step. Step-step.
Or was someone following me?
I stopped. Something shuffled to my left, deeper into the warehouse that was buried under shadows. Blood roared between my ears. When I didn’t hear anything else, I kept moving along the wall, hoping I would find a light and I would see them before they saw me. Them or it or whatever.
On the other side of a shelf stacked with long steel beams, I heard voices. Two men, neither of their voices as slithery as Hill’s.
“...of July,” one of the men was saying. “Great tits. Rockin’ ass.”
“Yeah?” the other man urged.
Something told me they weren’t talking about me, so they must’ve not known I was here. Not yet. So did I spring out of the dark at them and announce my presence that way or whistle a song so they would know I was here? Hill was expecting me, but were they?
“But her feet, man...” the first guy started.
“What about them?” the other guy asked.
At the end of the steel beam shelf, a faint light glowed from around a corner of the building about fifteen feet away. I inched forward, pulling the boxy camera from my pocket, and crouched low.
“Worse than mine. Some people should just not be allowed to go shoeless. We’re talking mangy toenails, cracked skin. It was unbelievable.”
This camera was meant for Major’s head. The cat hated the sound of Velcro, so it fastened with reusable, much more silent, tape. Quietly, I wound the sticky ends around one of the lower columns on the steel shelf so the lens faced the direction of the two men.
To my left, just inches away, two shiny black eyes met mine. I reared back. The camera slipped from my grasp before I’d securely attached it. The shit storm called my life braked into slow-mo. The steel beams on the shelf above my head shifted. Too much. The top one slanted toward the concrete floor. My brain sent the message to flash my arm out and catch it and the camera, but it seemed to take forever for it to receive that message.
My stomach dropped to my knees. Maybe that was where all my sense had gathered. But I caught the beam one-handed before it hit the floor. On my other hand, the sticky end on the camera dangled from the end of a finger.
“She’d never heard of a pedi?”
My whole body shuddered with the effort of holding the heavy beam off the floor and not shouting at the top of my lungs for these men to grow some fucking balls.
The gray furry rat with a worm-like tail and black eyes glared down its long nose, then four sets of claws scratched over metal while it scurried away. Fucking rat.
“I suggested one to her. You know the pedi girl who took good care of me before my sixth wedding? And she totally went ballistic. Said I was too picky.”
“Noooo.”
I grimaced at the weight and slowly lowered one end to the ground. But I couldn’t see the other end of it. Even if I did put this end down, it could still have a loud smashup meeting with the ground. If the conversation that was so many degrees of fascinating didn’t end soon, I was going to drop it anyway. Then the camera would fall. Before I could scramble after it, my head would go boom.
With one last bit of stored-up energy or desperation or whatever it was, I stretched my muscles to their brink and finally repositioned and secured the camera. Done. Maybe.
“The thing is, I’m not picky. I just know what I like, and skanky feet ain’t what I like.”
“Yeah, I feel you. It’s like that skinny waitress I poked a while back.”
I slowly lowered my arm while pins and needles zapped to the ends of my fingers. With both hands, I lowered the beam to the ground silently, the muscles in my back straining. I held my breath, waiting for something else to go wrong. For now, crisis averted. I switched on the camera and peered through the lens.
Seated at a long table under a bright light sat two
men sorting through stacks and stacks of money. Two guns lay on top, hopefully forgotten. No wonder Hill had me doing all his dirty work. These two sat around gossiping like perverted old ladies the whole time.
“Alex?” a new male voice shouted from the same direction I’d already come.
I searched the darkness behind me. The two men instantly quieted. Footsteps shuffled off to their left, away from the voice. Who else had Hill summoned here?
I risked a glance around the shelf to where the two men had been sitting. They’d taken their guns with them but not the money. So they were just going to leave it lying around while someone prowled through the warehouse shouting for Alex. Smart, real smart. Something was definitely up. I wouldn’t find out what by playing catch with steel beams.
“Alex?”
Closer now. Close enough to hear the guy’s panic.
I inched out into the open, facing the direction the camera aimed, away from the approaching stranger and toward the money table. The hair on the back of my neck lifted with uneasiness. I fingered the gun hidden by the back of my jacket. Its weight didn’t give me jack for courage, but I kept going as quiet as I could anyway.
The closer I drew to the table, the more the shadows that were out of reach of the single overhead light bounced. And the harder the blood beat between my ears. Metal walls stretched in both directions from the ends of the table, and from my view, everything around both corners was hidden. Maybe Hill lurked behind one of them. Maybe the two men who had left the money who may or may not know I was coming were around the other.
This could definitely be an ambush, maybe even the apocalyptic kind, but Tony had already been shot at once. Yeah, I’d lied to him. No way was I drawing my best bud farther into this herpes zoo called blackmail by asking for any more of his help.
I drew the gun, the feel of it in my hands drying my mouth to desert-like proportions, and pointed it at the ground.
“Alex?!” the guy yelled. Even closer.
Backed against the nearest wall, I darted a look around it at the stacks of money on the table. The rusty smell of the warehouse thickened into a copper penny I could taste at the back of my throat. Behind the reaches of the light, shadows jumped. The roof creaked. And it sounded like someone was...crying?
Wicked Me (Wicked in the Stacks Book 1) Page 23