Target on Our Backs Page 8

  I'm trying to be better, remember?

  Besides, I might not have friends anymore, but Karissa does, and it would probably suit me well to at least be civilized to them. Things at home are much more agreeable when I'm not making a big deal about her having people over.

  Still, I don't like it.

  I never will.

  "This is a nice car," Melody says, slouching in the passenger seat as she tugs on the seatbelt. She's been fidgeting the entire drive so far, staring out the side window. She's nervous. I'm not sure if it's the impending date or me that's getting to her at the moment.

  "Thank you," I reply, impatiently drumming my fingers against the steering wheel. I'm not sure what kind of music is playing, some current top 40 nonsense. I just pressed the button on the thing, stopping on the first station that came in. I want to shut it back off, but it might be doing the trick, since we've been in traffic for thirty minutes already and that's the first time she bothered to speak.

  "What does one of these run someone, anyway? Sixty, seventy grand?"

  I smile at that. "Add a hundred to it."

  "A hundred and seventy grand?" She gasps. "Are you serious?"

  She turns her head, looking at me like I'm out of my mind.

  "That's the starting price," I say. "I paid quite a bit more for mine."

  "Why?"

  Why? I hate that word.

  Karissa never asks it.

  "Because it's armored," I say. "It costs to stay safe."

  She scoffs. "I could eat for my entire life on what you spent on this car."

  Now she sounds like Karissa.

  I'm pretty sure she's said that same thing to me before.

  "About a dozen lifetimes if you only eat Ramen noodles."

  "Ugh, who would do that?"

  "Karissa, if I let her."

  Melody laughs. "Yeah, she probably would. Wouldn't even complain about it, either. You're good for her that way, you know. Not saying you aren't good in other ways, but definitely that. She never had anything really, I guess. Her mother… hell, I don't even know what to say about Mama Reed. Not to talk ill of the dead, but she was a bit of a whack-a-doodle. Karissa couldn't even breathe without the woman questioning it, and she just… accepted it, you know? Karissa acted like that was normal. So it's good, seeing her be happy and have things and do things."

  I could say a lot to that, but I keep my mouth shut, grateful when the traffic starts to loosen and we can go more than ten miles an hour.

  "So basically, what I'm saying," Melody continues, "is that Karissa could do worse."

  "She could," I agree.

  Probably not much worse than the man who killed her parents, but I think the extenuating circumstances count for something to my benefit.

  Melody turns back to the window, looking out of it again, still shifting around in the seat like she can't quite get comfortable. The music seems to do the trick again, as she quietly mouths the lyrics to whatever is playing on the radio, as I weave through the streets toward NYU. When we approach her dorm, she lets out a dramatic sigh, glancing back my way, like she's struggling hard to think of something to say.

  I guess it's normal, chitchat with people, small talk, but I hate it.

  "War & Peace, huh? Isn't that, like, a billion pages?"

  I take my eyes off the road for a second, glancing down at my lap where the book rests. "It's around thirteen hundred, give or take."

  "Favorite of yours?"

  "I wouldn't exactly call it my favorite, but it's been there for me in times of need."

  She smiles, like she knows what I mean. "I've read some stuff like that."

  "Like?"

  I almost expect her to say the Bible, when she spouts off with, "Cosmopolitan."

  Pulling into the entrance of the parking garage beside the dorms, I put the car in park as I turn to her. She gets out, not hesitating, and while I really want to just let her go, I feel compelled to say something. "Be careful on your date, Miss Carmichael. Not everyone is worthy of your time and attention."

  She seems taken aback as she pauses beside the car, the door still open. Leaning back in, she smiles. "You sound like my dad, you know."

  I try not to grimace.

  I'm quite aware of who her father is, and I'm nothing like that man. Wall Street schmuck. He's more of a crook than I am.

  She shuts the door, jogging away, toward her dorm, as I put the car in reverse and swing back out into traffic, ignoring the blowing horns from the intrusion.

  I head toward West Village.

  It's only a few blocks away.

  The Cobalt Room.

  Once upon a time, this was where dreams were made. Deals were concocted in the office in the back, schemes that netted more money than most people would ever see in a lifetime. I spent more nights than I can count within those walls, plotting my revenge, questioning my future.

  The Cobalt Room was like my home away from home, back when my home was nothing more to me than a shell, but the Cobalt Room is nothing now.

  Yellow police caution tape flaps in the wind as it surrounds the building, once the greatest structure on the block, now a burned out slab of nothing. The shell of it still stands, the outside charred, but it's easy to see, even from a distance, that the inside is gutted. Whatever flowed through it burned hot and fast… so fast that two people couldn't even get out.

  Seven others had been burned, some of them damn near unrecognizable.

  It melted their skin off, like they'd personally been doused in gasoline. And maybe they had been, I don't know. The ones capable haven't uttered a word about what went on. All any of them have said is, "I don't know what happened."

  But I know… or well, I have an inking.

  Because this kind of fire?

  This was done by someone who knew what they were doing.

  I park my car in the first spot I find down the street and reach down, opening up War & Peace, pulling the small silver handgun from the well created in the cut out pages. I slip it in my coat. I don't anticipate needing it, and I don't even like carrying it, but I'm not about to take any risks today. Reaching into the glove box, I pull out my black leather gloves and put them on.

  Getting out of the car, I keep my head down as I make the trek back toward Cobalt. I slip beneath the flimsy caution tape that blocks the alley beside the place, making my way to the back of the building where passer-byers can't see.

  It isn't hard to break in. What's left of the back door is locked, but a simple push against it knocks it right off the hinges. Grimacing, I lean back, turning my head away to avoid the puff of ash that rises up when the door hits the floor. It reeks, like fire usually does. It smells like smoke and accelerant, a hint of sulfur, like a lit match slapping me right in the face. And I know it's not safe… barely safe enough for me to even step inside, but I do, treading carefully.

  I only make it a few feet before I stop, not really needing to go further. I can faintly make out what I'm looking for. Holes litter the floor, but not ones caused by the fire. These are man-made, drilled in the foundation, probably when everyone was asleep. They would've been covered during the daylight, so nobody would've been any the wiser, before a fire was started down in the cellar.

  In the cellar, where all the alcohol is stored.

  I'd guarantee all of the windows were shoved open, to let even more oxygen in, but there's no way to tell that, not from where I'm standing. Still, I'd guarantee it.

  Because that's what I would've done, had it been me.

  It's peculiar. I almost would've said it was my doing, looking at it, but I was in Long Island with the Five Families when the fire started.

  Or well, I was with four of them.

  I suspect number five was right here.

  Lingering is pointless. I saw what I came to see. I don't trust police reports or what I read in the newspaper. Those are skewed by human error, tainted by perception. I needed to see with my own eyes that this was what I suspected it to be.

&n
bsp; Another attack.

  Another message.

  I slip back out of the building and make my way to my car, my eyes studiously scanning the neighborhood. It wouldn't surprise me if someone were watching, if eyes weren't still on the building.

  I never looked back.

  I didn't loiter.

  But I know others like to watch.

  They like to stick around and bask in their destruction, to oversee the aftermath.

  The sun is starting to set as I head back to Brooklyn. By the time I reach the house, it's dark outside. It has only been about two hours since I left her, but Karissa is already in her pajamas, like she's ready for bed. When I walk in, she's standing in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, holding a bowl of something in her hand.

  "You're back already," she says, sounding surprised.

  "I told you I wouldn't be long."

  She blows into her bowl, stirring whatever it is with a fork.

  "What are you eating?"

  I can't remember the last time I actually sat down and ate something.

  It has been a long week.

  Too damn long.

  "Noodles," she says, holding up a forkful to show me. "Want some?"

  "I'd rather starve."

  She laughs, shrugging, and takes a bite. "I saw some recipes on the Internet of how to jazz them up with like, cream of chicken soup and cheese or whatever. Thought I'd give it a try."

  She's jazzing up noodles that cost a quarter.

  What am I going to do with her?

  "Is that what you plan to make for these hypothetical dinner parties when you miraculously befriend people in this neighborhood?"

  "Pfft, no," she says. "They're doing the cooking. We're just going to eat."

  "Eat their cooking."

  "Yes."

  "Food prepared by strangers."

  "No, they're going to be our friends, remember?"

  "Even worse," I say. "You've got to watch the people you let near you. They can't stick a knife in your back if you don't let them get close enough to do it."

  She doesn't say anything to that, just staring at me as she takes another bite of noodles. She's staring hard, like she's looking for something.

  "What?"

  "There's soot on your shirt."

  I glance down when she says that, seeing the smudge. Shit. I try to brush it off, which is impossible. The shirt is white and it only extends the black streak.

  "Or at least I think it's soot," she says. "Either that or it's makeup, like dark eye shadow or maybe mascara, and if that's the case then I think you have some other kind of explaining to do."

  "It's not makeup."

  "Yeah, I didn't think so."

  She's staring at me again.

  When did this woman get so fearless?

  The minute I convince her I'm never going to kill her, suddenly she's the one trying to intimidate me.

  "I didn't do it," I tell her, knowing what she's thinking, "but I went to see."

  "Did you find what you were looking for?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, that's good." She pauses. "I think."

  She shovels another bite into her mouth.

  As much as I don't want to admit it, it's making me hungry.

  But I'm not eating what she's eating.

  Never doing that again.

  "Look, let's go out for dinner."

  "I'm wearing pajamas," she says. "Besides, I'm already eating."

  "You can't change?"

  "I could," she says, "but why can't we just stay in? I have class in the morning, and I'm already kind of tired, and the last time you and I ate somewhere... well, look what happened. I'm just not in the mood for another shoot out tonight."

  "It wasn't a shoot out."

  "What was it?"

  "A drive-by."

  She sighs loudly. "What's the difference, honestly?"

  "I didn't shoot back."

  She shakes her head, muttering, "Maybe you should've."

  It takes a moment for those words to register.

  I almost don't believe my own ears.

  "What did you just say?"

  "Nothing, just ignore me... I don't know what I'm saying." Sighing again, she tosses her bowl of noodles onto the counter, ignoring when some of them splash out, making a mess. "Maybe we should go get some food, but I get to pick the place."

  Reaching into my pocket, I pull out my keys. "That's fine by me. Just let me put on a different shirt."

  "Don't bother," she says. "I'm not changing."

  I think she's joking.

  Really, I do, because she's wearing a pair of my plaid lounge pants that are about three sizes too big for her. But instead of changing, she just slips on a pair of shoes and says, "Okay, let's go now."

  I look her over once before motioning toward the door. "After you."

  Who am I to tell her what to wear?

  We get in the car and I pull away from the house, waiting until I reach the end of the street before asking her which way I'm supposed to turn.

  "Uh, depends," she says, looking both ways, her brow furrowed.

  "On what?"

  "On which way the closest Wendy's is. You don't happen know, do you?"

  I just look at her.

  Sighing dramatically, like I'm being irrational by not answering that question, she pulls out her phone and asks Siri, hitting a button when Siri answers to open up a map. "There, just follow those directions."

  I do it, because I agreed to let her pick.

  I don't like to go back on my word, not if I can help it.

  So that's how, ten minutes later, I end up standing inside a busy little Wendy's, ordering French fries and a Frosty for Karissa and some kind of chicken sandwich for myself.

  After I order, I stand there.

  And I wait.

  And I wait.

  And I wait.

  Karissa is sitting at a small plastic table, as I continue to stand here, about to lose my patience. I'm three seconds away from snapping when they slap my food down on a tray, shoving it toward the edge of the counter. I grab the tray and join Karissa at the table, watching as she snatches up the Frosty and immediately, without hesitation, dips a fry into it.

  She eats it then.

  I don't know what to say.

  "What?" she says, noticing my expression. "Come on, you can't tell me you've never done it."

  "I haven't," I say. "But then again, I don't make a habit of ordering ice cream with my dinner."

  "You should. You don't know what you're missing." She grabs another fry and dips it into her Frosty before holding it out to me. "Here, try it."

  My natural instinct is to deny her, not because I think it might be tampered with, but because it frankly sounds disgusting. But I'm turning over a new leaf here, and I've already ended up at a fast food restaurant with my wife in her pajamas.

  Why not humor her?

  I take a small bite, chewing slowly, as she pops the rest of it in her mouth.

  It's not terrible.

  It's just... chocolate.

  And cold.

  A chocolate, cold potato.

  Okay.

  I don't like it.

  She laughs at my expression.

  "You're such a snob," she says. "It's good!"

  "Whatever you say."

  I eat half of my sandwich before throwing the rest out. It's not that great, either. I could go for a steak, or maybe some lobster, or even some real chicken, but Karissa seems quite content with what she's eating.

  It makes me think of what Melody said in the car.

  When you've got nothing, I suppose you appreciate the little things so much more.

  We head back to the car after she's finished, and once we're inside, she reaches over and grabs my hand. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome," I say, "but next time, I pick."

  Security at the dorms was always worthless.

  I can't count how many times Naz slipped in and out of the place undetected wh
en I lived there. So I'm not at all surprised that I'm able to just walk right inside, bypassing check-in to head upstairs.

  It's late morning and people are steadily coming and going. I've called Melody a few times only to get her voicemail. The damn thing doesn't even ring. She was supposed to meet me for coffee this morning, but she never showed up at the café.

  Late night, I'm guessing, considering she was out on her date.

  I pause in front of room 1313, quietly listening, but there are no sounds inside that I can hear. Tapping on the door, I hear some shuffling before it's opened, someone appearing in front of me. Red hair, dozens of freckles, and the angriest scowl I've ever seen greet me. The second she lays eyes on me, she literally grimaces, letting out a sound of disgust like she's actually repulsed by me.

  What the fuck?

  "Uh, hey... Kimberly." I think that's her name. "Is Melody here?"

  "No."

  No.

  That's it.

  No greeting.

  No explanation.

  Before I can say anything else, the door slams right in my face. I stare at it for a moment before shaking my head, turning to leave.

  "Karissa?"

  I glance up at the sound of the voice, locking eyes with Melody as she steps onto the floor from the elevator. Her hair is a rat's nest on top of her head. Old makeup streaks her face. She's still rocking my black dress.

  Good ol' walk of shame.

  "What are you doing here?" she asks, smiling sheepishly as she tugs on the dress, knowing damn well I notice she hasn't changed.

  "I came to check on you," I say. "You stood me up this morning."

  "Oh, shit!" Her eyes widen. "Coffee! I'm so sorry! I forgot!"

  "No big deal." I motion toward her. "I can tell you were, uh... otherwise occupied."

  Blushing… yet again… she grabs my arm and drags me back to the room, not offering a word in the way of explanation. She unlocks the door and waltzes in, yanking me inside behind her before shutting the door again. Kimberly is sitting at her desk and doesn't bother turning around as we enter, but I can see her back straighten like she's preparing for an attack or something. I plop down on Melody's messy bed, relaxing back on a pile of clothes, as Melody whips the dress off over her head, tossing it at me.