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“We should find a payphone around here somewhere,” Blake said checking behind us as we walked.
I kept my head down, my hands in my pockets. My feet were still bare and the ground was cold. “Maybe I could find some shoes on the way.”
“Keep an eye out,” he said. “Cars we pass by parked by the side of the road might have some in them. Unless you’d be upset if we took stole them. Is that too much?”
I blew out a frustrated breath.
“Honey, I’m not trying to be flippant. But there’s not a shop along this road. And besides, first thing they took was my wallet. And also my house is blown up now.” He pulled out his pockets until the material showed. “I’m a broke man. But I don’t want to cause a rift with you mad at me for stealing.”
I paused in my walking and considered what he said. “You know, when I first met you, I was intimidated because you had money. I thought you’d be some snob.”
“You don’t think I’m a snob now?”
“No.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Maybe it was learning about your obsession with Pop Tarts. Made you human.”
“I’d give anything for one right now.” He held a palm over his stomach. “Believe it or not, the money is new. I earned it.”
“How?”
He kept his hand at his stomach, his hand tightening at the material, bundling it in his fingers. “Probably not in the best ways. Helping people, like when you met me, only I took money for my services.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“The only people who need help in exchange for money, at least in that sort of thing, were unscrupulous folks. People who usually got too far into the bad side of things and couldn’t get out. Good people usually don’t have that sort of trouble. Not that often anyway.”
I bit my lower lip and turned from him, walking away. “Guess you’re right. Honest, good people…they don’t end up like this.”
He approached me from behind, grabbing my wrist. “Kayli,” he said but paused.
I froze, shoulders hunched, looking at the ground. “I tried to be. Corey tried to be. They all did. They changed, tried to be good people…”
The hand at my wrist tugged me until I turned and he put his arms around me. He held me until resistance faded and I had my forehead in the crook of his neck. “I’m just tired,” I said.
“Don’t apologize or excuse it. Because there’s nothing to apologize for. Maybe you were good. Maybe they were, too. But when you’re dealing with bad people, people who are able to legally walk the streets, evading police, sometimes it takes some questionable choices to take them down. It’s why the police have to pretend to be bad guys on occasion. Trap the bad people doing the bad things.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. “We’re not the cops.”
“Did you want to be one?” he asked. He pulled back so he could look at me. “We’re something else. Or maybe when this is over, we’ll do something completely different.”
“Is it ever going to be over?”
“Has to be,” he said. “Soon. For us.” His hands massaged my shoulders. “I’d like to check in at that hospital if we have time,” he said. “Where they sent Natalie.”
“She okay?”
“Her and my brother got…it wasn’t good. She wasn’t doing so well when Alice was still trying to get information out of us. These guys let her go to the hospital, after disorienting them, before we figured out we were still in the same damn building. I just want to make sure she’s okay.”
I nodded. “If she’s at the same hospital I was at, they’ll take care of her. They know what to look for.”
His hands moved to cup my cheeks. “We just need to get everyone else out. It’ll be over soon. I promise.”
And then what? I had to wonder. This had gone on for so long. I couldn’t imagine going back to normal.
We moved on, and when we couldn’t find a phonebooth, we darted into a bar and asked to use the phone.
“Local call?” the guy at the bar said. It was dim except for lights behind us over the tables and a few coming up from underneath the bar, making the bartenders look haunted.
Blake nodded. “Just for a cab buddy of mine. Left my phone in his car when he dropped us off.”
The guy motioned us to follow him into a back office. The space smelled like leather and mold, with a single desk in the middle and a wide screen TV facing it in the tiny space. A phone was on the desk, underneath a pile of paperwork.
I used it to dial out for Avery while Blake distracted our bartender host.
Avery picked up on the second ring. “I got you, but I don’t drive anymore. I can redirect you to…”
“Avery,” I said quickly. “It’s me.”
He sputtered as he lost track of his spiel. “Kayli? Where are you?”
“I’m downtown,” I told him the bar. “Are you busy? Can you come get us?”
He was silent for a minute then came back. “Sure,” he said. “What’s going on? I haven’t heard anything except there might have been a small fire…the police were here looking for you…well, Raven, but you…”
“Long story,” I said. “Come pick me up and I’ll explain it.”
??????
It took a while, but Avery finally showed up in his old clunker tank.
“Got it back?” I asked as I slid into the back seat. Blake got in the front passenger side.
Avery smoothed his hand over the dashboard. “I just don’t really like new cars, apparently. They don’t drive right.” He pulled away from the curb and then turned to get us away from the tourist section of town. “What’s going on?”
“You said someone was close to figuring out where old Mr. Murdock was?”
“Yeah,” he said. “There’s a forensics team working on a trail to locate him. Apparently, they need him.”
“Because they can’t access the missing money without him?” I asked.
He used the rearview mirror to look back at me, wiping some of the longer locks of his hair out of his face. “How’d you know? Did I tell you?”
“No,” I said.
“We’ve got trouble,” Blake said. “Alice took people from our team.”
Avery frowned. “Who? Which ones?”
“A bunch of them. But it’s okay, for now. We’ve got people who overtook her group.”
Avery’s eyes widened. “So she’s gone?”
“Not really, no,” Blake said. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s the last lead you had on Mr. Murdock? Where is he?”
“Like I said, a forensics team is on to him,” he said. He shifted so he could pull a cell phone out of his back pocket. He checked the screen for messages. “I can take you to Ethan. He’ll know more than me.”
“We can’t,” I said. “The cops are looking for me.”
“Right,” Avery said, lowering the phone to watch where he was driving. He side-glanced to Blake. “So now what?”
“We could call him,” Blake said. “Might be risky…”
“Let me try,” Avery said. He picked up his phone, putting it to his ear. I could hear the phone dial out, the buzzing as he waited for someone to pick up, and then a voice. “Connect me to Ethan, please? Thank you.” Pause. “Hi,” he said. “No, everything’s okay. Listen, I know we’re looking for your father, but what’s the latest on that. I was just thinking of something. Kayli…you know that girl…Yeah.” He slowed the car until he was stopped off the side of the road. With the late hour, there wasn’t much traffic on this road. He focused on his conversation.
I watched behind us and ahead of us. Having been in an accident, I wasn’t sure I could feel comfortable in a car for a while. Especially at night like it was now.
Avery snapped at Blake and made a writing motion. Blake checked the dash and the glove compartment, finding a pen, but no paper. Avery grabbed the pen, and then Blake’s arm, and wrote something down. “Really? A boat? I always said the best way to esca
pe detection was a boat. Right, having a hard time finding it…”
Blake shared a knowing look with me while Avery wrote things down. “I don’t have one left. And it’s just the three of us. Old Mr. Murdock isn’t going to be doing this alone. Everyone we know is tied up.”
“Didn’t Doyle leave on a boat?” I asked.
Blake pursed his lips, sitting back in the seat while keeping his arm out for Avery. “He’ll hate me calling him back in.”
Avery hung up, motioning to the stuff he wrote on Blake’s arm. The scribble was hard to read. Avery squinted at it. “That’s the supposed make and model of the ship. They don’t think it’s left the vicinity.”
