Page 93 of You Can Run

The lobby was locked but lit. Dante could see a security desk inside, a guard reading something on his phone. He knocked on the glass.

The guard looked up, assessed them: a man with tattoos and a woman with pink hair, both of them looking like they'd been through something. He came to the door.

“We're here for Claire Okafor,” Dante said. “She's expecting us. Tell her it's from Sofia.”

The guard made a call. Two minutes later, a woman appeared from the elevator bank. She was Black, mid-thirties, clutching a reuseable cup.

She looked at Dante, then at Jessica, then at the drive in Dante's hand.

“You're from Sofia,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Is she—” Claire stopped. She read something in his face and the question seemed to answer itself in her mind.

Dante held out the drive. “She wanted you to have this. She said you'd know what to do with it.”

Claire took the drive. She held it in both hands, looking at it, and Dante saw her fingers tighten around it.

“I've been waiting six years for this,” she said quietly.

“Sofia waited longer,” Jessica said.

Claire looked at her and nodded. “I'll do right by it. By her.”

They left the building and stepped back onto Broad Street. The sky was starting to lighten in the east, a thin grey line separating the buildings from the dark. Dawn was coming. Dante couldn't remember the last time he'd slept.

Jessica leaned into him as they walked south, her head against his shoulder, her hand still in his.

“Where do we go?” she asked.

“I don't know,” he said. “But we'll figure it out.”

She squeezed his hand, and they kept walking, south on Broad Street, toward the grey light, toward whatever came next.

THIRTY-EIGHT

They found an all-nightdiner six blocks south of the Inquirer building. A few solitary customers sat spaced along the counter. A waitress brought them a pot of coffee and left them alone in a booth by the window.

The sky outside had gone from grey to a pale, washed gold. Dante watched it come up over the rooftops across Broad Street.

Jessica wrapped both hands around her mug. The ruby ring was still on her finger. He'd noticed it on the curb outside the Dollhouse and hadn't said anything, because some things didn't need saying out loud, and also because he hadn't trusted his voice.

“You should call him,” she said.

Dante looked at her.

“Santiago.” She turned her mug a slow quarter-turn on the table. “You should call him.”

“It's five in the morning.”

“I doubt he’ll be sleeping.”

Dante looked out the window. He thought about the last time he'd seen his brother—four, or was it five days ago?—in his backyard in Agua Dulce, Santiago's face hard and final.You'redoing it again. You're choosing her and you're going to die for it, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life not knowing where they buried you.And Dante had driven away with Jessica because there hadn't been another choice, but he'd carried the look on Santiago's face all the way to Galveston and beyond.

“He told me I'd never see him again,” Dante said. “it was one of the last things he said to me.”

“I know.” Jessica was quiet for a moment. “Call him anyway.”