Page 46 of Plain Sight

“You can talk to me anytime. But I can’t stop. I need to keep my eyes on the prize. I need to be ready in case he goes out through the back.”

Praise be to God. Walsh doesn’t go out the back. He comes out the front door a few minutes later with a second person. Skinny. Dark shirt. A kid?

A man.

They turn one corner, then another, and then we’re on a darker, narrower, quieter street with a scraggly line of grass that could be an attempt at some community greenery. The wind is like a physical touch. My skin is that sensitive. My heartbeat is so loud in my ears that it takes me by surprise when Malcolm and the kid—the man—stop.

Oh. They’re arguing.

Talking?

Arguing.

There’s just enough light to make out the second man’s light hair, and his younger features. Fuck! Amen! That has to be the Good Samaritan. I can’t see the color of his eyes from here, but that’s him.

“—need you to do,” Walsh is saying. He’s backed the Good Samaritan into the wall next to somebody’s stoop. The Good Samaritan’s got an inch on Walsh, maybe two, but he’s skinnier. That could be another gift from God. If he’s skinny, it won’t be as hard to stab him.

My mouth floods with a bitter taste. I want to spit it out, but that would blow my cover, which is limited to a dark shadow and a shallow alcove.

I’m not going to throw up.

I feel kind of like it.

No. I’m not.

The Good Samaritan shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans. I can’t hear the first thing he says, but I catch, clear as day:

“—late, Dad.”

Everything goes silent.

Dad?

The Good Samaritan is Walsh’s son?

“—simple,” Walsh is saying. “There’s no reason to add complications. You know that.”

“Dad, please,” the Good Samaritan says. He’s not begging, but he does sound like the playing field is not level.

Walsh says something that sounds like a curse and yanks his phone out of his pocket. He rubs gingerly at the back of his head with his other hand.

“Yeah?” He’s not happy about this call. “Fine. There’s a conversation we need to finish.”

He puts his hand on the Good Samaritan’s neck—it’s not a friendly grip—and pulls him in the opposite direction, down the street.

I follow, my thoughts racing through a sludge of disappointment and the most inconvenient revelation ever. The street dims, then brightens. This is my opportunity. To kill Malcolm Walsh. To drop-kick him off the face of the planet. But next to him, the Good Samaritan shifts into Gabriel, walking down the street alone, a patch of blood growing on his T-shirt. Then he’s Mason, his face as white as the papers he had to sign. I swear, the fire was still reflected in his eyes. He’s me, trying to breathe—it hurt, it hurt, it hurt—when my parents were dead and look, there was the proof, right there in the photos, the wedding band, right there. See?

Walsh isn’t like my parents. Unless this argument was a one-off. Unless Dad, please never comes up in their normal lives. What the fuck is Walsh’s normal life? Killing people and being a prick to his son?

He has a son.

Can I kill him in front of his son?

I have to.

Jamie.

But then they’re stepping out onto the sidewalk at the next block. I move faster. If it’s empty, I can still⁠—