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“Best idea you’ve had yet.”
“And drive me to my hotel.”
“Then you go and say that,” I said sarcastically. Law clicked the button to open my car. Reluctantly I slid into the driver’s seat. I watched with mute indignation as he walked around the front to the passenger seat. Even though he had my keys, I felt an urge to lock the door. I didn’t though, because I was simply a helpless observer in my own life.
Law said jump, and I jumped. Morris said strip, and I stripped. When Law handed me the keys, I put them into the ignition and drove, trying not to think about the melting ice cube that had become my soul.
I pulled up to Law’s hotel and said, “Your personal taxi has arrived at its destination.”
“You’re coming up with me, Nami.” Law sighed, like I was the one putting him out.
“Hmm,” I mused, turning the ignition off but keeping the car on. I put a finger to my lips, as if pretending to really consider what Law had said. “I think I’d rather drink battery acid.”
“It’s time you learned about me, Nami.” Law’s usual smooth brogue adopted a sober, almost chilling intonation. “The real me.”
“Said every serial killer ever.” I turned my ignition back on. “No thanks.”
“I have information that can help you ruin Morris,” Law said, the way someone might say “I have candy” to a four-year-old. Glaring, I turned off the ignition once and for all.
“Spill.”
“Not until we’re upstairs,” Law stated bluntly. “I’m not about to give you this information and have you fuck off without a thank you.”
I scoffed. “You don’t strike me as the guy who needs a thank you card.”
Kicking his d
oor open, Law smiled back at me. “Well I do.”
I didn’t need to follow Law up to his room. I remembered it with perfect clarity. It was where we had kissed, where he had saved me. It was where he held pieces of me I hadn’t known still existed.
It was a very eerie walk back there. I kept having déjà vu. When he waved his keycard over the lock, my eyes focused on the card and the hallway disappeared. It felt as if I were a high school student on prom night following her date into the motel.
I was so unnerved that the minute Law unlocked the door I pushed past him and ran inside before he could. I needed to get a good vantage point. I chose the radiator, ignoring the hot metal scalding my skin.
“Interesting spot,” Law remarked as he shut the door behind us.
“Shut up. Why am I here?” The metal burned my flesh, but I refused to be weak. Even changing locations felt like I was giving something up to him. In lieu of responding to me, Law went to his mini fridge and pulled out two bottles of water. He took a sip of one and offered me the other. I glared at him.
“Suit yourself.” Law put the bottle back inside the mini fridge and turned to me. “I have a journalist that can help you.” I was so bewildered I couldn’t even laugh. A journalist? Like a member of the media? Part of the lynch mob that had personally tied me up and thrown me over the edge of a building marked “The Associated Press?”
After a few moments of silence I eventually said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Are you laughing?” Law asked. Thankfully the radiator had turned off. The metal was still hot, but I was no longer at risk of third-degree burns. I lifted one sweaty thigh over my other leg and leaned against the winter chilled window. Law watched me just as intensely as I him.
With light brown hair cut short enough that it was out of his face, but long enough that I could still run my hands through it, he leaned forward so that it almost covered one eye. His head was cocked in a way that I’d grown accustomed to, a way that seemed to either be studying me or laughing at me. I could never decide. Law’s five o’clock shadow was eternal, and beneath the shadow always sat a smirk. Except for now. Now his mouth was set in a hard line.
“What’s the name of this journalist?” I asked, relenting. “Who does he work for?” Law moved from his perch against the mini fridge toward me. Fascinated, I watched him. How could someone simultaneously be a mercenary, but also full of mirth?
Law handed me a card. “He’s freelance.” I reached for the card, not taking my eyes off of Law. “Go to him. He’s good and can be trusted. At least look him up.”
“How do you know him?” I looked at the paper skeptically. It read Matthew Jameson in italic silver letters.
“I don’t. A few of my old colleagues were sources to him. He was good. Never ratted them out.”
I looked from the card, to him, to the card. “Your colleagues? Like Morris?” I scoffed, shoving the card in my purse. “Why should I trust you?”
“Don’t trust me, trust him,” Law shrugged. “He’s never betrayed a source and reports on serious shit.”
