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“You mean if something goes wrong, it could be our careers,” Jones says.
Yulikova takes another sip of her coffee. “Cassel isn’t the only one with a choice. You don’t need to be a part of this.”
Agent Jones doesn’t say anything. I wonder if it will hurt his career either way. I wonder if he even knows he’s playing the bad cop. I kind of suspect he doesn’t.
I eat my sandwich. A nurse pokes her head in and says that she’ll be bringing medicine in about ten minutes. Yulikova stands and starts gathering empty cups and tossing them into the wastebasket.
“I can do that,” I say, getting up and grabbing a sandwich wrapper.
She puts her gloved hands on my arms and looks into my eyes, like she’s trying to see the answer to a question she hasn’t asked. “It’s okay to change your mind, Cassel. At any time.”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” I tell her.
Her fingers tighten. “I believe you. I do. I’ll be in touch in a few days with more details.”
“Let’s not tire her out,” Jones says, frowning. “We should go.”
I feel bad leaving Yulikova with the mess, but now they’re both looking at me with the expectation that our interview is over. Jones walks to the door, and I follow him.
“Just for the record, I don’t like any of this,” Agent Jones says, his gloved hand on the door frame.
She nods once, like she’s acknowledging his words, but the ghost of a smile is on her mouth.
Their exchange makes me even more sure I made the right choice. If Agent Jones approved of what I was doing, that’s when I’d be worried.
7
I FOLLOW AGENT JONES through the corridors of the hospital, but when I get to the parking lot, I’m done. The guy hates me. There’s no way I’m letting him take me back to the old house. I don’t want him talking to my grandfather again.
“I’m going to take off,” I tell him. “See you around.”
Agent Jones looks at me incredulously, then snorts. “You planning on walking?”
“I’ll call a friend.”
“Get in the car,” he growls, switching from amused to impatient in a single breath. There is something in his face that makes me even more certain that going with him is a bad idea.
“Make me,” I say. “I dare you.”
When he doesn’t actually lunge at me, I take out my cell phone and call Barron.
“Little brother,” he drawls, picking up on the first ring. “You need to leave school and join up with the Feds. Last night we raided a worker strip club, and I was knee-deep in naughty gloves. Did you know no one uses Velcro on tear-away gloves anymore? The new kind are held together by magnets so they just slide right off the hand—”
“That’s, uh, interesting,” I say. “But what I really need right now is a ride.”
“Where are you?” he asks.
I tell him the name of the hospital while Agent Jones watches me with a cold, furious look in his eyes. We don’t like each other. He should be relieved that he isn’t getting forced to spend any more time with me, but he’s obviously brimming with rage instead. The more I study his expression, the more unnerved I am. He’s not looking at me the way an adult looks at an obnoxious kid. He’s studying me the way a man studies his opponent.
* * *
I sit on the cold stoop and wait, letting the chill seep into my skin. It takes a while for Barron to show—long enough that I start wondering if I should call someone else. But just as I decide that I’m going to have to go inside and get something warm to drink or con a blanket from one of the nurses, Barron pulls up in a red Ferrari. He rolls down a dark tinted window and flashes me a grin.
“You stole that,” I say.
“Even better. This beautiful car was seized during a raid. Can you believe it? There’s a whole warehouse of stuff that gets confiscated and then just sits around until the paperwork is sorted out. Best warehouse ever. Come on, get in.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
