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She sets the noodles down. “I need to shower.”
I point to the gym bag on my bed. “There are clothes in there. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
Her eyes don’t meet mine. She simply slides out of her chair, unzips my bag, and yanks a shirt out. Then she closes the bathroom door behind her, and the shower starts to hiss.
14
FINLEY
Out, out, damned spot.
Is that what I am now? A Macbeth.
Someone capable of hurting—maybe even killing—others. Is that me?
The thought is surreal. I try to abandon it as I peel myself out of my clothes. I find more of his blood on my shirt when I take it off. A spot on the chest. Another spot on the sleeve. Did he bleed that much?
I can’t remember. The whole thing happened in a matter of seconds.
Even as I try to dredge up the memory now, it’s hazy, as though my brain is actively trying to scrub the moment clean from my narrative.
I want to burn these clothes. Destroy the evidence. Isn’t that what they do in the movies?
Instead, I leave them in a small, tidy pile on the bathroom floor. The shower sits in a tub behind a moldy-looking curtain. I’m careful not to touch the curtain more than I have to as I twist the shower on and let the water heat up.
I wait until I can see steam billowing out of the tub before I step inside. It’s scalding hot, and immediately my toes and the tops of my feet start to pinken.
I let the water pound me. I think of all the times I’ve been born, and reborn, with blood.
With my mother’s blood, I was born a Larkin. Lisa Larkin died only moments after I took my first breath. The doctors said she’d hemorrhaged internally.
With my father’s blood, I was reborn a Rossi—I can still recall the hot splattering of it on my skin, Archer’s wide eyes locked on me.
And now there’s Raphael’s blood. It stains me, but in that violence, I’ve escaped.
I’m not their little finch anymore.
And I won’t be. Ever again.
I let the hot water wash over me and take in gulps of steamy air, as though it were my very first breaths.
15
ARCHER
While Finley is in the bathroom, I do inventory.
I step outside and go to the car. The parking lot is dead, except for the Ford on the other end with its brake lights on. A woman hangs forward in the window, talking with the driver, and I don’t have to guess the kind of deal they’re negotiating.
Seedy motels attract seedy types, after all. But that’s why I picked this spot. It’s easier to hide among the riffraff, and if I know Catherine Rossi (and I do), she’s already turning over rocks looking for us.
I open up my passenger-side door and pop open the glove compartment. Inside is a loaded Beretta M9 pistol, the same one I was discharged with. I curl my hand around the weapon and feel the grooves made for my fingers and mine alone.
I don’t relish the act of killing. I’ve killed. More times than I’d care to remember. And I’m good at it. Got a damned medal for it. But if I could hang up my gun forever and never look at it again, I would do it in a heartbeat.
But I can’t. Not tonight. Not when Rossi has Finley—and, consequently, me—in her crosshairs.
