by Steven James
“Time will tell.”
Tessa came toward us carrying her book.
“So,” I said. “What’d you get?”
“A collection of stories by Poe.” She held it up proudly. “Please tell me you’ve heard of him.”
“He wrote that poem ‘The Raven.’”
“Um. Yeah. That would be him. But he wrote a bunch of other stuff too.”
We passed outside into the daylight. “That would be a good nickname for you, by the way: Raven.”
“Why’s that?”
“Your black hair. Your spirit. And ravens are kind of mysterious in a tenebrous sort of way.”
“Nice word. Tenebrous.”
“Thanks. I’ve been saving it up for a special occasion.”
“I guess I don’t care if you call me that—Raven, I mean.”
“So, in other words, you’d like it?”
“Someday those training wheels just might come off.”
“I hope so.”
“You know,” she said, “you never did tell me the answer to my logic problem.”
“Huh. I guess I didn’t. The boy hadn’t gone anywhere. He was right back in his own village because he’d headed in the wrong direction from the start.”
“Yeah, well, you were too late on that one.”
“It was pretty late,” Christie agreed.
“Two against one,” I said. “I guess you guys win.”
“And it was double or nothing,” Tessa reminded me helpfully. “Six weeks. That was the deal.”
“Yeah, well, that first steak in August is gonna taste really good.”
I took Christie’s hand and I thought about what Tessa had told me the other night—that she would spend a year making up a puzzle if she needed to in order to keep her mom and me together.
It didn’t look like that would be necessary, but it spoke to how much this girl loved her mother.
What about you?
Do you love Christie that much?
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was ready to say that I loved her or not, but I was ready to start loving her.
And that was a good place to be.
Last week when I went to her apartment after leaving the scene of Randy’s suicide, I’d wondered if there was a grand scheme to things, a bigger plan at work.
Well, if there was, I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather uncover it with than this woman by my side.
“I thought of one,” I said to her as we climbed into the car.
“A tongue twister?”
“In six weeks rich rare steaks.”
Tessa groaned, Christie smiled and began to say it five times fast as we left to visit Tobin at the hospital.
100
Blake handed the glass of water to his bodyguard, Mannie, who was lying on the bed in the Bronx apartment where Blake had moved his things.
Wednesday night after they’d left the warehouse, he’d brought Mannie here and dug the two bullets out of his side with calipers, and then stitched the gunshot wounds back up with a sewing needle.
No sedative.
No anesthetic.
Mannie had only grimaced twice—once when Blake was digging around for the first bullet, and once when he was maneuvering the second one out and it scraped against one of his ribs.
“You’re going to be alright,” Blake told him. “We’ll just give it a couple more days.”
A quiet nod.
Then, while Mannie rested, Blake went into the other room where one of his silent ladies was holding his phone.
He removed it from her steady hand and put the call through to his contact at the Bureau, the person who’d gotten him access to the Federal Digital Database. They’d met in Los Angeles six years ago when he was still an undercover cop for the LAPD.
“Hello,” the voice answered.
“Maria. It’s Blake. We need to talk about Dr. Bowers.”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
No, the story wasn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
One chapter had ended, but another, even bolder one, was about to begin.
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Brent Howard, Dr. John-Paul Abner, Brian Regli, Bob Hamer, Dr. D’Ovidio, Trinity and Eden Huhn, Pam Johnson, Ann and Steve Campbell, Dr. Todd Huhn, Liesl Huhn, J. J. Hensley, Dan Larsen, Andrew Young, Micah Haskins, Joe Taylor, Alan Rutledge, Dr. Rossmo, Justin Cockrell Amarilys and Carl Rassler
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