Trust Me, I'm Trouble

by Mary Elizabeth Summer

  “Nine o’clock. But I am not taking you anywhere else. It is not safe.”

  “Just to the 7-Eleven. If I can get a brush through my hair, I can hide everything else. Please, Dani?”

  “You should not be hiding anything.”

  I give her my biggest, saddest puppy-dog eyes.

  “Fine,” she says. “Just stop looking at me like that.”

  When we get to the 7-Eleven, she goes into the store for me. When she comes back, she hands me a bag with a brush, baby wipes, more gauze, and a tube of antibiotic ointment.

  “Thanks,” I say as she rips the brush out of its packaging. I gingerly pull its bristles through my rat’s-nest hair, squashing any feelings of awkwardness I have about doing this in front of Dani.

  By the time my hair is under control, she’s pulling the Chevelle up to the Ramirezes’ house again. Dani gets out and walks me to the door, looking in every direction but mine.

  When we get to the door, she says, “If you want to go anywhere tomorrow, call me and I will take you.”

  “I’ll lay low from now on, I promise. I don’t want a repeat of today.” I look her directly in the eye as I say it, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me.

  She nods and leaves without offering a good-bye. I carefully open the door and let myself in. Angela is in the living room watching baseball.

  “Hey,” I say wearily.

  Angela looks at me sharply. I must not be hiding my distress terribly well. Her eyes flick to my bandaged hands and then back to my face.

  “What happened?” she says, jumping up and coming over to hug me. “And what are you wearing?”

  I manage to tamp down my fear enough to keep my voice from shaking. “Priest costume. Just some scrapes. I fell. Dani patched me up.”

  “Fell off what? The back of a moving truck? Let me take a look at that.”

  She is a nurse, so I willingly follow her into the bathroom. It feels nice, actually—letting her mother me. Normally, I’d hate it. I often yelled at Sam for being too much of a nagging busybody. But the gentle touch of her hands unwrapping the gauze and washing my skin with antibacterial soap is soothing even as it stings. She doesn’t ask me questions, she just carefully wipes away the water and wraps my hands with fresh gauze. It makes me want to confide in her, which is kind of an odd feeling for me.

  I’m not sure how to start, though. I’m so not good at this revealing-myself crap. But I need to talk about something. Even if I can’t tell Angela the big stuff, maybe I can tell her something else and get some small measure of catharsis. I don’t even know what I’ve decided to say until it pops out.

  “How do you stop liking someone? Like, liking liking.” Oh, my god. Did that really just come out of my mouth?

  To her credit, Angela takes the stupid question in stride. “Does this have something to do with what happened to your hands?” she says deceptively mildly.

  “What? No. Well, maybe the part after what happened to my hands has something to do with it. Or rather it made me realize some things. I don’t even know. Forget I said anything.”

  She shakes her head, smiling. “Oh, no, you don’t. You opened this can of worms—there’s no closing it now. What do you mean ‘stop liking someone’? You’re having feelings for someone and you don’t want to?”

  I nod.

  “You can’t stop, Julep. That’s kind of the point.”

  “But I’m a con artist. A: I shouldn’t have feelings like this in the first place. B: I can make other people feel anything I want them to. Why can’t I do that to myself, too?”

  Angela grimaces. “Okay, that’s not exactly normal. You don’t really think that, do you?”

  I don’t know. Do I think that? “I don’t know what I think anymore,” I finally admit.

  She sighs and leans back against the shower door. “Is it a crush, or are you actually in love with her?”

  Wow. I guess I’m not as good at hiding my dysfunction as I think I am. “I…don’t know. How did you know I was talking about Dani? Is it that obvious?”

  “It’s obvious that she’d crawl over broken glass for you. What’s less obvious is how you feel. Sometimes I think you return her feelings, but other times…? It’s hard to get inside your head. Your reactions to things—it’s like you calculate everything before you say it. Dani’s the only one I’ve ever seen throw you off your game.” She shrugs. “I guess that’s telling.”

  Well, that’s not true. People throw me off my game all the time. The measure of a good grifter is how fast we compensate. Maybe that’s what she means. Maybe I can’t adapt with Dani.

  “Why do you want to stop, if I may ask? Is it because she’s a girl?”

  I blink, surprised. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  A smile plays at Angela’s lips. “It matters to some people sometimes. I just wondered if that was what was bothering you.”

  “It hadn’t even crossed my mind,” I say truthfully. She’s just Dani. Like Tyler was Tyler. “Honestly, I have so much crazy in my life right now that I can’t even care about that.”

  “Some people will care about it. You could lose a few friends over it.”

  “I don’t have friends. I have associates. Besides, nothing’s going to happen. Nothing can happen.”

  “Why not? What’s holding you back? Is it that she’s older?”

  I roll my eyes. “She’s only three years older than me. She’s already bossy enough without anyone else reminding her of that, so please keep that observation to yourself.”

  “Then why?”

  I think about Tyler. About how I was the death of him. About how much his loss hurt me, how much it still hurts me. About how he deserves better than for me to get any kind of happiness in love, even with a stubborn mob enforcer with enough baggage to swamp Atlantis. And then there’s Sam…

  Angela must read something in my face, because she tips my chin up until I look at her. “Being in your company is not an automatic death sentence, you know. Even for Dani, who would happily take a bullet for you. You need to accept that.”

  “I can’t,” I say, my voice getting wobbly all of a sudden. “Tyler—I can’t be responsible for another—” I take a breath and blow it out. “I just have to stop feeling, and it’ll all go back to the way it was.”

  “Oh, Julep…,” Angela says, touching my arm. “I’ll admit, I’m not wild about you hanging out with, much less dating, anyone who does what she does for the kinds of people she does it for. But the way she looks at you—like you’re her center. I couldn’t wish much better for you than that.”

  I shudder, some scab inside I’ve been jealously guarding finally breaking off and crumbling to dust, revealing the pink healing cardiac tissue beneath. Hope is a heady thing. I’m not sure it’s something I should be imbibing while trying so hard just to survive. I do feel about ten pounds lighter in the shoulders, even if my pestiferous, inappropriate heart is the least of my problems.

  “But how—?”

  The sound of the front door opening and closing puts me on instant alert. Angela and I are both here. Mike isn’t due back for days yet. I jump to my feet, moving in front of Angela and fumbling with my phone. Dani’s still close. My heart is pounding as I clumsily unlock the screen to dial her number. Heavy footsteps round the wall separating the foyer from the hallway. I was supposed to have time, damn it!

  I press Call, praying I can keep us alive long enough for Dani to return.

  “Julep Dupree!” Mike’s voice booms. “What the hell is this I hear about a contract?”

  “That’s all I know, Mike, I swear. Can I please go to bed now?” I cast a pointed glance at the clock; it’s three a.m.

  Mike paces to the other side of the living room and back again. “Someone shot at you in an empty quarry on the way back from a prison. Then Ralph Chen came back from the dead with a samurai sword to defend you.”

  “For the eighty-bajillionth time, yes. That is what happened.”

  “And the shoot
ing near Loyola? What can you tell me about the truck?”

  I go from slumped to full-out prone on the couch and close my eyes. If he wants to keep on talking, he can go right ahead. If he wants me to stay awake just to watch him pace, he can kiss my—

  “Wake up, Julep. You can sleep all you want in WITSEC.”

  That pops my eyes open. “I’m not a witness to anything that I haven’t already testified for, G-man. Witness Protection doesn’t apply to me. Even you can’t pull that many strings.”

  “Watch me,” he says.

  “Whoa. This is not my fault,” I object, sitting up again.

  “The fact that I had to find out about it from a phoned-in anonymous tip is most definitely your fault. You should have called me after Dani’s car was vandalized.”

  “So that you could come back and lock me in your guest room for the next two years? I think I’ll pass.”

  “You should have trusted me!”

  “Like you trust me?” I yell back.

  He scrubs a hand over his bald head. “Look, we’re both tired. We can yell at each other tomorrow. Tonight, let’s just make a plan.”

  I eye him warily, arms crossed. “Okay.”

  “There’s an FBI safe house available. I checked with dispatch on my way—”

  “No!” I say, pushing myself off the couch. “If you lock me up, I will get out and you’ll never see me again. Is that what you want?”

  “Julep, be reasonable.”

  “I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to since you arrested me. Well, except for a couple of missed curfews. But everything else, I’ve done. Court, community service, even therapy, for Pete’s sake. I’ve kept my end of the bargain. You owe me my freedom. If you won’t give it to me, I’ll take it. And I’ll never forgive you.”

  “This isn’t some kind of deal, Julep. My responsibility as your foster father is to keep you healthy and relatively happy and, above all things, alive. Freedom doesn’t enter into it until you’re eighteen.”

  “You are my handler, not my father!”

  “You are a kid, not a criminal informant!”

  “Hey.” Angela comes shuffling out of the back of the house in her pajamas. “What is all this yelling? It’s three in the morning.”

  My eyes fill with water from frustration and embarrassment. The truth is, I don’t have much choice if Mike decides to push his solution on me. He’s ruining my life. Again.

  “Both of you. Sit,” Angela says.

  My knees fold under me, but I stay perched on the edge of the couch, ready to bolt to Dani’s if I need to. Mike sits, too, but he’s about as relaxed as I am.

  “There has to be some kind of compromise we can agree to,” she continues. “Julep, you can’t possibly think we’d be okay with you wandering off in your usual way while someone’s out to kill you.”

  I open my mouth to retort, but she holds up a hand.

  “Mike, you can’t possibly expect someone like Julep to submit to incarceration. It would kill her.”

  Mike grinds his teeth. “It’s not incarceration if it’s for her own safety.”

  Angela gives him a sour look. “It would feel like it to her. Stop being so pigheaded.” Then she turns to me. “Julep, what would be an acceptable concession on your part?”

  “I could agree to a five p.m. curfew. And I would stick to it. Both attacks happened after dark. Most attacks do.”

  “That’s not—”

  Angela gives Mike a withering glare. “Agent Ramirez,” she says, ice in her voice. “Your counteroffer?”

  He sits silent for a moment, clenching his jaw against his nearly uncontrollable urge to take charge. I know him too well. We’re too much alike.

  “Home by five p.m. on weekdays, twenty-four seven on weekends, and mandatory security detail at all times.”

  “No way!” I shout, standing again.

  Angela’s superior glare turns on me. I deflate under it and collapse back onto the sofa.

  “Your turn,” Angela says to me.

  I chew my lip, thinking. “Home by five p.m. on weekdays, twenty-four seven on weekends, and Dani is my security detail. My only security detail.”

  “Dani is only one person, and she’s not trained—”

  “I can’t have suits following me around everywhere I go, they’ll ruin—”

  “Hold it!” Angela says, and Mike and I fall silent again. “It’s like refereeing a boxing match with you two. Here’s what’s going to happen. Five p.m. curfew on weekdays, home twenty-four seven on weekends. Dani will escort you everywhere, and I mean everywhere. And when you’re here, a team of agents will monitor the house.”

  I exhale a shaky breath. It sucks, but it’s not a safe house. “Okay,” I say.

  “Mike?” Angela says.

  “Fine,” he growls. “I’ll set it up.”

  “Good. Now, can we all please get some sleep? My shift starts in three hours.”

  “God, yes,” I say, getting up again. I drag my sorry self to the guest room and collapse onto the bed, still in my priest disguise, hands bound in gauze. I’m asleep before my face hits the pillow.

  • • •

  Six a.m. comes awfully quickly when one is up until three a.m. the night before arguing with recalcitrant parental types. And I’m made even grumpier by the fact that it’s summer and gloves covering up my damaged hands will stand out more than my hands would. I finally settle on a light jacket with sleeves that have holes for my thumbs. The sleeves cover only half the scratches on each palm, but it’ll do.

  Dani picks me up on time, like a total jerk, looking fresh as a daisy. I want to punch her and eviscerate Mike by the time I shamble into the NWI office. Coffee. I need coffee.

  Five minutes later, I’m at my desk, sipping my coffee like it’s the only thing keeping me sane, when I get a text from Sam’s untraceable burner phone.

  Saw you hobbling in the front door this morning. Fun party last night?

  I tap back:

  You have no idea.

  I’ll fill him in on Ralph and the hit attempt, but not over text.

  As I’m putting my phone away, Joseph walks in. He looks casually gorgeous, as always.

  “Oliver and Sally, I have a new project for you. I put some time on your calendars to meet the project lead later this morning. Aadila, you’ll be taking over Julep’s project for today. Julep, you’ll be working with Duke on developing initiate training. Jane, I have some data entry….”

  I tune out the rest of his project assignments. Duke? Why is Duke still singling me out? Is he trying to distance me from the other interns? Is he trying to con out of me what I’ve discovered so far? There isn’t much, to be honest. He probably knows everything I know. Ugh, I do not have enough brain for this today.

  And honestly, I’m nervous to see him after my interview with Mr. Antolini, which until this very moment I’d completely forgotten about. I left the number Mr. Antolini had been repeating in my priest pants back at the Ramirezes’. I need to have Sam analyze it. I would have brought it with me, but with everything that happened with the hit attempt and Mike coming home, I just didn’t think of it.

  In any case, I can’t imagine what could have happened to turn Mr. Antolini into the bombed-out shell of a man I saw, but it can’t have been good. And Mrs. Antolini being a fraud is almost as frightening. Who the hell was I working for? Part of me is screaming that I should ditch this hot mess of a job immediately. Like, walk right out the door without laying eyes on Duke Salinger again. But my mom is still somehow connected. The blue fairy, the bar. She’s missing. I can’t abandon the job without knowing with absolute certainty that NWI has no connection to her disappearance.

  “Julep?” Joseph is looking at me expectantly. Crap. What did I miss?

  “Yes?”

  “Are you going to go meet Duke in his office, or just sit there staring off into space?”

  “Heading up now,” I say, jumping to my feet and grabbing a spiral notebook.

  Hurrying up
the curling ramp, I branch off onto the executive floor and hustle to Duke’s office.

  “Ah, Julep. So glad you’re here. Come in, come in,” Duke says from the sofa area. He shuffles some papers out of the way so I’ll have room to sit.

  “I’m not sure how I can help. I don’t know the first thing about inspiring people.”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To learn.”

  I smile. “Right.”

  “We’re not going to do much in the way of design anyway. It’s more of a brainstorming session. I find I develop my method best when I have a fresh mind as a sounding board—the fresher, the better.”

  “Well, not to toot my own horn, but I can get pretty fresh when the situation calls for it.”

  Duke chuckles, deep and rumbly. “Fair enough. So let me start by asking you, why do you think people come to NWI?”

  “Because they’re lonely and confused?”

  “That’s part of it,” he says. “But why are they lonely and confused?”

  I think back to what Duke said yesterday afternoon. “Because they’re trying to fill their emptiness with the wrong things?”

  “Yes, exactly. This workshop I’m building now is about developing a life purpose, because dedicating your life to a purpose is a healthy and effective way of filling the emptiness. What do you think of that?”

  Even my thoughts feel heavy, that’s how tired I am. But I do my best to rally. Duke is likely testing me. I have to pass if I want to earn any useful information.

  “I think ‘purpose’ is too broad. Making millions of dollars is a purpose. But I don’t think that’s what you’re going for.”

  He smiles. “Excellent point. What would you call it, then?”

  I think for a long moment, turning ideas over in my head and then discarding them. Though sluggish, the grifter part of me is starting to juice up at Duke’s line of questioning. It’s interesting, thinking about people like puzzles you can coax into putting themselves back together again.

  “How about ‘aspiration’?” I say finally.

  “I like it,” he says, and writes it down on a notepad. “I like the double meaning—hope and breath. Two things we can center the workshop around. I like to include movement when I can. People seem to retain the lesson better when kinesthetic exercises are involved. But what about the hope part? What does hope symbolize to you?”