“Watch your tone.”
He takes a deep breath, drinks more of the whiskey.
“How much do you owe?”
“Twenty-grand.”
“Hefty sum,” I say, eyebrows raised.
He drinks some more.
“To whom do you owe twenty-thousand-dollars?”
Here he hesitates and I have a feeling I’m not going to like his answer.
“Who, Ben?”
“Arturo Antonino.”
He has the grace to hang his head. I stand up, shaking my head as I look at the top of his. “I can’t help you this time, cousin, but I think you already knew that.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Why not?”
I go to him, push my finger into his forehead, poke him while I speak to make my point. “Because he’s Benedetti’s enemy which means he’s my enemy. I’m not putting twenty-grand into his pocket. I’m not fucking stupid.”
“You don’t understand, he’ll fucking kill me!”
“He won’t kill you but he will beat you and maybe you’ll learn something.” I check my watch. “What the fuck are you doing borrowing from him anyway?”
“I didn’t borrow it. I was at a poker game—”
“Why am I not surprised?” I check my watch. I want him gone. “I have a meeting in a few minutes, Ben.”
I hear the shower go on just then. Cilla. Ben glances down the hall, then looks at me, eyebrows raised.
“Your meeting having a shower?”
I don’t want him to know about Cilla. “Yeah. She is. And she’ll get anxious if I don’t get in there.”
“Girl from last night? Jones’s sister, right?”
How the fuck does he know? “Time to go, Ben.” I push the button to open the elevator doors. He glances down the hall again, looks like he wants to say something, but shakes his head and steps onto the elevator.
“Enjoy your meeting,” he says, handing me the empty cup and putting the word meeting in air quotes.
I don’t respond, but watch him until the elevator doors close. This conversation isn’t over, I know, but right now I have another priority. I walk to the guest room where the shower has switched off. I knock before entering. Cilla’s there in the same bathrobe combing her fingers through her hair.
“What do you want?” She folds her arms across her chest.
“You ready to go pick up some clothes?”
She watches me. “From my apartment?”
I nod.
She nods too, like she’s scared to talk and fuck it up.
“I’ll take you to see Jones after that.”
“Why?”
“Because you asked me.”
“So you suddenly decide to be nice to me?”
“I guess so.”
“I asked you for something else too.”
“And I asked you to tell me why. I can’t agree until I know the whole story.” I take a step toward her. “I’ll find out anyway, Cilla. I’ve got a man in Florida who’s about to meet with the judge.” Slight exaggeration, but close enough to truth.
“You what?” Panic widens her jade eyes.
“It might be best if you tell me yourself,” I say.
The way she looks at me, it’s like she’s trying to figure out if I’m bluffing. “Just leave it alone,” she says, clearly deciding to take her chances. “Please.”
“No.”
* * *
Cilla’s apartment is in a building about thirty minutes from mine. It’s in a decent neighborhood. Not one I’d live in, but not bad. I follow her up the stairs to the second floor. When we reach her door, she stops and turns to me.
“I don’t have my key.”
I take it out of my pocket and hand it to her.
She rolls her eyes. “Of course.” She slides it into the lock and turns it. “Do you have my wallet too? My driver’s license? Credit cards?”
“And the twenty-four dollars you had on you.”
She rolls her eyes, shakes her head, pushes the door open, walks inside. I follow her in.
“Everything is safe. You’ll get it all back in one month.”
“You mean when I’ve done my time?” she mutters as she walks through the living room, switching on lights as she goes.
I look around the place. It’s not big. In fact, her entire apartment can just about fit into the living room/kitchen of the penthouse. But it’s neat, not much out of place. The kitchen counter is spotless, appliances not brand new, but not old either, and clean. I open her fridge. Inside is a container of what I am guessing is expired milk, various jars of jam, and an open bottle of wine that’s not quite half-full. I walk around the counter that divides the kitchen from the living room where a sweater hangs over the back of the couch. Her laptop is on the small dining room table. Papers are stacked neatly beside it.
When she emerges a few moments later, she’s wearing a pair of sweats, an oversized hoodie and Chucks.
“Don’t approve?” she asks me, cocking her head to the side.
“That depends.” I make a sign for her to spin around.
She holds her middle finger up at me and I have to chuckle. “Careful, Cilla. My palm’s feeling twitchy.”
She gives me a glare, then moves toward her computer, packs the folders and the laptop into the tote bag beside the chair and looks up at me. “Okay, ready.”
“I gave you a computer.”
“And as much as I appreciate the upgrade, there’s nothing wrong with this one. I haven’t even turned the new one on. Maybe you can return it. Get your money back.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
She seems surprised, which is what I want. I open the door and gesture for her to go ahead. She does and once we’re in the hallway, I lock the door and pocket the key. We take the stairs back down to my SUV.
“Where is Jones?” she asks once we get on the road.
“At a facility about forty-five minutes from here.”
“Facility?”
“Your brother has a drug problem, Cilla.” She doesn’t deny it, but she’s also not confronting the fact. “You can’t not know this.”
“He was clean.” She looks out the side window. “He tried to stay clean. I told him he shouldn’t be around it. Get a decent job somewhere. Pack groceries if he has to.” She turns to me again. “I told him he could move in with me. At least until he could be on his own without having to work for…” She steels herself. “For men like you.”
“Men like me?”
She just looks up at me, and I know she’s scared but she’s also being honest. And she’s right. But I’m also the guy footing the bill for the detox center.
“No, he probably shouldn’t work for men like me.”
“So you put him in a detox center?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I needed to keep an eye on him anyway, in case you bailed on our deal. This is cheaper than having men on him 24/7.”
“I can’t imagine it’s cheaper.”
It’s not, but I don’t react.
“Is he doing okay?” she asks a moment later.
“He’s detoxing.”
She nods.
“Kill?”
I glance at her, curious at how she’s looking at me. “Yes?”
“Don’t mention Callahan to him, okay?”
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Just don’t. Please.”
I nod, but don’t state the fact that I already have. She’ll find out soon enough. I pull into the parking lot of Dover Recovery Village and park the car. The facility is an old mansion that was converted into what it is today thirty years ago. It’s small and it’s expensive, but it’s the best.
Cilla looks from the building to me, eyebrows raised.
I get out of the car. “Let’s go.”
She meets me at the front of the car and we walk up the half-dozen steps to the front doors. I open one and she enters, then follows me to the
nurse sitting behind the large desk.
The nurse does a double take, then stands. “Mr. Black.”
I nod. “We’re here to see Jones Hawking.”
“We didn’t know you’d be coming again so soon.”
“Again?” Cilla asks me.
I ignore her. “This is Priscilla Hawking. Jones’s sister.”
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Hawking.”
“How’s my brother.”
“He’s doing well, considering. I don’t think Doctor Moore is here, but let me double check and otherwise, I’ll walk you up.”
“Who’s Dr. Moore?” Cilla asks.
“He’s your brother’s primary physician,” the nurse says and walks away.
Cilla turns to me. “What did she mean when she said she didn’t know you’d be coming again so soon?”
“I paid Jones a visit yesterday.”
“What?”
“I’m responsible for his care. I want to be sure I’m getting my money’s worth, that’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”’
“I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care.”
The nurse clears her throat. “Ready?” she asks when we look at her.
“Yes,” Cilla says.
We follow the nurse to the stairs where a man is painting the banister. The carpet needs replacing—I guess there’s much more foot traffic these days than the house originally had. We head up to the second floor and walk quietly down the hall. Jones is in the last room. I watch Cilla as she takes in the various sounds and smells of the place. It’s obvious she’s never been somewhere like this.
“This is it.” The nurse stops. There’s an orderly stationed outside his door.
“Why is he here?” she asks.
The nurse glances at me. “Your brother’s been…upset.”
Cilla follows the nurse’s gaze to me. “Upset how?”
“Let’s go in,” I say.
Cilla faces me, puts her hands on my chest. “No. I’ll go in alone.”
“If he gets violent—”
“He’s had a mild sedative,” the nurse points out, clearly uncomfortable.
Cilla spins around. “Why?”
The nurse clears her throat, looks at me. She obviously knows who I am and she’s inclined not to upset me.
“Just go in, Cilla.” I check my watch. “You have fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Fourteen minutes and forty-five seconds.”
She lets out an exasperated breath, then nods to the nurse. The orderly opens the door. Jones is lying on the bed, his skin flushed, sickly looking. He looks a little worse than he did when I last saw him.
“Cilla,” he says, sitting up, his movements slow.
“Jones!” she runs to him, leans down. I expect her to hug him but she stops short.
Jones looks over her shoulder, finds me standing there. His eyes widen. Cilla must feel the shift because she straightens, turns to me.
“You said I had fifteen minutes. Alone.”
“Thirteen,” I say, then walk out into the hallway. “Door stays open.”
The nurse looks at me. The orderly stands there like he doesn’t see how awkward this all is.
“Thank you, nurse. I’ll take it from here.”
“Yes, sir.”
I take my phone out and scroll through emails while standing close enough to hear, but their voices are whispers, and I can’t make out what either of them are saying. There’s a moment where Jones becomes animated, but Cilla manages to quiet him. When the time is up, I step into the room and clear my throat.
“Time, Cilla.”
“Just one more minute.” Her back is to me. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed but I notice they’re not really touching. His eyes jump from me to her and he leans in to whisper something.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of everything,” she replies to whatever he says. She stands. “I’ll come back to see you next week.” She gives me a pointed look, but I don’t care about any promises she makes him. We’ll see next week. “I love you,” she says, and it sounds awkward.
Jones nods, looks at his lap. The few times I’ve seen Jones, he was animated, probably high or stoned. Now, he just looks pathetic.
A few minutes later, we’re out in the parking lot. Cilla turns to me when we get to the SUV.
“You scared him. He’s detoxing and you scared the shit out of him.”
“I wanted answers and since I’m the one paying for this, I think I have some right to ask.”
“You have no right. We never asked for this. Neither of us asked you to do this. The deal was me. Me for one month. It didn’t come with strings!”
“That deal changed the minute you asked for my help collecting your pound of flesh. We’ve got all kinds of strings now.”
She shakes her head. “No. That has nothing to do with you. I don’t agree to your terms. I take back what I said. What I asked for.”
“That’s not how things work.”
“It is in my world and you’re in my world now, aren’t you, sweetheart?”
She exhales.
My attention shifts to the side door where two nurses walk out at the end of their shift. “Get in. We’ll talk at the house.”
“No. I don’t want to talk about this with you. This isn’t part of our deal, period.”
I take her arm, walk her around to the passenger side. “We’re not having this discussion until you cool down.”
“Until I cool down?” She digs her feet into the ground just as I open her door. “No. You have my body for thirty days. You can’t have the rest of me.”
I look down at her, see the panic in her eyes, the desperation. “Get in, Cilla. No one needs to know our business.”
She looks over my shoulder at the nurses who’ve now stopped and are openly watching us. “Killian, please. I’m asking you to please leave this be.”
“I’m low on patience here. Get in.”
It takes her another minute but she exhales and climbs into the SUV. I reach across her to buckle her belt. She lets me. When I close the door, my cell phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and swipe the button to accept the call.
“About time,” I say.
“No one’s talking,” Hugo answers.
“What do you mean? Make them talk. Isn’t that your specialty?”
“The old woman either couldn’t or wouldn’t say anything. Had to talk through her daughter. But when I showed her photos of Jones and the girl, her face went white.”
I glance at Cilla who’s watching me through the window.
“Why didn’t you push her?”
“She’s in her nineties. I didn’t want her to drop dead on my account. Besides, her daughter wanted me out when she saw how upset her mother got. She threatened to call the cops.” He takes a breath. “I did hear the old woman say one thing before I walked out though. One word. Devil.”
“Go back. I don’t care what it takes. I want to know what happened in that house.”
I hang up the phone. Walk around to the driver’s side of the car and climb in. I start the car but before putting it in drive, I turn to her.
“I just want to know one thing. That’s all,” I say.
She sits watching me for a long while before she speaks. “What?”
“Did Callahan touch you?” As I say it, I feel rage build inside me. It fucking burns. She would have been Ginny’s age. If that old man laid a fucking finger on her—
But her answer breaks into that thought.
“No.”
One word. She doesn’t even blink.
And I don’t believe her.
“If he did, I’ll help you get your pound of flesh. I just want to hear it from you.”
“He didn’t rape me.” She doesn’t struggle to say the word I couldn’t.
It’s me who takes time to react now and eventually, I nod, although I don’t know why
, and put the car in drive. We don’t talk for the entire ride back to Rockcliffe House and once we’re there, she turns to me.
“My headache is back. Do you mind if I go to bed?” She’s asking permission. It’s unlike her.
“That’s fine.”
I watch her climb the stairs, note how she looks a little more tired.
“Cilla,” I call out.
She stops when she’s almost reached the top, but she doesn’t turn to me.
“I’m going to find out.”
Without a word, she walks up the remaining stairs and disappears into her room.
19
Cilla
The sun is just breaking the horizon when I wake. I feel like I can’t breathe, like there’s a rope getting tighter and tighter around my neck. It seems like the past has swept right into the present, and like a tidal wave, it’s about to wash everything away.
Me with it.
Jones wasn’t good. Kill had asked him about Callahan and considering the state he was in, I feel like it set him back eight years. That’s how it’s always been with Jones. He’s too broken to ever be fixed. I know that. I’ve known it a long time.
Kill asking me that question in the car, he had no right. It’s not his to know. Why can’t he accept that I can’t tell him?
I should never have asked him for help. That was a mistake. Because I fully believe he will find out. And what will happen then?
Shame begins to spread its dark shadow through me. I force a deep breath in, then out. I look up to the canopy over my borrowed bed, remembering how he’d filmed me. How he could be watching me now. I push the covers off and stand on the bed, but the canopy is too high to reach. I climb down, go into the closet to look for something I can use to bring it down. To break the camera he uses to spy on me. I find nothing.
Back in the bedroom, I look around until my gaze falls on the lamp on the nightstand. I remove the shade and pick up the long, thin body. The base makes it heavier than I expect, but I unplug it and climb back up on the bed to start poking at the folded cloth. Dust makes me sneeze and squint my eyes but eventually, metal clangs on metal and I locate it. Drawing my arm back, I swing hard. It takes two times but soon, pieces of the camera are lying on the bed. I stumble off, still not satisfied until I smash it to bits, until I’m out of breath.
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