by Camilla Monk
I don’t think Murrell cared about such issues, though. At the moment he looked pissed. Or maybe it was just his normal face. He adjusted the cuffs of that (really) classy trench coat, speaking in a slow baritone voice. “Once again, so I’m sure we get this right: at no time did you see Mr. ‘November’ engage in any kind of reckless behavior that might have precipitated this collision, Miss Chaptal?”
I cleared my throat and avoided their unwavering gazes, my fingertips rubbing the kind of cool, scratchy sheets hospitals seem to specialize in—no idea where they got them. Was there a place that specifically sold scratchy linen? Could you apply for a refund if it was too soft after all? “Well, he did climb in the car at the same time that Austrian guy did. But it was only to stop him. Then those little wheels on the cables started rolling backward and the car was coming down toward us. That guy must have touched the tram’s buttons, sir.”
Murrell’s eyes narrowed. “Now, did you see him do that?”
“Not exactly, but he was there first. Also the tram was French, so—”
That seemed to catch the attention of the stoic blond agent. He scratched his sort hair, and a frown deepened the creases around his mouth. “French?”
“Yeah. They had it renovated by Poma. Everything was French in there: French cables, French cars . . .”
He seemed appalled. “Damn! Even the little wheels?”
“Yeah.”
Murrell raised a doubtful eyebrow at his colleague, who kept mumbling something under his breath about this shocking news. A southern drawl had insinuated itself in the guy’s expletives, perhaps due to the emotion. Murrell sighed. “Miss Chaptal, security cameras contradict your version.”
I gulped. “Oh God. This time it’s Guantanamo, right?”
“Do we have orange PJs that small?” the blond guy asked Murrell, with what sounded like genuine curiosity.
He rubbed his eyes between his thumb and forefinger in response. “I don’t know, Stiles. I don’t know . . . Why don’t you go get yourself a coffee while I finish with your soul mate here.”
The guy’s perplexed stare traveled back and forth between me and his partner for a couple seconds, and he eventually headed for the door, flashing me the hint of a smile before closing it behind himself.
My eyes slanted toward Murrell. “What was that supposed to mean?”
“Did you think about the PJs?”
“Of course not!” Of course I had.
He seemed to be fighting a smile. “I think we’re done for tonight. You remain under the supervision of Agent Morgan. You’re not permitted to leave this hospital without him.”
Knots formed in my stomach at the memory of Alex’s injury. “Where is he? Is he okay?”
Murrell pointed to his left with his thumb. “Next room.”
“And . . . Mr. November?”
“He seemed well enough. We had a few questions for him as well,” he said, his tone suddenly a notch cooler.
My chest tightened. “What’s going to happen to him? To me?”
“That’s something you should ask Agent Morgan.”
Murrell gestured for me to follow him with a little jerk of his chin. I hopped down from the hospital bed, grabbed my sweater and bag that a thoughtful nurse had gathered for me on a chair, and we exited the room together. In the dimly lit hallway, the clock on the wall indicated ten fifteen; I gathered patients were sleeping. He opened the next door and ushered me in before closing it behind me.
The room was very similar to mine, with muted lights and a large window overlooking the East River and the Queens skyline under a starless night sky. Alex was sitting on the edge of his white hospital bed, shirtless. On his left shoulder, a thick bandage now covered the wound inflicted by the Austrian guy. Remembering the wisdom of those old Wonderbra ads, I struggled to focus on his peaceful smile rather than the ripped torso I was seeing for the first time. I tried. I really tried. But the various material I had gathered on my favorite research subject was quickly filling my mind and rewiring my neurons. I had to study Alex’s androgenic hair.
So here goes. Alex was a CS (circumareolo-sternal), which is acceptable, but somewhat underwhelming. My eyes scanned the faint brown line between his pectorals and those questionable little rings of hair around his nipples. There was also a pencil-thin dusting of hair under his navel, but overall the skin covering his muscles seemed very smooth, making me suspect some sort of partial shaving business. It was a far call from March’s glorious PSI pattern, which formed a satisfying golden chestnut rug across his chest, right up to his clavicles, and ran down his stomach in a narrowing line. PSI, as in “pecto-sterno-infraclavicular.” A synonym for super manly, especially when combined with the abs of a superhero.
And by the way, yes, people were paid actual money to conduct studies regarding the subject and establish a precise chart and terminology system. I wish I had been part of that scientific adventure. I so wish I had.
“Are you all right? You seem distracted.”
That was as good as him saying, “Hey, my eyes are up here.” I self-combusted. “Y-yeah. Sorry. I zoned out for a second.”
There was a mischievous glint in Alex’s eyes as he spoke. “It’s okay. Oh, and I meant to tell you I like your version of the tram collision. Very creative.”
I’m almost positive I heard my heart plop down into my stomach with a splattering sound. How the hell could he already know? Had they tapped my room or something?
Alex seemed to read my mind. He gave me a little wink. “Island, Murrell and Stiles work with me, you know.”
I winced.
“Anyway, we’re keeping that version. Very dramatic, excellent for journalists.”
I walked to the bed. “You mean March won’t get in trouble? We’ll blame it all on the other guy?”
“He won’t. Regarding the second point, however—” His gaze hardened. “I’m obliged to inform you that the details of what happened on Roosevelt Island are absolutely confidential.”
“I know that, I’m just wondering how you guys will explain it to the public.”
He dismissed my concern with a shrug of his good shoulder. “It’s already been taken care of. There’s no shortage of supplies in our cold rooms.”
As he said this, he pulled his phone from his back pocket, swiped across the screen, and handed it to me. In the browser, the Fox News home page was open, with a series of blaring headlines about a victimless terrorist attack led by an Algerian jihadist named Mohamed Nabil Nachour. He was described as a lone wolf, trained in Afghanistan and Syria, and the journalists claimed his body had been retrieved from the wreckage. A series of sickening pics corroborated this thesis, where Nachour’s lifeless, bruised body could be identified among the tram’s debris.
Right below was a video of Hadrian Ellingham making a stilted speech about the fight for freedom, his love of New York, and how EM Group would donate thirty million dollars to the mayor’s office to rebuild the tram in exchange for some pimping of EMG’s leper kids foundation. Behind him, a giant screen displayed a hasty photo montage of the future project: “Roosevelt 3000,” a futuristic aerial tramway—made in America—whose cars would sport giant pics of smiling leper kids, along with EMG’s logo.
I handed Alex his phone back with a grim expression. “I don’t like that. This isn’t right, and you know it.”
His lips curved in a rueful smile. “It’s just politics, Island. That way everybody wins.”
“And that guy, Nachour, does he win too?”
“You have no idea who he was, what he did to end up like this.”
In Alex’s eyes I could read nothing but a gentle weariness, a silent plea to let go of a cause neither of us had any control over anyway. I thought of Antonio Romos, a Mexican killer I had freed from March’s trunk—where he awaited certain death—and whose case I had pleaded until March gave him a second chance. Antonio had ultimately helped us beat Dries’s plans as a way to pay his debt, and he proved to be a loyal and reliable partner
. But no one would ever know whether Nachour had it in him to accomplish something good.
I looked down at the mice decorating my ballet flats. “I don’t care who he was. I believe everyone can change, at some point in their lives.”
I registered the rustle of the sheets, saw his bare feet on the blue linoleum as he got up. “You’re wrong. And still naïve. But I wouldn’t want that to change.”
I hadn’t realized I was standing so close to the bed. So close to him. His right hand grazed mine tentatively, fingertips traveling up, tracing my shoulder, reaching the nape of my neck. I stood petrified, my feet glued to the floor when every ounce of rationality in me told me to stop him, that our situation was complicated enough as it was.
The silence in the room made everything louder, each quiet breath, the sound of his tongue darting to wet his lips. I thought the whole hospital might hear us. He had to be hypnotizing me. That’s why those cinnamon eyes weren’t blinking, staring into mine until I couldn’t sustain the intensity of his gaze any longer and my eyelids fluttered shut.
And then the brush of lips on my forehead. I shouldn’t be there, I thought. I needed to think this through, figure out what was left of . . . us. But I stayed, and he kissed me again, pressing a tender peck on the tip of my nose this time. I couldn’t see his smile, but somehow I guessed it, pictured it in my mind. The third kiss landed on my jaw, and when his fingers laced with mine, I gripped them instinctively. Because otherwise I think my knees would have given up on me.
When had he moved even closer? My eyes snapped open at the feeling of his chest, his entire body pressed against mine, warming it fast past any acceptable temperature. I couldn’t see more than shadows, not when a mere inch separated my nose from his clavicle and I was trying hard not to meet his eyes anyway. I breathed in the good-guy cologne, dissected its soapy notes mingled with his own scent—skin, sweat, and the medical smell of antiseptic on his wound. Our fingers were still intertwined, but I was no longer in control. His hands were gripping mine, gentle but firm, his palms unexpectedly hot.
My breathing grew uneven, answering his own intake of air as he bent his head to take what he had meant to all along. It was all new and familiar. I knew the brush of his lips, the stubble under my fingertips as my hands reached for his face, when and how he’d tilt his head . . . It was Alex. And it was someone else as well, holding my waist, pressing me against his body. Not so much a stranger—as I had first feared—than a different man, one whose kisses were more intense, more aggressive. Each nip, each tug at my lips spoke of an urgency that I found a little frightening, but at the same time, seemed to free something within me. My palms settled on exploring the smooth planes of his back, and I responded with some clumsy Frenching, punctuated by a couple of perhaps miscalculated nips.
I read somewhere that your body releases adrenaline during a kiss, which is how humans manage to overlook most practicalities when engaging in tonsil hockey—also it’s apparently excellent for your heart. When Alex broke our kiss to press his forehead against mine, the lust bubble popped, and I was engulfed back into reality. A reality in which the status of our relationship remained unclear, and where even in Alex’s arms I still couldn’t stop thinking of March.
Alex’s hands cupped my cheeks with a tenderness that was almost at odds with the animalistic exchange of saliva we had been engaged in mere seconds prior. I could feel my face scrunching already; I bit on my lower lip hard, willing my emotions back under control.
“Baby, I know this is my fault,” he cooed, his breath fanning over my lips. “I hate feeling you drift away like that.”
God, not the mind reading. Not now, not when my brain was yelling at me to take a step back and fricking think. “Alex—”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
This was too much for me to handle. I inched back. “Alex, I think we both need—”
“I love you.”
To take a break.
We needed to take a break. And he had just fired the L-bomb into my unsuspecting face. On my cheeks, his touch now felt white-hot, and to tell it all, I was way out of my depth.
Maybe the mind reading was a good thing after all; his eyes studied me with a knowing glint, and he pulled back, leaving me room to breathe, to think. His lips curved into a hopeful smile. A goddamn puppy smile. “It’s okay. I can be patient.”
Now, there was a lot packed in those words that I didn’t yet feel ready to deal with. I nodded weakly, and he reached for his shirt on a nearby chair, only to be interrupted by a knock on the door. Alex didn’t reply; he pulled out his smartphone again, and his fingers danced on the screen. I saw black-and-white shapes moving on the tilted glass surface. Could he check the hospital’s security cameras with that thing?
His index finger tapped once in the middle of the screen; I spun on my heel at the sound of the door unlocking. Hold on. Had we—had I—been locked in there with him?
“Come in, Mr. November,” he said in his best good-cop voice.
I couldn’t really place why, but seeing March’s tall figure in the doorframe brought me a sense of relief. Even if the slanting of his eyes as he took in Alex’s state of undress announced some imminent retribution.
“You might want to finish dressing, Mr. Morgan. A cold can happen so quickly . . .”
Ouch. I had heard him address guys he had been about to kill with a warmer voice.
Alex welcomed the unspoken threat with a good-natured smile. “I’m touched by your concern.”
March’s brow lowered for a second, but he managed to rein in the volcanic temper I knew to be sleeping under the surface of his usually cool exterior. Meanwhile Alex finished buttoning his shirt and shrugged his jacket on.
“Island,” March began, sending a wary look in Alex’s direction. “Before we leave for Zürich, there are things I would like . . . things I know you would like to discuss.”
“Can you elaborate?” Alex asked, replacing his Glock in the waistband holder at his back.
No, he couldn’t. March’s dark blue gaze met mine, a silent understanding passing between us. “Maybe we could go to your office with Alex? That way he can wait for me while we talk.” My eyes darted to Alex. “Agent Murrell said I’m still sort of under surveillance.”
Blue eyes darkened at this. “If that’s what you’re worried about, I’m certain we can put an end to this ridiculous—”
“Mr. November, if you could get rid of me, I’d have gotten a call already.” Alex had shelved the good-cop act for a moment, and there was a determination in his own gaze that made me wonder just how deep his motivations went in this mess.
In any case, he was right. March produced the precious tube of mints from his crumpled jacket’s inner pocket, gobbled two, and adjusted his black leather gloves. “It will be my pleasure to welcome you to our office, Mr. Morgan.”
SEVENTEEN
The Skittles
“Green like his eyes, red like the fire of his passion, orange like his tan: on his silky lips, Candice was tasting the rainbow.”
—Carrie Aznable, White House, Dark Needs
Stiles was kind enough to give us a lift to Struthio in a black CIA minivan—I’m not entirely sure he had a say in the matter, though—and thus, I spent the fifteen-minute ride sandwiched between a brooding March and a smug Alex in one of the backseats. I mostly ignored them: I was too busy texting Joy and coming up with a bunch of lies about some unexpected work meeting. She texted back that I was a liar, that my pants were on fire, and asked if I was in Alex’s bed. I sighed.
Around eleven thirty, the black minivan slowed down in front of an elegant brick building facing the park, the kind of place that makes you fear you’ll get booted by security as soon as you walk in. March stepped out of the car first, holding the door for me; Alex followed. Both men seemed to be taken aback when Stiles waved good-bye at me with an earnest grin. I bit back a laugh; nothing worse for control freaks than not knowing everything that goes on behind their backs.
Once we had passed the revolving doors, I could tell Alex and I were being watched closely as March led us through the silent marble lobby. I looked up to examine the chandelier hanging fifteen feet or so above our heads, and I think it gave the old concierge sitting behind a wooden desk the wrong idea. His eyes narrowed, appraising me as if I was there to steal the lightbulbs. Behind him, a service door opened. A young black guy in his late teens and sporting a short Mohawk hopped into view and walked toward us. I immediately felt at ease around him, because much like me, he looked like he had ended up here based on some kind of misunderstanding. His gray uniform was a little too big for him, and those were sneakers on his feet. Pink and yellow sneakers.
He looked the three of us up and down before greeting March with a wide grin and a strong Caribbean accent. “Hey, rough night, Mr. November?”
March dusted his jacket as the guy followed us to the elevator. “Yes, Delroy, you could say that.”
“Got chased by the ladies?”
“Not exactly.”
That earned him a wink from Delroy, who drew his thumb and forefinger across his lips in a zipping gesture.
March acquiesced, while above the brass doors the antique floor indicator’s arrow bounced to a stop, signaling that the car had reached the lobby. “By the way, did you take care of—”
“I parked it just the way you like, really parallel to the paint lines.” Delroy mimicked two straight lines with his hands, before searching his pocket for a key that he dropped in March’s palm with a contented sigh. I checked the logo—Mercedes.
“You need anything else? Sushi? Crosswords?” That last word was whispered in a way that suggested the boy regarded March’s taste for crosswords as some kind of filthy sexual fetish.
Said fetishist pulled out a few bills from his wallet and gave them to Delroy. “No, no sushi, thank you. Perhaps some chicken and salads?” He turned to Alex and me and tilted his head, waiting for us to confirm the order.
I gave Delroy a sheepish smile. “That would be wonderful. And maybe a blueberry muffin if they have any?”
