by Zoey Parker
“I want to answer that for you,” I said, “but for me to do that, I need you to answer some of my questions first. If you give me honest answers and don't hold anything back from me, I can figure out how bad it is and how we can fix it for you. Okay?”
Jewel nodded.
“First of all, I need you to tell me everything you saw and heard in that alley,” I said. “Think very carefully.”
Jewel thought for a long moment. “I didn't really see much,” she said slowly. “I was getting closer and closer to the alley and I heard yelling. I should have just turned around and gone a different way. I wish I had, I don't know why I didn't...”
She was losing focus and getting hung up on her panic again. I took her by the shoulders firmly. “Stop. That's over. You can't change it. But you can give me the details of what you heard, and we can start with that. It's important, okay? Concentrate.”
She nodded again. “Right. Sorry. Um, at first I thought it was just a mugging, you know? Just some random thing. I mean, it's Chicago, there's always something bad going on these days...”
I opened my mouth to interrupt her and she held up a hand. “No, I know,” she said. “Okay. The first man, he was begging and saying he was sorry. He called the other one by name...”
“Angelo?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she replied. “You know him?”
“I know of him,” I said, thinking of all the times I'd been in the same room with Angelo and Jester. Again, I didn't feel great about lying to this girl. It wasn't her fault she'd been caught up in all this. Still, I needed answers.
“And Angelo, he kept calling the first guy something...” Jewel frowned, trying to recall. Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. “'Maggot.' That's what it was. He called him that twice. I remember because I thought it was such a weird thing to call someone.”
I'd known Maggot a little bit before I got sent away. He wasn't much of a real gangster. Actually, he'd been more of a hanger-on, tending bar and working the coat check at the Mancusos' restaurants while hoping for something bigger. He was a fucking weasel with a big mouth, mostly known for selling gossip and engaging in a bit of light blackmail here and there.
And now he was dead.
How had he gotten on Angelo's wrong side? Had he found out something he shouldn't have? Could I find a way to use that?
“So Maggot was saying he was sorry,” I said. “Did he say what for?”
“Not exactly,” Jewel said, rubbing her temples. “He, um...it sounded like he had something Angelo wanted. Or anyway, he knew where it was.”
That could be helpful. “What was it?” I prodded.
“God, I can't remember,” Jewel groaned, shutting her eyes tight. “I don't think he said anything about what it was.” Her eyes opened wide. “Wait. But he did say where it was. Milwaukee.”
I fought the frustration boiling up inside me. Milwaukee was a big town, and this was starting to feel like pulling teeth. “Anything more specific than that?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Definitely not. Except...he did say there was someone else who'd know the exact place. I think his name was...'Joker,' or something? That couldn't be it, could it?”
“Jester,” I said through clenched teeth. So this did involve him directly somehow. Good.
“Yeah, that was it,” Jewel agreed. “Is that someone else you 'know of?'”
I caught the implied quotation marks around “know of.” Shit. She was still hip to the fact that I knew more than I was telling her, even if she was going along with it for now.
“Jester's a high-level guy in the Mancusos,” I said. “And when you looked into the alley, what did you see?”
The color drained out of Jewel's face and her hands started trembling again. “Angelo killed Maggot,” she whispered. “He shot him in the back. I don't know how many times.”
“Are there any other details you can remember?” I asked. “Think hard.”
“I could barely see anything.” Jewel said. “It was so dark, all I could see was the flash from the gunshots reflecting off that gold gun Angelo was using.”
I frowned. “A gold gun? Are you sure about that?”
“Pretty sure,” she said, nodding.
Angelo had never owned a gold-plated gun when I'd known him. When it came to his personal style, he'd always been very conservative—classy tailored suits with dark colors, nothing too flashy. I'd heard him make fun of plenty of other guys for treating themselves to tricked-out pistols with fancy grips and plating. So the idea of him waving around a golden gun didn't seem to fit. I tried to remember whether I'd gotten a solid look at his gun when he was chasing us, and kicked myself when I realized I hadn't.
Jewel was looking at me expectantly. I knew I had to tell her something to keep her from freaking out on me again.
“If Jester's involved in this thing you saw, that's pretty serious,” I said. “We're gonna have to keep running for a while so his guys don't catch up to us.”
Jewel's eyes filled with horror. “Keep running? Where? For how long? I have a job, an apartment, parents who will be worried about me...”
“At least you'll be alive for them to worry about,” I insisted. “We'll work out the rest later. I'll think of something. In the meantime, you should try to rest. Do you want me to have Chucky order you something to eat?”
Jewel shook her head. “I don't think I can eat anything. Actually, I might still throw up. I haven't really decided yet.” She looked down at the ugly bedspread under her, grimacing. “If I do it here, it might improve the look of it. The smell, too, for that matter.”
I chuckled. Even scared and confused, this girl had a good sense of humor. I was starting to like her in spite of myself. “Cool. I know it'll be hard, but try to get some rest. I'll stay up and keep an eye on the door to make sure no one's coming for us. Not that I think they will tonight,” I added quickly, seeing her eyes widen again. “But just in case.”
“Okay,” Jewel agreed. She kicked off her shoes and rolled over on her side, closing her eyes.
I switched the TV on, killing the sound and putting on the closed captions as I tried to think of what to do next. After all the shooting and chasing earlier, I figured the adrenaline spike would stick around long enough to keep me up for a while.
But that's the thing about adrenaline. It's like any chemical upper that churns through a person's system. Eventually, it runs out and you crash. And sleep always shows up at that crash site sooner or later, like an ambulance at the scene of a wreck.
Sure enough, after a while sleep strapped me to its gurney, wheeling me off and driving me away to dreamland.
Chapter 11
Jewel
I'd gone along with everything Rafe said and answered his questions because I knew I didn't have much of a choice.
Rafe was doing a decent job of pretending he was just a good-natured biker who happened along to save a damsel in distress. I wanted to believe it, and I might have if he hadn't mentioned the fact that he'd just gotten out of “the Gray Bar Hotel” when he was talking to Chucky earlier. Even I knew that meant he'd been to prison. He'd showed off a crude, blurry makeshift tattoo that looked like something a person would get in jail. My parents lived off the highway a few miles from the Potawatomi Correctional Center, and I was willing to bet that was what the “P.C.C.” stood for.
So based on that, I could assume that Rafe was a criminal himself after all. When he'd told me that everyone out on the streets just automatically knew all that stuff about the Mancusos, I was pretty sure he was lying. He was involved with all of this somehow. So what did he need me for? What information was he trying to get from me? How long would he need to keep me around?
And what would he do with me once he didn't need me around anymore?
I listened carefully in the dark until I was pretty sure I heard Rafe's breathing slow down, indicating that he'd dozed off. Then I carefully got out of bed and tiptoed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me before I f
umbled for the light switch.
When my eyes focused on the toilet, my stomach clenched and I fell to my knees, retching. I tried to stay quiet as I dry-heaved. I could feel all the blood rushing to my face and my entire body was vibrating like a tuning fork. I'd been through too much. I couldn't possibly go on.
Except that I have to, I thought. I don't have a choice. So I'd better consider my options.
When my stomach stopped lurching, I stood up, closed the lid of the toilet, and sat on it. I wanted to believe that absolutely everything Rafe had told me was a lie, including the part about the cops being in on this. I wanted to believe that I could sneak out tonight, find a well-lit public place like an all-night grocery store or diner, tell an employee what had happened, and have them call the police to come pick me up before Rafe could catch up to me.
I wanted to believe that. But I couldn't quite bring myself to.
Because if I was wrong about that, there was no telling what the cops would do to me just to prevent me from going on the record and saying Angelo had killed someone. I'd read in the news about witnesses dying before gangland trials. It happened. It could happen to me.
So you stay in a motel room with a criminal all night and just hope for the best? I thought. That doesn't seem like a safe plan.
On the other hand, Angelo and his associates had already shot at me twice in one day. If Rafe had wanted to hurt me, he'd had plenty of chances to do it by now. It seemed like he just wanted information from me.
Besides, just because he rode a bike and had been to prison didn't automatically make him dangerous, did it? Plenty of people who weren't dangerous had been to prison.
Oh, sure, I thought, snickering inwardly. Yeah, lots of innocent bikers just happen to get sent to prison, probably just for picking daisies from a restricted garden or something. Get real, Jewel. Are you sure this isn't about the peek you got at his abs earlier, and those soulful brown eyes he's been looking at you with? Are you really trying to sell yourself on some bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold fantasy?
I had to admit to myself that I was extremely attracted to him, which was one of the main reasons I was having trouble seriously considering just running off into the night. Even though some of the things he'd said and done had scared me a little, the fact remained that as a person, he didn't seem really scary at all. It wasn't just that he was the most handsome and well-built man I'd ever met, although he certainly was. There was an energy about him that almost seemed magnetic. He'd just stepped in and protected me, and something about that felt strangely natural to me.
And again, people were clearly trying to kill me. And it seemed like he was the only one tough enough to stop them from doing it.
Ugh, I could drive myself insane going around in circles like this, I thought. My head was starting to ache.
I remembered the long green duffel bag I'd seen him come back with after he'd talked to Chucky. Whatever was going on, I was sure that what was inside would offer a clue and tell me how deep the trouble was that I'd gotten into. I had to try to see.
I clicked off the light and slowly opened the bathroom door again, listening for Rafe's breathing. It still sounded slow enough to indicate that he was sleeping. I crept over to the duffel bag and crouched down, staring at it.
I pictured all the things that might be in it. What if it was filled with bundles of hundred-dollar bills, stolen from some bank? What if there were bricks of cocaine, or tightly-packed bags of meth or marijuana?
For a moment I pictured unzipping the bag and seeing the eyes of a dozen or more severed heads staring up at me. I felt a hysterical laugh climb up my throat and swallowed it down again.
I summoned all the courage I had left—which didn't feel like much—gripped the handle of the zipper, and gently coaxed it open. At first, I couldn't see anything but blackness beyond the zipper. I gingerly pulled the canvas apart, leaning closer.
The picture on the TV screen behind me changed to something brighter, and the light reflected on the black metal object in the bag. It looked like a machine with a switch on the side, but I couldn't see enough of it to determine what it was. I got a faint whiff of something that smelled like motor oil. I pulled more of the canvas aside for a better look and reached inside to run my fingers along its surface.
When I saw the trigger and the drum of ammunition next to it, I yanked my hand away from it as though I'd accidentally touched a hot stove.
It was a gun. A big one.
The lights from the TV continued to dance along the shiny metal, highlighting its polished grooves. I realized the smell was probably gun oil.
If the bag had been filled with lots of guns, that would have made more sense. It might have meant that Rafe was into something involving illegal firearms, either buying or selling them. Maybe that wouldn't have been wonderful, but it still would have been something I could understand and use to gauge how much of an outlaw he might be.
But even I knew that gun-runners probably didn't sell off their merchandise one at a time. So if Chucky had just given Rafe one big gun, what could that mean?
It probably means there's someone he needs to kill, I thought. Still think he's not dangerous?
I thought about his eyes again. They looked like the eyes of someone who'd do whatever it took when it came to self-defense. Someone who may have crossed some lines in life that I'd never even encountered before.
But the eyes of a cold-blooded murderer? Someone who'd hurt a woman to get what he needed? No. I hadn't seen that in his eyes at all.
Or maybe I just hadn't wanted to.
I zipped the bag up again and stood up. As I turned around to go back to bed, I misjudged the distance in the darkness and my toe smacked against the bottom of the bed frame. Before I could stop myself, I let out a yelp of pain, losing my balance.
I reached out to steady myself and my hand found Rafe's shoulder, grabbing it tightly before realizing what it was. I yelped again and then clapped my hand over my mouth, embarrassed. I'd forgotten to listen for his breathing, and now he'd stood up and walked over to me without me hearing it. I wondered how long he'd been awake.
“You okay?” Rafe asked. His face was so close that I could feel his breath on my neck.
“Um, ow, yeah,” I said, my teeth clenched in pain. “Ow. Stubbed my toe. Hard. Ow, ow, ow.”
“Damn,” he replied. “I hate when that happens.”
My hand was still on his shoulder, and I turned to look at him. Our eyes met and I studied his again, looking for clues that would tell me who this man was. I saw a mixture of emotions in those eyes. Amusement. Concern. Exhaustion.
And desire.
I wondered what he saw in mine.
“Do you want me to get you some ice for that?” Rafe asked. Our faces were inches apart and now I could feel his breath on my lips. My face was hot, my stomach felt fluttery, and I felt myself getting wet.
It seemed crazy after the day I'd had, and I tried to tell myself that different people's bodies just react weirdly to stress. But deep down, I knew there was more to it than that. Just being so close to that beautifully-sculpted body with its broad shoulders made me want to lean against Rafe and feel his arms encircle me.
I had an urge to lean in closer. I wanted to know whether he'd kiss me if I did.
“No,” I whispered. “No ice. Thank you.”
We both stood there for a long moment before Rafe said, “You should probably try to get some more sleep. We'll have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow.”
I wanted to know what that meant, but I was too tired to ask any more questions. I wasn't even sure I could handle any more answers that night.
I took my hand off his shoulder and went back to bed. I waited to hear his breathing slow down again, but it didn't.
After a while, I drifted off.
Chapter 12
Jewel
I opened my eyes and saw a round black void staring back at me. There was a massive black gun just inches away from my face.
�
�Where is it?” a muffled voice whispered.
The barrel of the gun filled my entire field of vision. It seemed impossibly large, like a cannon. As I gazed helplessly down its cavernous maw, I was certain I could see the bullet at the back, poised, ready to spring forward with the squeeze of a trigger and bury itself in my body. I felt like I could even sense its eagerness to do what it was built for and pierce my flesh.
I desperately wished for Rafe to come charging through the door and stop this. Where was he?
“Where is it?” the voice demanded again.
I drew in a deep, trembling breath and spoke with lips numb from fear. “Please, I don't know what you want...”
