Oh, Dani. You’re going to be so pissed.
Cara laughed and laughed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Choo-Choo hadn’t said a word since they left the diner.
Dani hurried to keep up with her long-legged friend as he strode ahead of her back to his cousin Olivia’s apartment. She barely made the crosswalk light, running to catch him in the median on Broadway. She noticed that he did slow down enough to let her catch up to him at the opposite corner. It wasn’t exactly warm but at least he didn’t have obvious plans to abandon her outside the apartment building.
In the elevator, Dani decided she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Are you ever going to talk to me again? Or are you going to explain the silence to Olivia? Or should we just start punching each other?”
“How long have you had that phone?”
“I told you. He gave it to me after the funeral.”
“In the van you got into.”
She let that slide. “He wanted to be able to reach me. He knew about the tracker.”
“How do you know he’s not responsible for the tracker, Dani?”
“That makes no sense.”
“Doesn’t it?” The doors opened on Olivia’s floor. The security guard had given up his post. Choo-Choo checked that the hall was empty, stopping Dani outside the apartment door. “He is a hired gun. A killer. He was hired to kill us and everyone we worked with and now you trust him just like that. He tells you there’s some mysterious device in your body and you’re, what, going to let him operate on you? You want him to scan me too?”
“Why would he lie about something like that?”
“Because he wants to kill us! He has been paid to kill us!”
Olivia Wren chose that moment to open her apartment door.
“Um, you guys okay? Did Cara find you?” Choo-Choo grunted and pushed past her. Olivia waved Dani into the apartment in front of her. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
They found Choo-Choo in the living room holding the bourbon they had been drinking earlier. “Do you mind, O? I could use another drink.”
“Be my guest,” she said, moving quickly across the room to gather a pile of books and notebooks on the floor beside the couch. Her words faded as she headed toward the rear of the apartment. “You guys help yourself to whatever you can find. I’m going to, um, go back to my room and do anything that is not involved in whatever you all are getting ready to fight about.”
He waited until he heard Olivia’s door close. “Do you want a drink, Dani? Or do you need to check with your partner first?”
“Oh good, sarcasm. I thought finding out I have a tracker in my body would be the worst thing about this trip.”
He snorted as he poured her a neat bourbon. “Okay, I’ll pull back on the snark if you start filling in the blanks on your plan here. You seem to trust Tom Booker for whatever reason. Are you really going to let him or one of his buddies cut into you to take that thing out?”
“Hell yes. I’m about to smash this glass and dig into my shoulder myself.”
“Please don’t,” Choo-Choo deadpanned. “I can’t vouch for how clean Olivia’s glasses are.” He toasted her and drank. “And what about me? Am I supposed to get scanned or X-rayed or whatever? Am I included in the tagged wildlife in this particular zoo?”
Dani let the bourbon burn her tongue to put off answering. This wasn’t going to make their delicate dynamic any more stable. Still, it was time for the truth.
“You already got scanned.”
“Come again?”
Dani slugged back the rest of her drink, steeling herself for round two. “While we were in the diner, Tom’s partner was behind us. I saw her come in, the same girl who scanned me. She was in the booth while we were talking.”
The icy calm with which Choo-Choo spoke made her wish he would smash his glass and scream at her. “And you didn’t tell me? That’s just one more thing on what is turning into a very long list of things you haven’t been telling me.”
“I didn’t –“
“You didn’t tell me about Tom. You didn’t tell me about the phone. You let me worry that you were having ‘stomach issues’ while you were back there consorting with your psychotic bestie. And now you sat silently by while some fucking stranger scanned my body? What else did I miss? Did you maybe let someone inject me with something? That’s a favorite for some people, you know. I’m certainly no stranger to people putting shit into my body regardless of whether I’ve given permission or not.” He refilled his glass. “But of course you know all about that because I have told you all about that. I have told you everything. I tell you everything. But you? Nah, you keep your secrets, Dani. Do you think you could find your way to let me know if I’ve got a tracker? Or is that something you and your new playmate would like to keep between you two?”
“Choo-Choo, I don’t know what—”
“You don’t know shit, Dani.” He swallowed his whiskey in one gulp. “You don’t know who your friends are because you don’t know how to be a friend. You don’t have anybody in your life because you don’t give anybody anything. You keep it all pulled in so tight that –”
“Hold on.” Dani shouted him down. “Don’t put that shit on me. You have this whole world revolving around you, waiting for you to step right back into it like the fucking crown prince of New York City and you just expect me to tag along behind you picking up the crumbs you throw when your family is around. You haven’t said ten words to me when—”
“I’m here for a funeral! I didn’t know that grieving a family member would drive you into the arms of the maniac who tried to kill you, Dani. Who tried to kill all of us! Where do the secrets end?”
The argument devolved into shouted accusations and overblown scenarios of injustice, both of them venting words that were all heat with little fact behind them. Dani felt her skin burning, sweat on her face as the nightmare of the rift between her and her only friend came to life in ugly, shouted glory. She didn’t even truly know what she said at that point and she heard even less from his red contorted face.
It wasn’t until a third voice joined in, shouting even louder than their own, that they paused in their siege.
“Choo-Choo!” Olivia stood behind the couch, clutching something to her chest. It seemed she had been shouting for a while. When they finally quieted, she held out her hand which held her cell phone. “It’s for you. It’s your mom. She says it’s important.”
Choo-Choo didn’t look at Dani as he turned and reached for the phone. His voice was gravely and thick with emotion as he greeted his mother.
The conversation didn’t take long.
“Yeah. Okay. I will. No, it’s not a problem.” He shot Dani a guarded look. “That’s probably a good idea. I don’t think Olivia will mind.” He stared into the space over Dani’s head. “She can do that, or she can wait. No, she won’t mind. She has friends here in the city.”
He handed the phone back to Olivia.
“I’m going back to the house tonight, O. Mom wants us all there to be ready for the picture early in the morning. She’s afraid I’ll get stuck in traffic if I wait until tomorrow. You know how Nonze is. She won’t tolerate tardiness.”
Dani sighed. “We’re going back to Connecticut now?”
He turned to her and considered her coolly. “No. I’m going back tonight. You can stay here. Mom wants it to be just family in the house while the photo is being taken. She says strangers will distract us from the family atmosphere.” He glanced at Olivia who had gone pale. “You don’t mind if Dani stays here, do you, O? You know how Mom is. You all can come out together for the luncheon after the picture is taken.”
If it was possible, Olivia looked even more miserable than Dani in that moment.
“Uh, sure? I don’t mind at all but does Dani?”
The look Choo-Choo leveled at her made her simultaneously want to cry and to punch him in his perfect and cruel mouth. �
��I don’t think Dani will mind. Like I told Mom, she has friends here in the city. I’m sure she can find something to keep her busy. Besides, we could use a little space.”
“Choo-Choo.” It was all Dani could say.
He breezed past her. “I’ve got to take a leak. Mom said the car should be here any minute. I’ll just wait downstairs for it.”
When the bathroom door closed, Olivia looked mortified.
“Of course you can stay here, Dani. I don’t mind at all. I just…if you want to…” With no help coming from Dani, Olivia gave up the pretense. “I’m going to go back to my room and keep working. The guest room is on the other side of the kitchen. It’s…just… okay.”
She hurried back to her room as the bathroom door creaked open. Choo-Choo didn’t look at Dani as he strolled past her to the front door. She wanted to scream. She wanted to kick him, hamstring him, throw the bourbon bottle at him, anything to get him to stop, to turn around, to talk to her. But she did nothing. She stood there and watched the apartment door close.
Choo-Choo was gone. Dani was alone. Again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Spanish Harlem
Saturday, October 11, 2014
5 a.m. – 4 hours to trigger
He was packed. Booker always stayed packed and ready to move on a moment’s notice whenever he was on a job, but this packing felt different. He hadn’t brought much with him – a small bag of clothes, basic toiletries, knives and his favorite cleaning rags, as well as the gun Cara expected him to carry when she called him in to work “security.” But now his belongings were heavier by a few ounces that weighed on him like the weight of planets.
Two packets of paper that mocked him with their tantalizing promises.
Deep identities.
Passports, drivers’ licenses, credit cards, Social Security cards, birth certificates.
Tyson Compton and Anna Adkins. Two hard-working citizens who had credit histories, library cards, and utilities bills but who didn’t happen to have a human form. Yet. They existed in the digital universe just waiting to be populated by himself and Dani when the time came to disappear. If the time came.
His time would come. Booker had no doubt about that. Regardless of the plan Cara Hedrick had put into place, Booker planned on coming out on the other side a free man with a new identity. The money he had left had already been transferred to several bank accounts belonging to Tyson Compton, including accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. He had a few hard cash sites as well. Booker believed in the power of cash.
How he’d worried about Dani’s new name. Would she like it? The Paper Sisters had chosen the names, creating and maintaining the identities long before they were needed. That’s part of what made their work so valuable and so expensive. They didn’t cut corners. These weren’t cardboard cards with photos laminated onto them. Only the very best law enforcement would be able to detect the subterfuge.
Dani Britton would become Anna Adkins.
If she wanted to.
Booker stared at the bags packed by the door of the Paper Sisters’ apartment. He was ready to go at any second. He could disappear right now and reappear as Tyson Compton anywhere in the world – Los Angeles, Hong Kong, a rock full of dead seals in the middle of the ocean. Anywhere.
When would he go?
Would he obey Cara’s orders and head out to Connecticut? Was it worth following through on this job? There was a time in his career where following through was a matter of principle, when his reputation and personal work ethic would have demanded it. But that was when he worked for himself, when he took commissions through the Paper Sisters and their network. That was when he had control over his own destiny.
Now?
Now he was a puppet and he was tired of it.
He didn’t care about Cara’s plan. But he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t care about Dani.
Kaneisha was right. Dani screwed with his instincts but was that necessarily the worst thing to happen? Yes, his life had been blown to pieces after taking the Rasmund job but, honestly, he had been burned out long before that. He had wanted out.
Maybe Dani had just been a convenient hook to hang that hope on, just a pretty face when he needed to see one. Maybe he had read too much into her character, her nature, assigning her similarities and complements to himself that didn’t exist.
But what if he was wrong? What if she was exactly what he thought she was – smart, tough, brave, beautiful, and ready to get the hell out of the prison her life had become? Booker didn’t believe in luck or destiny or fate or any of that nonsense, but he didn’t ignore the possibility of timing. Sometimes things just had to happen no matter how hard some people might resist them. Maybe this was one of those times.
There was only one way to find out.
Booker pulled out the tablet Cara had given him to track Dani. She remained in the city, near Riverside Park where she had gotten out of the van. She must know someone there, or perhaps the Charbaneaux kid did. The latter was more likely. Dani didn’t seem the type to have family with an apartment on the Upper West Side.
But she obviously had friends who did.
He felt the echo of that headache threatening to arise. The idea that someone might have tampered with his thought process, conditioned him like some kind of show pony, irritated Booker as much, if not more, than having a tracker implanted in his body. A tracker could be removed. At this moment, his tracker rested somewhere on the body of Tabitha Papers who was relaxing in the hotel room in Connecticut, watching pay-per-view movies on Cara’s dime. Kaneisha had told her fellow Paper Sister to keep it body temperature. Booker hadn’t asked where she had hidden it, ignoring Tabitha’s lascivious giggle when she assured him it would stay nice and warm. Cara would never know Booker moved freely.
Not having full control of his thoughts was not so easy to remedy. How thorough was this plan of ISOC’s? Why was he not supposed to think about Sinclair “Choo-Choo” Charbaneaux?
Because that was Dani’s best friend? Or more? Had Dani played a part in this aversion therapy? Did she benefit from it?
Booker was sick of asking questions he couldn’t answer. Cara’s countdown continued its march to zero. His identity was ready to activate. Cara wanted him in Connecticut in a few hours. That gave him time to swing by the motel and get the tracker back from Tabitha should Cara check on him. Kaneisha’s program still ran the data on the kid’s tracker.
Whatever she had learned so far had kept her fascinated. She wasn’t mooning and fretting like some schoolgirl. She was doing what she did best, doing her job.
What was Booker doing? What was his job now? He pulled out his phone and brought up Dani’s number. He could talk to her. She would tell him the truth. Despite the apparent impingement of his instincts, Booker still trusted the truth he felt from Dani Britton.
Besides, if it turned out she was lying to him, that she was playing him in some weird Byzantine game of Cara Hedrick’s design, he would do exactly what he had told Kaneisha. He would take her apart with his knives. He would not be gentle. He would not be quick.
Just like he would not be quick to make that decision. Truth was, he didn’t want to rush the discovery. If Dani Britton had fooled him, Booker’s life would take yet another turn. A dark one. He was no stranger to darkness. He had certainly made more than his share of brutal survival choices, but somewhere deep inside of him, some long-forgotten part had come to life, green and novel.
Hope.
For the first time in his adult life, Booker had felt the sweet taste of hope, so strange to him that he couldn’t even be sure what exactly he hoped for. But hope was a strange thing. Undefined and ephemeral by nature, it could quickly addict a person with its light promises.
He was in no hurry to put that feathery feel to death.
Life would bust back in on its own time with its usual heap of brutality. He would enjoy whatever fleeting moments of hope he could wrangle. Befo
re he could activate the call to Dani, Kaneisha called out from the room at the back of the apartment.
“Holy shit!”
He rose to go to her, but she met him in the doorway, her eyes wide.
“Holy shit. Tom Booker, what the hell have you gotten involved in?”
“You seem to know more than I do. Did you crack the tracker?”
She laughed an unfunny laugh. “I sure did. That is no ordinary tracker. If I were you, I would grab your bags and get the hell out of town. Drop that second set of papers in the incinerator and lay real low somewhere far away.”
“Leave Dani behind?”
Kaneisha stared at him. “Are you hearing me? Leave everything behind, including our number. If that girl of yours is in the rarified circles of the Charbaneaux clan, she’s going to be collateral damage in some kind of mega-power struggle that people like us do not survive.”
Booker felt something cold and hard form in his stomach. “What is the tracker? What are they looking for? Is it a receiver?”
“It’s got a receiver all right. From what I can tell, it’s scanning away, waiting for the right signal to activate it.”
“What do you mean, activate it?”
She fell back against the door frame, stress and exhaustion warring on her young face.
“You and Dani both had trackers implanted into your soft tissue. Nothing complicated. Basic GPS tracker tech about the size of a vitamin tablet. The reason I had so much trouble figuring out what the kid had was that there was too much information. His tracker was integrated into a much larger piece of technology.”
“What kind of technology?”
“The bad kind. An entire section of his rib cage has been rebuilt and wired up with state of the art plastique and a remote control trigger. He’s not being tracked. That boy is a walking bomb.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Dani never made it to the guest room. Olivia had disappeared hours ago. Dani could only imagine how this all seemed to Choo-Choo’s cousin – these weird fights, stomping off together and separately, disappearing after the funeral. Olivia probably had her bedroom door barricaded, a knife under the pillow to protect against the weird stray abandoned in her living room.
Trigger Page 18
