I run so fast my tears dry before they can stain my cheeks. I race so hard I’m not even in this city, but somewhere far away where the trees are sinister shadows and the moon is snatching at my hair and I have to squeeze my eyes shut against the sheer terror.
Don’t look back don’t look back don’t look back.
Next thing I know, I’m plowing into the Dunkin’ Donuts, where my new friends are staring at me.
“Call the police, call the police, call the police!” I scream at Charadee.
Which she does, except I don’t remember the rest; I’m crying too hard, my mind a wreck of then and now, what was and what is. What will never be again.
Eventually Lotham bursts through the door. He takes one look at my devastated face and pulls me into his arms.
“Paul,” I sob hysterically against his chest.
He lets me collapse against him, and holds me as I weep.
CHAPTER 20
I sit in a booth at Stoney’s. On the table in front of me: a mug of coffee, a glass of water, and a giant box of Munchkins that Charadee shoved into my hands as I was leaving. The box is open. I’ve managed to eat two, which explains the powdered sugar on my fingers, lips, and cheek. Lotham disappeared long enough to retrieve a damp washcloth. Now, he uses it to wipe gingerly at my snot- and tear-stained face. I don’t make a move to stop him or assist.
My brain has short-circuited. My heart has exploded in my chest. That nothing actually happened to me is the least of my worries.
“Coffee,” Lotham orders.
I lift the mug, take a sip.
“Sugar.”
He provides a chocolate Munchkin. I chew obediently.
“Water.”
I move on to the glass.
“Repeat.”
So, I do. Two, three, four more times. Till my coffee mug is dry and the water gone and a suspicious number of donuts missing as well. Judging by the smear of red jam at the corner of Lotham’s mouth, I’m not the only one using pastries to self-medicate.
“Start at the beginning.”
I try. I’m not really sure what there is to say. I met with Mrs. Samdi. I asked her a variety of questions about her daughter, Livia, most of which she couldn’t answer. Meaning I basically learned what Detective Lotham had surmised the day before—Livia’s family wasn’t exactly the loving sort.
“She ordered you to leave,” he repeats now.
“Someone arrived. At the front. I could hear a commotion. I never saw who, but Mrs. Samdi’s demeanor changed. She shoved me out the back. She said . . .” I draw a shaky breath. “She said the house wasn’t safe for girls. She told me if I found her daughter, not to bring her home.”
“Why isn’t their house safe for girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“The son, J.J.—”
“Johnson.”
Lotham arches a brow.
“You should call him that,” I insist. “Really pisses him off. Apparently, you can’t score any street cred as a Johnson.”
“Definitely not.”
“But she also implied he wouldn’t hurt his sister. Family doesn’t go after family. Someone else, I’m guessing one of Johnson’s acquaintances, bosses, I don’t know. Higher on the criminal food chain.”
“Okay. So Mrs. Samdi shoves you out the rear door. You take off and they—”
“I didn’t see.”
“—give chase. And fire a gun?”
“I heard gunshots. But I didn’t stop to look. Firing at me, firing at someone else, someone else firing at them firing at me. Your guess is as good as mine.”
“And guess is as good as we got,” Lotham grumbles. “Uniforms already canvassed the area. As the saying goes, nobody saw nothin’. On that block, that’s how it goes. Crime techs recovered a fresh slug from the side of a porch probably two feet from where you passed. Trajectory indicates it didn’t come from behind you, however, but from across the street.”
“Oh goody. So it was one of the neighbors who wanted me dead.”
“First time being shot at, Frankie?”
“No.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Want a drink?”
“Is it a day ending in Y? Hell yes.”
“Then talking is what you get to do instead.”
I have to smile. Man is smart, his manipulation well played. But I’m not going to talk to him about my meltdown, or PTSD or whatever you want to call it. It’s too personal. And maybe, all these years later, still too intimate. It belongs to Paul and me. To talk about it with anyone else . . .
I will call his number. Listen to it ring. The click of him picking up. The reassuring sound of his breathing, syncing with my own. My heartbeat. His heartbeat. Intertwined.
Then a woman’s voice: “You need to stop this. You need help.”
Don’t we all?
I get up from the booth, head to the kitchen for more coffee. I’m already so caffeinated I teeter on the edge of nausea. Ironically, this is not when I’m most at risk for falling off the wagon. I’m too exhausted to self-destruct. If I finally pour that drink I’ve been craving for nine fucking years . . . Trust me, I plan on remembering it.
When I turn around, Lotham is standing behind me in the kitchen. He takes the mug from my violently trembling hand, and leads me back to the booth.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“I don’t think Livia and Angelique meant to be friends.”
“Okay.”
“I think something else brought them together. Neither one of them enrolled in fashion camp because they were that into fashion. Angelique’s a future doctor who likes to sketch. Livia, apparently, is a sneaky survivor with a penchant for making things. But then Angelique’s bestie bailed on her for a basketball player, and Livia never had a friend to start with. So you have two lone girls, both quiet but smart. Maybe they simply sat side by side for a bit . . . I don’t know. I think they became friends in spite of themselves.”
“Yet never mentioned each other’s names to their families?”
“Livia doesn’t have that kind of family. As for Angelique . . .” I hesitate, glance at the detective. “In the beginning, I thought Angelique kept Livia to herself so as to not alienate her other friends. But given how connected Angelique and Livia must have become, for both of them to have now gone missing . . . What if we were right in the beginning? Angelique did fall in love. It just wasn’t with a boy.”