Adam has been my best friend for as long as I can remember. We went into this whole Indie project a team. And if we were on speaking terms, we’d still be a team. Still be on her team, at least. But she’s been missing for four years and I need to know what’s rolling around in that messed-up mind of hers before I start thinking about getting in touch with Adam again. Because it’s not Adam she should be blaming.
“I tried calling. I must have an old number. He’s not picking up. Goes straight to voicemail. He went to Daphne, Alabama. Did you hear about that? Did he tell you about Nick Tate?”
I shake my head, a sinking, sick feeling rolling around in my stomach. “No. He hasn’t mentioned Nick Tate to me. Not in years. I don’t think he was there meeting Nick, Indie.”
“Well. Then he probably has a girl there. Did you know he had a girlfriend?”
“Adam?” I say this too loud and too surprised. “No, Indie. Adam doesn’t do girlfriends.”
I want to say more. I want to say things like… Adam does you. Adam does us. We do him. He doesn’t do girlfriends.
Indie just huffs at my answer. “When’s the last time you talked to Donovan? Where is everyone? Why aren’t we working?”
I run my fingers though my hair, take a deep breath. “You, Indie. You’re the reason we’re not working.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Where’s Donovan?”
“At home. I guess. I don’t know.”
“He moved.” She says this like she’s tired. “He moved out. I went to Donovan’s first and some old lady answered the door. Said he didn’t live there. Said she’d never heard of him.”
I spend two whole seconds wondering if that old lady is still alive.
“Where the fuck did he go?”
“You went to Donovan before you came here?”
“Don’t get jealous on me, McKay. I can’t deal with that shit right now. Where is he?”
“You want me to call him?”
“Duh. Tell him to get here. I need to talk to both of you. I did everything you wanted when I was a kid and now it’s your turn to do things for me, you understand? I want Adam. He needs to pay for this. For everything. I get it.” She laughs a little. “I do. He’s always been jealous of Nathan. But he’s gone too far this time.”
“Hold on.” I put up a hand to stop her. “How the fuck exactly did Adam get a hold of Nathan?”
“How do you think? Why are you taking his side?”
“Indie.” I don’t laugh. Because this truly isn’t funny. But she’s being ridiculous.
“Don’t you dare, McKay.” She points a finger in my face. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
I put up both hands in surrender. “I’m not. I’m not, OK? I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on, that’s all.”
She wraps her arms around her wet t-shirt and hugs herself.
“You need some dry clothes. And a bath. You wanna take a bubble bath?”
She pouts when I say this and suddenly, she looks ten again. Like the girl she was the day Adam brought her home. Small and thin. Young and defiant back then. Feral. Wild. Already dangerous.
But she wasn’t angry. She didn’t come to us angry. If I had to pick an emotion for Indie that first day I’d call her unaffected. Distant. Maybe even… cold. Not cold like snow. Cold like serial killers who have no conscious.
But when did that ever stop me from loving her?
We all have a little serial killer inside us, don’t we?
“Come on.” I take her hand and pull her through the shop. “And mind the floor, OK? There are all kinds of sharp metal shards lying around. If you cut your foot—”
“I know. I won’t be able to run.”
This fucking girl. “No. If you cut your foot, you’ll have to go get a tetanus shot, you fool. I know for sure you’re due for one.”
“I’m not gonna step on anything. And you don’t know me that well. I could’ve gotten a booster.”
I peek at her over my shoulder as I reach the stairs. “Did you?”
“No. But that’s not the point. I could’ve. OK? You don’t know shit about me anymore.”
She’s wrong. I know Indie Anna Accorsi better than anyone on this planet. I made her. I shaped her. I turned her into this… whatever she is now. I understand what’s lurking inside her mind far better than she ever did.
But there’s no point in arguing with her when she’s like this, so I don’t say anything. Just lead her up to my second-floor apartment and hold the door open so she can go inside.
I follow her in, shut the door, and lean against it.
Here we go again.
Indie wanders around my apartment picking up small things and looking at them with an innocent child-like wonder.
A wrench from my small dinette table. And while I wouldn’t normally see anything particularly special about this wrench, today, from a distance of ten feet away, I see what she sees.
The oil stains. The marks on the open end. Evidence that this tool has been used. The slight discoloration of the steel on the handle that earned me a ten-percent discount when I bought the set from the salesman.
She sets it down and moves on to a pen. Just a regular, cheap ballpoint pen to anyone else. But Indie studies the chew marks on the cap end. The crack in the plastic along the barrel.
She sets it down and looks at me. “It’s been a while.” Her tone is small and soft, all trace of the badass girl she was downstairs gone now.
I nod. “About four years, I’d guess.”
She hugs herself and smiles. “Did you miss me?”
“What do you think?” I ask it to be sarcastic but also to hear what she has to say about that. Because you can’t ever really know what’s going on inside that head.
She shrugs and turns. Picks up a candle. Smells it. Looks over her shoulder at me. “Who gave you this?”
“Misha. A while ago.” But I feel the need to add qualifiers to that answer. “For my birthday. Thirty-fourth. You missed it.”
She nods, puts the candle down and wanders over to the couch where she takes a seat and picks up a ring of keys.
I study them with her, then answer her unasked questions as she holds up a fob. “New truck. Bought it last year. New, like actually new. Nice too.”
She holds up another key. Not a fob.
“You know that one.”
“Motorcycle,” she affirms, dropping it to pick up the next key. “House,” she says. “Yours,” she adds. And for the last one she says, “House. Adam’s.”
She slips Adam’s key off the ring and slides it into her pocket.
“That all you need, then? That why you came?”
“No.” She leans back into the cushions. “I’m cold, so…” She shrugs. “I’ll take a bath with you.”
“Uh, no. Not with me, Indie. You know better.”
She squints her eyes at me. “Do I know better? Who taught me better, McKay? You? Adam? Donovan?”
“Well.” I cross my arms, still blocking the door. If she wanted to leave there’s really nothing I could do to stop her. But it doesn’t hurt to send all the right messages. “I’d go with Donovan, I guess. If I had to choose.”