Hold Me Like a Breath (22 page)

It was a paternal lecture, full of affection and sternness and requiring nothing from me but agreement at intervals.

“Yes. Okay. I understand. Thank you.”

He sighed. “Are you sure you won't come stay at my Connecticut house?”

Agreeing meant surrendering all hope Garrett was coming. All hope of regaining any of my old life and all promise of autonomy. It would be another estate-prison without the comfort of family or the familiar.

“I'm sure, but thank you.”

“You should know, I talked to Darius Castillo—”

“Can I see him?”

“Not yet. He doesn't want to know where you are. Doesn't think it's safe if he knows.”

“But—”

“Penny, we need to trust him on this. If they could get through the security on your father's estate—if they had no qualms about their actions there—they're not going to hesitate to torture the doctor to get to you. The less people who know about you, the better. I'm debating moving you myself. If not to Connecticut, at least somewhere more secure.”

But Garrett. But the freedoms I'd just gained. But the fact that this place was
Carter's
—all I had left of him—and he'd told me it was safe.

“I'll be more careful, I promise.”

“I won't force you …
yet
. Call if you change your mind. Just call me, period. I want to know how you're doing.”

After good-byes I turned what remained of my attention to the men in the room. Maybe it wasn't just fluids in the first IV because my exhaustion had a medicinal tint—I hated that no one
ever consulted
me
before plying my body with drugs. I needed to be awake. Alert. Ask questions.

“How did you know …
my
apartment? Not the building—GPS—but which … was … mine …” My words were slowing into breathy things, the letters dragging and distorting.

“Door wasn't closed all the way,” said one of the men. I had an impression of graying buzz cut and square jaw, but I couldn't stop blinking long enough to make eye contact or form clear memories. “And there was a smear of blood on the frame.”

“And it's steel. Reinforced. Has a full seal. It's not the same door as the other apartments in this building.” This was the other nondoctor. A smudge of black clothing, dark hair, dark skin. A voice like music. I bet he laughed a lot. I liked his explanation, what it said about Carter's foresight, I wanted to tell him …

“Sleep now, Miss Landlow. You need rest.”

It was eerily quiet when I opened my eyes. My muscles were stiff, joints tense and achy—weighted with the hours (days?) I'd spent in a drugged, motionless sleep. My temples were tight with my usual post-infusion headache. I walked gingerly from room to room, testing my body, measuring the differences in the apartment with addition and subtraction.

Gone: The men. The IVs. My cell phone. The stranger's shirt. The pain that had consumed me.

Added: A constant ache from head to navel that demanded careful movement and limited rotation. A new cell phone with a single contact:
Bob
. A new key on my table and new dead bolt on the door—how could I have slept through the drilling? A pill bottle with a note: “Take one every four hours as needed for pain.” A loaf of bread. A neat row of apples and bananas. A fridge full of milk, juice, butter, yogurt, hummus, and all sorts of
healthiness that had never before rested on those shelves. A sense of calm, security—a memory of the vice president's voice in my head:
You aren't alone
.

It was enough to make me smile as I took a careful shower, dressed in a bright yellow sundress printed with clocks, and blow-dried my bangs to cover a fading chin-shaped bruise on my forehead. With the dress's Peter Pan collar and a light cardigan, I could hide most of the damage. The scrapes on my arm were healing behind bandages and the petechiae on my ankles were disappearing. I could pass for healthy, and thanks to all the new antibodies infused into my body, I was.

For now.

“Garrett, where are you?” My question made the silence feel louder, made typing his number into this new phone and pressing send so dangerously tempting. I hit send on a different call instead.

“Penny, I have to ask you something.” The vice president had barely taken the time for social niceties. Only inquiring how I was feeling and if I needed anything, accepting my answers and gratitude without seeking more details or pressing me to come stay with him. These, combined with the tone of his voice, made my arms break into goose bumps and soured the last sips of my orange juice.

“Go ahead.”

“Your father—how did he … The past couple weeks, did he seem …” Bob cleared his throat. “Since Carter, had your father seemed depressed?”

“What?”

“I mean, more than what would be expected. Or violent?”

“Is there a
normal
amount of grieving?” I asked. “He was busy with work and sad—but not violent. Why?”

“There's some evidence that suggests this might have been a murder-suicide. We need to consider all possibilities.”

“What evidence? My father would
never
—”

“But he
did
send away his security that morning, right? Which was atypical. And he even told your personal guard to leave you alone, even though you'd had constant surveillance since—”

“No!” I wanted to throw the phone out the window, bleach his words from my head. “That makes no sense.”

“And he was training a successor, planning for someone to replace him.”

“It's not possible. And I can prove it! Father would've known in an instant that Caroline wasn't me. Besides, she was shot
last
. She was alive when I left my room. And the shots started on the patio where Mother and Father were sitting. There were voices yelling—male, plural. I could hear them from the clinic.”

“You're sure?”

“Positive!”

“I need to figure out how we can use your information to influence the investigation without revealing you're alive.”

“How
hasn't
that been revealed?”

“At this point it's safer if you're secret. If it wasn't your father—”

“It wasn't!”

“I don't want to believe it either—but I wanted you to be
prepared. You're going to see it in the news. We're trying to suppress the story until more is known, but it'll leak. Tomorrow, day after at the latest.”

I was tearing a paper towel into pieces with edges as ragged as my breathing. “They need new theories
now
because while they waste time on this, the real murderers are still out there.”

“Penny, calm down.”

“Calm down? You just asked if Father—” I paused to swallow against the tightening of my throat, gulp air that burned into my lungs with all the fury of my emotions. “Have you looked at Nolan? He could have orchestrated the murders to win support for the Organ Act—he was the one who stirred up the fight at breakfast, the reason Father sent the Wards away. Or the Zhus—they're suspects for Carter—”

“Nolan was on an airplane at the time. We're following
all
leads. I probably shouldn't be telling you any of this, but maybe you can help. Mick Ward suggested the Zhus too—he's having a rough recovery from his head injury, but he thinks he recalls—”

It was probably illegal to interrupt the vice president, but I did it again. “He
thinks
he recalls? Where are the cameras? We have security!”

“The hard drives were erased and smashed, the online backup server wiped clean.”

“How?”

“We don't know. The ID logged into the system for the wipe was your father's.”

I shook my head, trying to clear these images. I needed a hug or someone to hold my hand. I needed my parents, Carter. I
needed everything impossible or I'd lie down sobbing and never get up. “Have you talked to Garrett Ward?”

“He's the youngest? He was away from the site of the shooting. He said he was waiting to meet you.”

“He was.”

“When he heard the sounds, he ran toward the gunfire. He's the one who called 911.”

“Is he okay?”

“Physically, yes.” Bob cleared his throat. “That's enough questions, Penny. I've already told you too much. They're following up on everything, I promise.”

“What about Tom Tanaka? He's the VIP who was on the estate that day—if Mick thinks … If he's having trouble remembering …” Bob's new wife was Korean, I didn't want to offend him or imply
I
thought all Asians looked the same, just that it was entirely possible an idiot-Ward might assume Tanaka was a Zhu.

“But Tom was with Castillo in the clinic when the shooting began, and then with
you
in the ambulance. Surely you don't think Darius is in on it?”

“No, of course not. Can I talk to him yet? Or Garrett?” Please. Please please please please.

Bob sighed. It was the type of sigh Mother used to make whenever I asked to go off-estate. It expressed,
Why do you ask these questions and force me to give you disappointing answers
?

“I know it's hard, but it's safer for everyone if you don't. You're going to have to trust the professionals to do their job—sometimes these things take time.”

“I-I need to go.” I couldn't handle the dead ends and nonanswers. The accusations and implications and the horrible thought that some crimes were
never
solved.

“Yes, of course. I'm sorry I upset you.”

I didn't tell him it was all right, because it wasn't.

“Call me
anytime
if you need to talk. Need anything,” said Bob. “There's unlimited minutes on the phone and it's secure.”

“Thank you.”

“And be careful, Penelope Maeve.”

“Always.” The word was as weary and worn as the oversized chair I was sitting in.

I stared at the cell phone's screen after we hung up. Based on the date displayed, it had been three days since my last trip out of the apartment. I'd guessed as much based on the color progression of my bruises—the greens, yellows, and browns.

I needed to get out. Get sunlight. Distract myself from the fears and images looping through my head. See if the dachshund and Pom's owners were coupled yet, try the blueberry coffee, check on Shanice's son. Find a pretty view and a sunny bench where I could sit and update my notebook. I wanted to add stories about the times I'd injured myself over the years and my family's various bedside manners. I'd taken them for granted: Father's balloon bouquets and Broadway serenades. Mother's attempts to teach me to cross-stitch and crochet—though her own skills were limited. We'd made one lumpy, unraveling afghan and never finished our stitchery. Carter brought comic books, lilies, video games, frappés. He made “idiot-pathetic”
jokes that somehow always made me
less
self-conscious. He'd bring Garrett too, who was always his own brand of distraction.

Garrett.
Physically okay
… but thinking I was dead. Thinking we were
all
dead. That would wreck him. My guilt and desire to console him made me pick the phone back up. My fear of placing him in danger made me put it back down.

He wasn't coming. I was alone. And probably
should
stay pinned within the walls where I was safest, but I needed to try street pretzels and the peanuts that were roasted and sugared and smelled like ice-cream cones. I wanted to watch the carriage riders in Central Park, see the Statue of Liberty. All those touristy things I'd daydreamed and bookmarked back when my biggest problems were boredom and blood counts. I needed to enjoy freedom, because there were no guarantees I'd have it for long. I put my new cell phone in my purse, added the new key to the paper clip with the others, and left. Shutting the apartment door Bob's people had wiped clean of my blood, I skipped down the stairs I'd painfully crawled up.

I stepped into the sunshine of a perfect morning and gulped a breath of outside air—then choked on it. He was there. The Asian guy who'd run into me and haunted my dreams. My stranger.

Standing on the sidewalk across the street, his dark pants, gray shirt, and messenger bag looked far too pristine against the grimy backdrop of the neighborhood. His eyes were on my building, on me, and he was crossing the street, running toward where I stood frozen on the step.

My dreams hadn't done him justice. He was gorgeous. The most attractive guy I'd ever seen. Period. Exclamation point.

His black hair lacked any sort of part or order. It was long enough to be pushed back when he shoved his sunglasses to the top of his head so he could look at me with eyes that were intensity-brown under eyebrows that arched in shivery, come-hithery ways. Except they weren't purposely come-hither—they were raised in concern. For me.

“How are you feeling?”

“I'm fine.”

He beamed. Beamed. No one had ever smiled at me like that. Like just by walking out the door I'd made his life better. It punched holes in my caution, made me feel off-balance.

But I stuck to my script anyway. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn't call, and I was worried.”

“Do girls always call you?” His lips distracted me as I waited for him to form them into an answer … An answer to the wrong question. “Why are you outside my apartment?”

“I wanted to see that you were okay. You just—you seemed so disoriented. I should've insisted on taking you to the hospital. I was worried you were diabetic and had gone into insulin shock.”

This wasn't the apartment building where I'd left him. My back and palms glossed with a panic-sheen of sweat.

“You followed me. In what world is it okay to follow a girl you don't know home and wait outside her building?” There was so much of my father in my voice. If I'd had a Ward here, I would have nodded at him to step closer and crack his knuckles. But I
didn't need the extra menace; the guy looked nervous enough. Shifting his weight, staring at my shoes.