Nearly Gone (18 page)

Jeremy’s car wasn’t in the parking lot at the Bui Mart and I hoped that meant he’d gone to see Dr. Matthews. Bao didn’t look up when I walked into the store. Metallica blared through the overhead speakers, loud enough to drown out the bells on the door, but my chocolate milk and paper were already waiting on the counter. Bao’s spiky hair bobbed up and down to the beat of the music while he mopped up a spill beside the coffee machines on the other side of the store.

I stretched up on my toes and leaned over the counter. Felt around underneath for the volume control on the stereo. My hand passed over something cold and metallic, mounted to the underside and pointed at me. I carefully removed my hand.

The music died suddenly. The only sound was the whir of the slushie machines.
Fingers gripped my shoulder and I jumped. “Looking for something?”
Bao stood behind me, a remote control in his other hand. The mop handle lay across the floor, its wet strands making a gray puddle in the aisle.
“I was looking for the volume,” I said, wriggling out from under him. “They’ve done studies, you know. Eighties hair bands are hazardous to your health. They should put a warning label on that stuff.”
“They do. It says
Listening at High Volume Makes You Dangerously Cool and Lethally Attractive to Members of the Opposite Sex
.”
I reached into the day old bin and plucked out a jelly donut to settle my nerves. “Maybe you should consider toning it down a little. Two hundred decibels is loud enough to kill you.”
Bao lifted the opening in the counter and stepped in behind it. “Know what else can kill you? Snooping around under the counter of a convenience store that’s been robbed three times already this year.” His expression was grave. He rested his hands on the counter above where he kept his handgun, and I didn’t feel so hungry anymore.
I tucked the donut into a bag and set my change on the counter. Then I thumbed through the paper and checked to make sure it was all there.
“Are you going to this rave I keep hearing about?” Bao folded his arms and leaned against the counter while he watched me pack up my loot. I responded with an indeterminate shake of my head.
“Anh wanted to go with your friend Richie McRich. I told Dad I need her to mind the store for me tonight. She’s pissed, but she’ll get over it.” He shrugged. “I don’t know what she sees in that guy. She should take a lesson from you and just not date. She doesn’t need the distractions. You, on the other hand.” He shook a finger at me. “You’ve got your eye on the prize. You know how to play the game and I respect that. That’s why you’re such competition for her. If she’s not careful, you might pull that scholarship out from under her.”
“I’m counting on it,” I said quietly, not sure how I felt. I left, clutching my newspaper to my chest.
• • •
The halls were empty when I got there. Regular classes had been canceled for a memorial assembly honoring Posie and Teddy. I was in class when Rankin took attendance, but no one had noticed when I veered off to the social studies wing instead of following the others to the memorial service. I carried the
Missed Connections
to the civics classroom, my soft soles too loud on the tile, but no one was there to hear me.
A laminated street map of Alexandria was mounted on a bulletin board in the hall, just outside the classroom. I traced a finger over the intersecting lines, checking them against the clue in my other hand.

Isosceles had the right angle.
The Torpedo is a straight shot to the Yards.
Follow my tracks.

The Torpedo Factory was a collection of boutiques, galleries, and restaurants on the waterfront in Old Town, spread over the top right corner of the map.

Clearly, the ad was a problem of triangulation, accounting for two points of an isosceles triangle—the Torpedo Factory and Potomac Yards, the old rail yard that lay almost due north of it. But the clue didn’t reveal the location of the right angle. If the ninety-degree angle was located at Potomac Yards, that would put the unknown angle somewhere in Fairlington. But if the vertex of the right angle was at the Torpedo Factory, the clue would take me several miles south, on the other side of town. The killer was giving me one more chance to screw up, just like I’d done the night of the play. But if I screwed up this time, I wouldn’t be on the wrong side of school. I’d be on the wrong side of town.

I pushed up my glasses, certain I’d missed some subtle clue hidden in the text. I held the torn ad against the map and read it again, pushing my finger into Potomac Yards, then dragging it south along the railroad hash marks that paralleled the Torpedo Factory . . .

Follow my tracks.
“Bingo, you bastard.”
I changed direction at the factory, tracing the railroad

west and pressing a finger into the center of an industrial park in Cameron Run. A grid of at least a dozen warehouses. I tapped the spot thoughtfully. With a yardstick and a few quick calculations, I could probably narrow the location of the vertex to a particular street.

A reflection appeared, a ghostlike shadow against the glossy laminated surface of the map. I stiffened as a dark sleeve reached over my right shoulder. Fresh pink scars crisscrossed the calloused knuckles of the large hand that disappeared under a black hoodie. An expensive cologne tickled the back of my throat, a cloying combination of musk and menthe.

Oleksa braced against the board and arched over me, close but not touching.
“You think too much about these things.” His clipped accent rappelled down my spine. “And not enough about others.”
I moved left, but his other arm rose to block me, boxing me in between him and the map. I held my breath, mind rolling through the self-defense moves Mona and Butch had insisted on teaching me. Heel to shin, elbow to ribs, head to chin . . .
“Why aren’t you at the memorial service?”
My jaw clenched. I didn’t owe him any explanation.
“Three students are dead. You should be more careful,” he said. I raised my head slowly to see his face reflected in the map. “Whelan’s more dangerous than you think.”
I shot a deliberate glance at the scars on his hand. “Reece isn’t the one with anger management issues.”
His chest brushed my back. Too close. “There are a lot of things about Whelan you don’t know.” He whispered into my hair, making me shiver. “Everyone has secrets.”
“Was Reece too close to your secrets? Is that why you beat him?” I met his reflection eye to eye.
“I beat Whelan because Lonny doesn’t trust him. Lonny trusts you. So why weren’t you at his party on Wednesday?”
I wanted to tell him to screw off, but it felt like a test. Like Reece might pay the price for the wrong answer. “I had two funerals to go to, and I was tired.”
“Reece said as much when we asked him. But make no mistake, Lonny’s expecting you to be with Whelan tonight. No excuses. No tricks. If you care about him, you’ll come.” His cheek brushed my ear as he whispered, “But be careful.” He pushed off the bulletin board and backed away, leaving a chill on my skin and the nagging aftertaste of sour mints. He believed me, but there was an acidic undertone to his unease. I watched his reflection disappearing in the map. A pink flyer hung by a thumbtack where his hand had been. The bottom edges lifted in the breeze of his departure.
I pulled the thumbtack. The flyer was drawn in code. A rave flyer. I ran my hand over the map, finding the pin-sized hole where Oleksa had placed it. A strip of warehouses in Cameron Run. It couldn’t be a coincidence. The
Missed Connections
clue was leading me to the rave. That’s where the killer would strike next. Where he wanted me to be. Where Kylie would be.
I spun around, but Oleksa was gone. I slumped against the wall, feeling completely screwed.
• • •
I called Reece as I walked home and told him Kylie might be in danger. We talked about going to the police, but Kylie would probably stick close to Lonny and we couldn’t risk drawing a swarm of undercover cops to the drug deal. If the Homicide team knew Kylie was a target, they’d hover way too close and step on Narcotics’ toes. And Narcotics wanted that list as badly as I did. If Lonny got spooked or if the deal went bad, we might not get the list of ketamine buyers at all, and that was the whole point of being there. Besides, if I went to the police now, to report another crime that hadn’t even happened yet, they’d have no choice but to hold me for questioning.
No, we would do this ourselves. This time would be different. This time, we’d be ready. We’d be close to Lonny, and Lonny would be close to Kylie. Between the three of us, she’d never be out of sight.
“I’ll keep an eye on Kylie,” I said.
“No,” Reece argued. “The only person I’m worried about keeping safe tonight is you. Lonny can take care of his own. We make the sale. We get the list. We use the list to prove you’re not involved. That’s it. I can’t be responsible for Kylie, and neither can you. Remember, you agreed to do this my way.”
“Right.” I let it go, sensing his doubt. I couldn’t let him change his mind. Not when we were so close. This whole nightmare could be over in a matter of hours. “I’ll be careful.” And hopefully I’d find the killer before the killer found Kylie.
• • •
At home, Mona was awake, hair dryer blaring on the other side of the bathroom door.
I slipped into my room, fell onto the lumpy mattress, and threw an arm over my face. Jeremy and I hadn’t spoken all week, despite the fact that we’d essentially gone to the funerals together. Even Anh was growing distant. Studying together was becoming awkward, each of us looking over the other’s shoulders, wondering what the other was doing to gain an edge. The silences in our conversations seemed to say more than we did. I’d clammed up when she’d asked me to dish on my relationship with Reece, and neither one of us wanted to broach the topic of the murders. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to spend more and more time with Jeremy. I’d kept my promise to Reece by protecting his secret, at the cost of my relationship with my best friends.
It hurt to think about it. A peculiar feeling fluttered low in my stomach when I remembered Reece’s lips. I rolled onto my side and curled my body around the frayed comforter. I squeezed my eyes shut and dreamed.
• • •
I woke to the sound of a man’s voice. Strange, because Mona never brought men home. I blinked, trying to place it in the dark, and bolted upright in bed.
Reece.
I fumbled with the lock and threw open the door.
Reece stood in my living room, his height more pronounced under the low ceiling, his features more severe in the dim light. Mona paced a slow circle around him to shut the door, and then came around his other side, giving him a stern once-over.
She didn’t look at me. Her rhinestone eyes rested squarely on Reece.
“This
boy
 . . .” She drew the word
boy
into a question. “Says he’s a friend of yours?”
Reece lowered his eyes. Mona’s stare took in all of him.
I swallowed hard.
“I can explain.” My mind reeled for a plausible story. One that might explain why he was standing in my living room.
“Don’t bother. You’re not leaving.” She crossed to the kitchen and slapped her cigarettes against her palm, shaking one loose from the pack.
“Why not?” I’d intended to sound indignant and rebellious, but it came out more like a whine.
“Don’t think for a minute I don’t know what’s going on at school. When the principal cancels after-school activities and sends a letter to all the parents recommending curfews, then I have a damn good reason to keep you home on a Friday night.”
“I’m not going out alone—”
“You’re not going anywhere with him! He reeks of trouble. He came on a motorcycle, which I forbid you to ride!” She drew the collar of her robe higher. “And I know for a fact he has a fake ID.”
Reece wiped his upper lip. My eyes flicked back and forth between the proud angle of my mother’s chin and his downcast face.
Mona tapped her ash and gave him a long, hard look. “Ask him, Nearly. Ask him about his record. Boys like him always have one.” She held her robe shut with one hand and sucked in a drag. “Your father certainly did.”
My eyes cut to Mona’s. They glistened as if that one sentence had turned a lock and loosed a secret. “What are you talking about?”
Reece shuffled, twitchy and uncomfortable. “I should go,” he said quietly.
For the first time I noticed the silk collar under his leather, his buffed boots, his clean shave, and the gel in his mussed hair. He could have texted me. I could have sneaked out and met him down the street, but he came in to meet my mother. And she was the pot calling the kettle too black.
I repeated myself louder. “What do you mean?”
She smoked and didn’t answer, that whispery secret scratching behind her eyes.
Reece opened the door. “It was a bad idea anyway,” he muttered. “I’ll see you Monday.” He slipped out, head down. I turned back to my mother, torn between uncovering my past or fixing my future.
“We’re leaving,” I said.
The ashtray clattered to the floor behind me, scattering filth into the air. I threw open the door, calling Reece’s name over the roar of the bike. My mother’s robe filled the security door as I swung a leg over behind him. I glared at her through the bars and leaned in close, wrapping my arms around his chest. If he was leaving, he was taking me with him.

I closed my eyes and rested my helmet between his shoulders, anchoring myself in leather and the smell of his cologne. The rest of the world blurred around me.

He downshifted to a curb and I lifted my head, blinded by the light on Gena’s front porch. I unwound myself from Reece’s waist and unfastened the helmet, waiting for him to lead the way.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.” He scratched the back of his head and looked at me sideways, abashed for some reason I couldn’t figure out. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
“She shouldn’t have said those things.”
“She’s your mom. She cares about you.”
I perched on the edge of the curb and shoved the helmet
into his hands. “She’s an overprotective hypocrite—” “At least you have one.” He looked at me with a sadness
that felt transparent and locked me out at the same time. “Where’s your mom?” His secrets felt so close, just under
the skin. I wanted to reach out and touch them, even the
ugly ones.

He stared at the pavement, slow to answer. “I took something from her. She won’t see me anymore.”
I thought about Mona, my fingers in her tip jar. How balance could be found in something as simple as a chipped mug on Mother’s Day. Even after our fight tonight, I’d go home and wait up for her. “Can you give back what you took? Try to make it right?”
His eyes lifted to mine. “I’m trying,” he whispered. We both jumped as a door creaked open and Gena poked her head out. I took a guilty step back from Reece. She rolled her eyes and slammed it again.
“Are you coming in?” I crossed my arms over my chest. Everything about me felt inadequate, standing in front of Gena’s house.
“I’ve got something I need to do before the rave. Gena’ll take good care of you while I’m gone.” He took both porch steps in one long stride and rapped on the door.
“Gone?” Suddenly the thought of being alone with Gena dropped my stomach into my shoes. “You’re leaving me here? But—”
“Relax.” He knocked again, looking me up and down with a wry smile. “You need to lose that shirt. I’ll be back to pick you up in two hours.”
“Two hours? I don’t need two hours to change my shirt!” The door opened. Gena scrutinized me, blinking slowly, nails tapping her hip. “Oh, sweetheart. We’re going to do a hell of a lot more than change your shirt.” She grabbed me by the collar and dragged me over the threshold.
Reece chuckled softly as the door slammed shut.
• • •
Gena ushered me down the hall.
“Bathroom. Second door on the right. Hot water’s on the left. Towels are under the sink.”
Cold fingers brushed my ankle and slid up my calf, Gena’s smoky skepticism raising goose bumps on my skin.
I rounded on her. “Hey, what are you doing?”
“I might as well be filing my nails, girlie. You need to shave those legs. There’s a disposable razor in the medicine cabinet.” She mumbled something in Spanish and I was grateful
I didn’t understand a word of it. “Pits too!” she called out as I slammed the bathroom door in her face.
When I finally caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I cringed. My face was tear-streaked and puffy, and my hair was sticking up in every direction. I sighed and looked around. Every inch of counter around the sink basin was packed full of scented soaps, perfumes, lotions, and cosmetics. Her medicine cabinet was full to near bursting with beauty products. I grabbed a fresh disposable and was about to close the cabinet when I spotted something on the highest shelf.
Aftershave, an extra toothbrush, men’s deodorant . . . I shut the cabinet.
Then I opened it again.
I reached for the aftershave and sniffed the inside of the cap. It was cool and heavy with menthe. It tickled the back of my sinuses and stirred a memory. But not of Reece. Feeling like a total creep—and relieved for reasons I didn’t want to think about—I shut the cabinet and turned on the hot water.
When I was done, I wrapped one of Gena’s plush pink towels around my chest, careful to cover the pendant that clung to my damp skin. I tiptoed into the hall, following my nose to the kitchen, where I found Gena spooning rice over a steaming thick stew. My stomach growled through the towel.
“Sit.” She ordered me to a chair and shoved the bowl into my hands. “Eat.”
I scooped in the first mouthful cautiously. It was full of meat and vegetables and gravy and I’d never smelled anything so good. I hoisted my towel up with one hand, shoveling the spoon to my mouth with the other, barely letting it cool before I worked in the next mouthful. With a snort, Gena snapped a chip clip over the knot in my towel. “You don’t got much to work with up top, huh?” She
smirked as she adjusted the clip. When she pulled her hand away, Reece’s pendant came with it, and her smile fell. We looked at each other. Neither of us spoke. Then she looked
away. “Eat.”
I ate in silence, scraping every last drop of gravy from the bowl, and accepted another helping. Gena watched, scrutinizing my figure, face, and hair as I devoured it.
“You’ve got no boobs and no butt because you don’t eat enough. You should eat. You skinny white chicks got it all wrong, starving yourselves. Men like a little something to hold on to, you know what I’m saying?” She patted the fleshy part of her backside with a manicured hand.
I licked my spoon. “Not all of us skinny white chicks starve ourselves on purpose. You know what I’m saying?” I felt bad for mocking her at her own table, but her lashes curled up, amused, even if her smile wasn’t quite there yet.
“
Tranquilo,
I didn’t mean anything by it.” She grabbed my dirty dish and set it in the sink. “I can see why Reece likes you.”
Blood raced to my ears and I tucked the pendant back into the folds of the towel. I didn’t want to have this conversation with her. The pendant didn’t mean anything. It was a costume. An act. “It’s not like that. He doesn’t . . . like me that way.”
Her eyes flicked to the silver chain. “Doesn’t he though?” I set the spoon quietly on her table, too guilty to look her in the eyes. How much had he told her? She couldn’t possibly
know that I’d almost blown his cover at school, or she never would have been this kind.
Without warning, Gena yanked the front of my towel up . . . with me in it. “Come with me.”
Too full to protest, I let her pull me down the hall and plunk me in a chair in front of the bathroom vanity. After blasting my hair dry, she worked a straightening iron through the long sections. In the silence between us I heard the clack and release of the iron working over and over in her hands. “How long have you known Reece?” I asked.
Gena looked at me in the mirror, a hint of distrust in the lift of her brow. “About a year.”
If they’d known each other a year, then she’d know why he was in juvie to begin with. “People say he’s dangerous.” I studied her face for a reaction.
“People say a lot of stupid things.”
I bit back a smile. I didn’t want to like her. “What do you think?”
She frowned at a knot, working it through with her fingers. “I think he’d take a bullet for me.”
“You must be pretty close,” I said, ignoring the jealousy that gnawed at me. “How did you meet him?”
She tugged hard at the knot. It felt like a warning. “Look,” I said, trying to catch her eyes in the mirror, “I know who he is.”
“You don’t know jack, little girl.” She pointed the straightening iron at me. “You’re going to get him killed.” “I wouldn’t do anything to put Reece in danger.” “Wouldn’t you?” The accusation cut deep and all the color drained from my reflection. He’d told her. He’d told Gena I’d almost blown his cover at school. Had he told her that we’d kissed each other too?
She set the iron down and leaned over my shoulders, staring down my reflection. “Reece feels protective of you. He likes you.” She looked at the pendant. “Maybe more than I realized. Emotions make people do stupid things, and Reece is definitely doing some stupid things. He’s like a brother to me. He asked for my help, so I’ll give it. But I don’t like it.
Not one bit. And if you hurt him, I will hunt your skinny ass down and kill you. Are we clear?”
I should have been concerned about the “kill you” part, but the words
like a brother
whispered in my ears like a warm wind. The rest of her admonishment blew out of my mind.
I nodded. Gena resumed her cool composure as she laid out an arsenal of powders, paints, and glosses.
“Take off your glasses,” she instructed, dabbing a brush onto a palette.
I held the frames tight to my face.
The
kill-you
expression was back. Gena snatched them off my nose and held the lenses up to her own eyes to examine them before dropping them in my lap.
“You’re not wearing these tonight,” she said. “Lonny needs to believe Reece would actually date you. You look like a damn librarian.”
I ignored the jab and folded my glasses, closing my eyes as she brushed powder on my face. Her hands were warmer, and the smoky taste of her distrust wasn’t as strong as it had been when I got there.
“What kinds of girls does he date?” I asked. Were they all brash and shimmer and curves, like Gena? Or like the girl who hung out on Lonny’s porch? I tried not to cringe as she painted me, hoping it wouldn’t be my mother staring back at me when I opened my eyes.
“The kind that get him in trouble.” Before I could look, Gena ushered me to her closet and tossed me a black satin triangle on a string.
“Put this on.”
I turned the fabric over a few times until I found the tag and figured out where the stringy parts went. I wiggled my legs into them under the towel, and they awkwardly settled in, but Gena didn’t give me time to fidget. I sucked in a breath as she slapped on a strapless push-up bra and fastened the back tight enough to crush my ribs. Before I could exhale, she yanked a stretchy piece of black fabric over my head and smoothed it over my body. With a quick flash of her fingers, she freed the pendant from the front of the halter dress and let it fall back in place between
my . . . Wow . . . I looked down into my cleavage—yes, there was definitely cleavage there. Gena smacked my hands when I tried to pull the dress higher to cover it.
“Leave it. You look great,” she said, bending low to rummage in her closet. She tossed a pair of shoes behind her, muttering in Spanish. A pair of clunky high-tops spilled onto the floor. The shoes were much too big to be hers, and the long red laces were a dead giveaway.
The cologne in her bathroom. The shoes in her closet.
They belonged to Oleksa.
Oleksa was Gena’s boyfriend, and his hatred of Reece suddenly made sense. He was jealous. But did Oleksa know he was dating a narc, or was Gena getting close to Oleksa for the same reasons Reece had gotten close to me? Gena emerged from the closet with a pair of strappy black heels. I stepped into them and she turned me toward a fulllength mirror. I stepped close enough to see, and resisted the urge to touch my own reflection, afraid the slightest movement might ripple the mirage. Not my mother’s reflection. Not Gena’s. It was my own, but not a version of myself I’d ever imagined before. I wasn’t just a flat, hazy version of myself, I was in full focus; I had definition, an outline. I leaned closer, but a door slammed and I startled.
Reece emerged in the doorway. I turned, lungs failing at the look on his face. I felt his gaze travel hot over the length of my body and climb slowly back to mine.
“Wow,” he managed in a throaty whisper. “You look . . . wow . . .” He frowned and turned away. With a shake of his head, his fascination was gone. He scrubbed his face. “Where’s her phone?” he asked Gena.
Gena planted a hand on her hip. “Sweetheart, where the hell do you think she’s gonna fit a phone in this dress?” “There’s got to be a pocket somewhere,” he growled. Gena drummed her nails.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” I insisted, sensing an argument brewing. “We left the house in such a hurry, I left the phone on my bed. I don’t even have it with me, so there’s no point fighting over where to put it.”
I glanced at Gena and drew a finger across my neck. I mouthed “Let it go,” and she acknowledged me with a slow grin.
“Try to relax tonight.” She dragged him to the door and reached up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “And don’t do anything stupid.”
To me, she pointed and said, “I want all that stuff back.” Then she shuffled us out, slamming the door on Reece’s scowling face.
“Let’s get out of here,” he mumbled, pulling his keys from his pocket. When he got to the bike, he rotated slowly to
look at my legs, then at the heels Gena had let me borrow. He shut his eyes and cringed.
“It’s okay, I’ll manage.” I grabbed the helmet and tossed my hair forward, bending at the waist to let the strands fall in. I snapped the neck strap and placed one leg over the bike without Reece’s help. The skirt rode up my thigh, but not too much, and the added height of the shoes made it easier to step over. Dress or no dress, I was going with him. “See?
It’s fine . . . Really.”
With a pained expression, he pulled his gaze from my leg. I looked away, humiliated, while he settled into the space between them with an exasperated sigh. He kicked the bike into gear and I tangled my fingers in the folds of his shirt rather than around his waist. All I wanted was to get this night behind us so he could move on with his life and I could forget I’d ever let myself fall for a guy like Reece Whelan.