Trust Me (2 page)

It's all so spy-mystery novel, I feel like I should be blindfolded or something. But Hart doesn't move to touch me. He sits next to me, concentrating on his iPhone—scrolling through email from the looks of it and leaving me to watch the scenery pass.

Or rather,
pretend
to watch the scenery pass.

The only thing I can concentrate on now is Milo's face, that twitch in his expression when he realized I'd been caught.

And how we both knew we were over.

In some ways, there are advantages to dating someone like Milo: He knows this stuff as well as I do. We are the same and we know how this goes. The fact that he drove on should not hurt. It does not hurt. One of us was always bound to be caught.

But no matter how many times I repeat this, it still feels like I'm mumbling through a mouthful of glass.

I start to count road signs. We're heading north toward Atlanta, the driver weaving in and out of traffic. I can't see anything through the tinted glass partition, but I'd have to guess we're doing seventy—maybe eighty. Every time he switches lanes, my breath catches.

“Are we going to the airport?” I ask as the car hurtles toward the interstate turnoff.

Hart looks up. “No. We're going to midtown actually. We share a building with a few other companies.”

“Is that where I'll be staying?”

“Precisely.” Hart pockets his phone and tugs a set of manila folders from the briefcase between us. After flipping through the pages, he pauses, finger pressed against something I can't see.

“Tell me about Joe Bender,” he says at last.

“He worked for Michael.”

“And?”

“And he was shivved in jail.” I stare through the window, watch putty-gray office buildings fly past. We're drawing farther and farther into the city. The streets are getting narrower, sidewalks clogged with men and women leaving work. Their eyes glide right past the town car. It's like we're invisible because we look like we belong. “I think Joe was waiting for a plea bargain or something.”

“Did they ever find out who killed him?”

“No.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

“Look at me. Wick? Look. At. Me.”

I grit my teeth, turn to Hart. I'm careful to keep my face blank, but I can't stop my fingers from digging into the smooth leather seats. If he looks down, he'll see and he'll know.

“Let me ask it this way,” Hart says. “Were you involved in killing him?”

“Of course not.”

Hart twists to face me fully. “You lie beautifully.” He turns the folder around and pushes it toward me. “Here. Look. This is what
we
think happened.”

My stomach tilts. The entire folder is dedicated to me. There are pictures—Lily with me; Bren with me; my best friend, Lauren, with me—and reports. Someone had been watching, cataloging everything: my visit to Joe, Lily's attack by one of Joe's men, how I went to see Michael the next day.

That was sloppy of me, but I'd been too panicked to wait. One of Joe's grunts had jumped my sister on her way home from school. She was terrified and I knew Joe was getting out. He'd struck some deal with the Feds and once he was free . . . well, it didn't take much imagination to know what would happen next.

Yes, it was noted by the police that I visited both men. Yes, until then, I had never visited either of them. But without anyone knowing about Lily's attack, I was pretty
safe. Lily covered for me, for
us
. And without anyone able to connect my visits . . . well, it was fairly easy to explain everything away.

Except apparently Hart's people
did
connect it. They figured out Lily was the hidden piece.

I close the folder, feel cold sweat roll beneath my clothes.

“Now,” Hart says, leaning closer. “Tell me what really happened.”

“Joe killed my mother. He knew she was informing on my dad—on
him
—so he dragged her to the top of an unsecured building, told her if she didn't jump he would kill my sister and me.”

“And what did you do with that information?”

“I told Michael.” It sounds so innocent when I say the words like that, but it's not. I did not put the knife in Joe's stomach, but by telling Michael, I might as well have.

“And you knew your dad would respond like that?” Hart asks.

“I had a hunch.”

“Interesting. Do you think he loved her?”

I blink, try to fit my head around Hart's sudden detour. “Michael beat my mother. Badly. That's not love.”

“Maybe for him it was. He could destroy her, but no one else could.”

I sneak a sideways glance at Hart. Something ahead of us has caught his interest, and in this unguarded moment he looks different. Without the smile, Hart's face is hard,
angular . . . watchful. His skin's pale and a little waxy like he doesn't see sunshine much. And as I watch, his right hand drifts backward, like he's thinking of going for his pocket . . . or his gun.

It stops, but he continues to watch the window. Whatever he's seen bothers him, but I can't tell what it is.

“Are we being followed?” I ask.

Hart considers me. “I want to lie and say no . . . but, somehow, I think that would be a very big mistake with you.”

A tiny part of me likes Hart more for recognizing this. It would be a mistake because I could never trust him again. But I don't get the chance to tell him anything because just as I open my mouth, an SUV slams into us.

Our car fishtails to the left as the SUV plows into our right and keeps coming.

The force slings me to my side, the seat belt slicing into my ribs. I brace one hand against the seat and suck in a single breath before we're hit again.

Hart swears, scrounges for something on the floorboard. I don't know how he can even move. My seat belt is cutting into my neck, my stomach. I flatten one hand against the door and then the seat.

They hit us even harder this time.

My teeth jam together, crushing my tongue until I taste blood, and I still can't stop watching. I don't understand. This isn't a random accident. They're coming
after
us, almost pushing the town car sideways.

The SUV slows and our car straightens, accelerates. I
slump. Escaping. We're escaping.

Then the other driver guns it again. He rams us and I'm spinning above it all, watching my door buckle under the larger car's grill.

I twist, bracing both hands on either side of me as we're shoved under the shadow of an office building. Our car skids . . . skids . . . collides.

My head smashes against the cracked window. Pain. Colors burst behind my eyelids and I grab my head. Worse.

The air smells like gasoline and my mouth tastes like pennies. Hart moans. I force my eyes open. Blink. Can't focus. Blink again. Still can't see straight. Everything's smeary. Something's crunching.

Glass.

I shift, my surroundings snapping into focus. We've stopped and the SUV is reversing, bits of windshield spitting under its tires. The driver door opens and a guy in a black ski mask hops onto the pavement.

Walks straight toward me.

Panic hums in my ears and I scrabble at the seat belt, fingers numb. It clicks loose and I fall sideways. He yanks at my door. Won't open. He takes two steps back.

And then charges forward.

I shrink down as a huge boot kicks in the window, spraying me with glass. He uses one arm to knock the last bits away and then reaches into the car and grabs me. I shriek. He pulls me through the window.

My knees hit the pavement in a bright white pop of
pain. I kick both feet under me and slip. He hoists me up, half dragging me toward the SUV's passenger door. Through the window, I can see the silhouette of shoulders and a head. Someone else is in there.

Someone else is waiting for me.

I dig my Chucks into the pavement, hear something scraping behind us. Feet. Coming fast.

Hart hits both of us at a dead run. I land face-first, getting a mouthful of gravel, but even before I can spit out the bits, Hart's forearm is hooked around my waist. He flings me backward, pinning me behind him just as there's an unmistakable click in the air.

Pistol. Hart's pistol.

“You need to leave,” Hart says. It's so quiet I don't think the ski mask guy could possibly hear it, but he must've. He retreats one step. Two. His eyes stay on me though. They never leave my face.

Because he's memorizing me?

Or because I should know him?

I scrape one hand across my lips and smell him on me. Cigarettes and the leather from his gloves. I gag.

Hart gestures toward the SUV with the now-cocked gun. “Go.”

This time, the guy doesn't hesitate. He walks around the ruined front grill and jumps in the driver's seat. The SUV peels off and Hart turns to me, checking me so closely we're breathing the same damn air.

He put himself between us. He
shielded
me. This
isn't . . . it was never supposed to be . . . I swallow and taste bile.

Hart wipes a touch of blood from his face and grimaces at his reddened fingertips. He looks so much less plastic now, so much less together. If it weren't for the blood—and how that blood happened—it might be a much, much more approachable look for him.

We study each other in silence until Hart breaks first. “I warned you. Do you believe me now?”

Yes
. Hot tears prick my eyes and I inhale hard, fighting them. “Who was that?”

“Hard to tell at this point. One of Michael's competitors? One of Michael's men? Someone else? All I really know is they're coming for you, Wick. Next time . . . they won't go so easy. There will be more.”

“And that means you're going to save me? What if something like this happens to Bren? To
Lily
?”

“We'll stop them.”

Our driver limps to my side, cell phone in one hand.

Hart ignores him. “We know what you did when you got those recordings of your mother,” he tells me. “We know about Joe Bender and what you engineered.” The statements should sound accusatory—at least hateful—but Hart's tone wobbles between guidance-counselor understanding and . . . just plain
proud
. “Do you regret what happened?”

What happened was I had Joe Bender killed. Why can't he just say it? Why can't I?

I did it to save my sister. Joe hurt her to get to me. The
murder should feel justified. It should be easy to confess.

I meet Hart's gaze. “I don't regret it.”

“Good.” There's a faraway whine of sirens and we both tense. Hart watches the closest side street, index finger tapping against his knee. “There are terrible people in this world, Wicket. They make nothing but misery. What if you could help that?”

My stomach sinks. “I'm not into playing God.”

I've heard this line of reasoning before and it makes me nervous. The night Detective Carson escaped, he told me all about how he had wanted to make me a hero—that's why he blackmailed me into working for him. He thought he was making me Good by siccing me on people he thought were Evil. And the thing is . . . they
were
evil. He was right. But he was also deciding whose sins were the worst, who deserved punishment, and who deserved a pass.

“Don't think of it as playing God,” Hart says, eyes still skittering over the side streets. Our driver returns to the ruined town car, holding his cell to one ear.

“Then what is it?”

He turns to me. “I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for standing up. You did an ugly thing—the right thing is often ugly, and that's what makes it so hard for most people to recognize it.”

We stare at each other. I want to tell Hart that's not really an answer to my question, but it doesn't matter anymore. Call it ugly. Call it the truth. Call it
whatever
. I'm getting less and less impressed with labels. The only time they matter
is when you're figuring out the person who's using them.

“You can't tell anyone what a gift you gave to the world,” Hart continues, watching me. “But I'm bringing you somewhere you
can
tell people—because we understand.”

“I thought you were bringing me somewhere to keep me safe, not egg me on.”

Hart's smile is thin, faint. Bitter. “Don't kid yourself, Wick. These people saw you. They
see
you. You are now known. You looked into the dark and it looked back. I know you know this.”

I do.

“Why do you want me?” I ask.

“Looking Glass specializes in internet securities, virus removal—you're good at that, aren't you?”

Slowly, I nod.

“Please trust that I can help you,” he says.

“No one ever says ‘please' to me.” Not entirely true. Griff does. Or he
did
once upon a time when we were together and I was pretending to be someone I'm not. I look at Hart and tell myself I don't care about how Griff is past tense, how Milo is probably long gone, and how my entire life as I knew it no longer exists.

Too bad I'm not that good a liar.

Hart sighs. “Yeah, I know. It hasn't been easy for you, but things can be different if you let us help you.”

I hesitate. Hart seems so . . . sincere. I don't know what to do with that or the fact that I want to believe him. I pick gravel from my palms instead as the sirens grow closer.

“Boss?” The driver appears at the side of our car. He's holding his neck like it hurts and his eyes are wide. “Someone's reported the accident. They're maybe five minutes away.”

“‘They'?” I ask.

“The police,” Hart says, and nods to the driver, who disappears around the front of the town car. “We have scanners in all the vehicles.” He digs into his coat pocket, pulls out a packet of wet wipes, and hands them to me.

Guns and hand sanitizer? There's a joke about Boy Scouts and always being prepared somewhere in there, but my brain's too scrambled to connect it.

“I don't think I want to ask why you carry wet wipes around with you,” I say.

“You're probably right, but unless you want a trip to the ER for that scratch on your head, I'd suggest you wipe off your face and take down your hair to cover that cut. We have doctors at the office. It's safer for you to be examined there.”

It's not a bad point, but I still take the packet a bit reluctantly. Hart isn't what I thought. He's . . . I don't know. Probably best not to think about it. Besides, anything's better than being sticky so I spend a moment cleaning off my face and hands, barely noticing how the cuts sting.

“Ready?” Hart asks, straightening his clothes.

I nod, eyes pinned to another black town car approaching us. It pulls to the curb just as a police cruiser rounds the corner and heads straight for us. Another black-suited
driver opens the door to the second town car. He leans against the frame, watching us and waiting.

“Don't say anything,” Hart says as the police officer approaches. The car stops, lights still rolling. “Just let me handle it.”

“Gladly,” I say and hang behind. Hart and the driver talk to the officer, who in turn calls in another cop and a tow truck. There's a lot of gesturing: hands waving around, hands resting on belts, hands slapping shoulders . . . until one of the officers finally notices me. He nudges the first guy and they both wave me closer.

“Miss? Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.”

“Your father says it was a hit-and-run.” The officer's eyes slide back and forth between us. Cataloging all the flaws in calling Hart my father? We look nothing alike, but I guess we could be related . . . if Hart knocked up my mom in his very early twenties. Still, the officer doesn't comment.

Because he really hasn't noticed?

Or because Hart lied so confidently it made everything feel like the truth?

“Is that true?” the officer asks.

Hart's gaze meets mine. His smile hasn't moved, but there's something in the way his shoulders have stiffened that reveals his worry. He doesn't think I'll go along with his story. He doesn't trust me even though he's asked me to trust him.

Trust me, he said. We're the good guys, he said.

I saved you, he didn't say, but it's still true.

At Bren's when Hart said he was one of the good guys, I'd wanted to laugh. This whole thing seems so impossible. There are no good guys, no such thing as heroes. I
know
this.

Then again, considering my previous track record of not recognizing a good thing when I had it . . . maybe . . . maybe?

“Miss?” the officer asks. “Was your father right? It was a hit-and-run?”

I look at the officers, lower my chin, and wobble my lower lip until I look like Tragedy Girl just trying to be brave.

“Absolutely,” I say. “He's right. They came out of nowhere.”