Chapter 38
Walker
Iadd a shade of yellow roughly the color of bile to the mural that’s now taken over two walls of my bedroom, more of my furniture moved to the hallway, the sick shade echoing the agony of not getting to see Clara, talk to her, hold her.
Each day gets harder. Each day, I get up and make sure the rest of the team is still functioning, even though in the early hours before sunrise I stare at the ceiling, wishing Clara was tucked up against me, aching like I’m missing a vital part of myself.
But then I have no choice but to collect my broken bits and toss them back inside my body, where they cut and tear at my soft insides, leaving pain and scar tissue where the delicate parts of myself used to hide.
Every morning, I harden. I’m becoming something else, someone else, the longer she’s gone.
Not a general. I don’t want that role. But a vital lieutenant, keeping the soldiers in line.
My art reflects that.
Less nebulous, bolder, with clean, thick lines and stark shading.
Still tricky, still hiding secrets where only I know to look for them, but different from the work I’ve done for years.
The style isn’t inspired by any masters.
It’s taken the skills I learned copying the masters and blended it with the torment of a soft artist’s heart under unbearable pressure.
In short, I’ve settled on a style, and I don’t know if I like it.
Honesty has never been easy for me. My art used to be no different. But now, honesty’s a vital part of what I create. I don’t want to lie to myself; my art is part of me.
Dunking my brush into a cup at a knock on my door, I wipe my hands on a rag and wrap the brush before dragging the door open. RJ leans against the jamb on the other side, exhaustion obvious in the dark circles under his eyes. I’ve tried to keep him functioning, but it’s been an uphill battle.
“Do you want an update on—” I start, but he cuts me off.
“I know why the powerful pedophiles are coming here over New Year’s Eve, and it’s not good.”
“Is Clara safe?” I ask, my heart stuttering.
He nods. “Yeah. She should be.”
I force out a breath. “Have you talked to Reed?”
He shakes his head.
“Are you going to?”
“The meeting is in ten minutes. Buddy up?”
I shrug on my coat and gloves, winter holding tight now that it’s December. As we walk toward the coffee shop Clara used to work at, RJ glances around, catching sight of our now lazy PI a few blocks back. “Do you think we still need the buddy system?” he asks.
I shrug. “Bryce has been quiet, but he’s still out there, sending us messages.”
He squeezes his eyes shut. “I haven’t checked the audio Jay’s gathered or the tracking data. There’s just so much to do right now. Once we deal with Trips’ dad…”
“Yeah. I’m with you, man.”
The coffee shop’s busy, everyone buckling down on last-minute assignments and upcoming finals.
It’s our last semester, and we’re hardly focusing on our schooling.
The past year has put everything into perspective, and for the first time, it only stung a little when my parents compared me with my brothers over the holiday.
What my brothers are doing is important.
But what we’re doing is so completely different that they can’t even be compared.
I won’t ever be like them, and there’s no reason to keep wishing my parents would be proud of what I have achieved. I’d never want them to know my highest highs as a forger. They’re better off thinking I’m a failure.
Reed joins us a few minutes after we claim a table, his cheeks red from the cold. “You have something?” he asks without preamble.
RJ pulls out his tablet, navigating to what looks like a normal website. But he’s taught me enough to recognize the dark web by the way he types in the address instead of looking it up. “Here,” he says, laying the tablet flat on the table.
It takes me a minute to figure out what he’s showing us, but as soon as I do, I curse under my breath.
“An auction,” Reed says. “They’re hosting an auction.”
“Not they,” RJ corrects. “Representative Trevor Westerhouse is hosting an auction of underage girls.”
The curses Reed voices are colorful and creative, reminding me, just for a moment, of Trips.
“He’s using Clara’s wedding as cover. They’re all his guests,” RJ adds.
He glances behind me, his eyes getting big, before he scrambles for the tablet. I blink back my dread, turning to see a woman I’ve only met once, but a face I still remember: Clara’s boss Carrie.
“Hello, sorry to bother you, but you’re a friend of Clara McElroy, aren’t you?”
I plaster on a smile, not liking the mask I’m donning. “Sure am. Carrie, right?”
She grins, seemingly glad I remember her name. “I won’t distract you for long, but I haven’t heard from Clara for a while. I thought she’d stop in after she quit, but she hasn’t been here in almost a year. Do you know if she’s okay?”
RJ shifts his weight beside me, but I keep up my facade. “She’s great. She’s just been abroad. When she gets back, I’ll tell her you asked after her.”
“Oh! How fun for her! I look forward to hearing about all her adventures,” she says, waving as she returns to the counter, a frazzled woman helping the current guest.
Reed raises his eyebrows. “Abroad?”
“True enough,” I say, probably giving away more than I should.
“You kids lie much too easily,” he says.
RJ gets the tablet back on. “Not as often as you’d think. So what should we do about the auction?”
Reed taps through the listing, getting more information. “I can’t crash a Westerhouse wedding. There’s no address, no time, just a handle and a date on this website. Unless we have somebody far enough undercover to get an invitation to the auction, this isn’t enough.”
I turn to RJ. “Where are we at with our invitation?”
“To an auction of underage girls?” Reed’s face is tight with rage.
“No, of course not. To the wedding.”
“You’re getting an invitation to your girlfriend’s wedding to another man?” Reed scoffs.
He doesn’t get it. So many people won’t. But I won’t explain it to him. Maybe someday he’ll be lucky enough to love a girl…and that girl will love a whole slew of other men. Poor officer Tom Reed wouldn’t handle it with an ounce of grace. A fitting punishment.
He might work with us right now, but we’ll never be on the same side.
RJ ignores him, the same as I do. “Honestly, I haven’t gotten to her request list.”
“Could I do it?”
He thinks for a minute. “Yeah. I think so. I’ll set you up when we get home.”
“Don’t forget we need to buy suits.”
Reed snaps to get our attention, and I want to break one of his fingers. “Will you keep monitoring?” he asks RJ.
“Of course. But will you do anything?”
Reed stares down at his cup. “If there were a reason for us to raid the place, maybe.”
“What would you need for you to raid it?” I ask, thinking through the pieces of our plan.
“Honestly, nothing short of a perfect case or shots fired would get us in there. Or an invitation to the auction.”
“Noted,” RJ says, that requirement added to his mental list of moving pieces we need to keep track of.
Reed glances between the two of us before holding out a hand to RJ. “Hand over what you’ve got. I’ll see what I can do.”
I spend the next week comparing lists of horrible men with their health records, the back doors into the medical record systems RJ set up over the years as creepy as they are necessary.
But one name keeps popping up: Bryce Mason.
This list is a death sentence, and I can’t decide if his name belongs next to convicted rapists who repeatedly break the terms of their parole, or the pedophiles who moved next to elementary schools but didn’t update their address with the registry.
So I put his name at the bottom of the list. Then, second guessing my choice, I write to Clara in the code we came up with, asking her thoughts. I can’t include it in a text, not with the weight the answer holds. It’s not my call to make.
That settled, I paint until the winter sun fades, dinner the farthest thing from my mind.
I’ll give her the note tomorrow. Then, I just have to wait for her response.
Three weeks.
Then either we’re free, or we’re fucked.
The shake in my lines is one I pretend is purposeful.