6. Ezekiel
6
Ezekiel
B luebird Smith. I believe the Bluebird part. It’s too odd a name to make up. But the last name is a lie.
I push the needle past the resistance of skin and hear her intake of breath. It hurts, I know. I couldn’t lessen the pain if I wanted to and I’m not sure I want to.
“I need a break,” she says.
I look at her. She’s pale. I’d be surprised if she didn’t need a break, actually.
“I’m going to be sick,” she adds.
“Breathe.” I wait, watch her as she does as she’s told. I’m surprised by her naiveté. Her trust, almost. In me. It tells me a few things. She’s not the experienced criminal I expected my blackmailer to be. And she’s in way over her head.
“Better?” I ask and she nods. “Good. Now answer my question.”
“I… Not much,” she says. I wait. Tug a little at the stitch making her wince. It’s mean but she has only herself to blame for her predicament and I don’t just mean the cut. “I know your brother, Jericho, has seen video footage of you coming and then leaving a hotel in Austria on the night of the accident.” I still don’t continue because how the hell does she know that? “He had been in touch with the manager about it. And your name isn’t anywhere on the hotel guest list on any night in that whole week. That’s all. That’s all I know.”
“That’s all? So, you decided to blackmail me for being in a hotel in Austria?”
“You took the bait, didn’t you? What does that say?”
No way that’s all. I shift my gaze back to her hand to close off that stitch, tugging at the skin a little as I make the knot. She winces.
“Keep talking,” I tell her.
She reaches for the whiskey, but I push it away. “You’ve had enough.”
“Why do you care?”
“I don’t. I just don’t want you passing out before I get my answers. Ready?”
She swallows, nods.
I look at her again after pushing the needle in for stitch number four. “Keep talking, Blue.”
“I know your brother paid the hotel manager a chunk of cash to get rid of the footage, but he didn’t.”
Jericho had paid him to have those files erased. That much I know. “And he got hold of you and wanted to know if you wanted to buy a video of me coming and going from a hotel? Sounds logical,” I say.
“He suspected you of tampering with the car. He said as much. You threw away a duffel bag he picked up.”
Ah.
She pauses because I must give something away. It was stupid on my part to throw that duffel away at the hotel.
“Why else would you have been there at that hotel in disguise?” she asks, eyes intent on me, a note of confidence to her tone.
“I’d hardly say I was disguised.”
“You didn’t even use your name.”
“Maybe I was meeting a lover.”
Her cheeks flush pink momentarily. It’s not a reaction I expect from a woman blackmailing me for a-hundred-grand. I make a mental note and bend my head to continue to the next suture.
“You lied,” she says.
I glance up at her, raising my eyebrows.
“The stitches. You’ve done this before.”
“I thought I wanted to be a surgeon once upon a time. Even went to medical school for a year before my father decided I needed to work for the family business. But we’re not talking about me. Tell me what else you have that led you to believe I would deposit a-hundred-thousand-dollars into a random, anonymous account?”
“You didn’t fly to Austria, not commercially, anyway. Everything was a secret,” she says.
“How do you know that?”
She scratches the tip of her nose, shrugs the shoulder of her free arm. “It’s not that hard to get into people’s computers if you know what you’re doing.”
“And you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m learning. Did little things like hacking into my high-school’s system to change a grade or two for a few friends.”
“A convict from the start.” The whiskey is working, loosening her tongue, relaxing her. To be fair, it’s not only whiskey.
“It was just for fun. I was bored mostly.”
“Okay so you found out about my visit to Austria from a man who wanted to make a buck selling information, saw that video footage from the hotel and decided I had something to do with my father’s accident? That’s a stretch, isn’t it?”
“The bag, remember. I saw the contents of the duffel.” She scratches her nose again and this time, I take notice of the casual act.
“Did you?” That could be a problem. “And where is the bag now?”
“I can’t tell you that, can I? Not until I have that money and my sister, and I are out of New Orleans.”
“Your sister who is in a facility that deals with brain injuries.”
She nods, her forehead wrinkling with worry.
“Why do you want to get out of New Orleans so badly?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I’d say anything I want to know is my business, considering the situation we find ourselves in.” I get the feeling the alcohol, the little drug I slipped into her cup and me taking care of her wounded hand rather than wrapping mine around her pretty little neck have given her a warm, fuzzy feeling. A false sense of security. She’s got the idea she’s gained the upper hand and she’s getting cocky, the little extortionist.
“Your brother paid a lot of money to the hotel manager to lose that video, but he should have taken better care to make sure it was deleted properly. It wasn’t. That shitty guy is a mid-level manager of a shitty hotel. He’s greedy and dishonest.”
“Sounds like someone I’m getting to know.”
“I’m neither of those things. There’s a big difference between me and him. And there’s more if you’d care to hear it.”
“I’m all ears.”
“That hotel manager recorded the conversation between your brother and himself.”
“Did he?” I will kill the bastard myself if this is true. “Here’s what I don’t understand. How would this shitty mid-level manager, to use your words, think to reach out to you with all this? Why not try to blackmail me himself?”
She shrugs a shoulder, her eyelids drooping. “Maybe he didn’t have the stomach for it.”
“But you do?”
“Are you almost done?”
“How do you know him anyway?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“I don’t feel very good.” She says and I see how she sways a little before catching herself.
“No?”
“If something happens to me, the police will know.”
“Is that so? What about your sister disappearing? What will that do?”
She opens her mouth, closes it. That furrow is back between her eyebrows.
“I think you’re lying about that part at the very least, Little Convict. And I think you forget who you’re dealing with.” I pause. “Tell me. Who are you running from? Because you’re running from someone.”
She opens her mouth, surprised at my question. My guess. Her expression changes. The na?ve girl of earlier is back. She rocks in her seat, her free arm hanging at her side, her head drooping. She’s smaller than I realized, and my dosage is most likely off.
“Almost done. Don’t pass out just yet,” I say, leaning her back against the chair and bending my head to finish stitching her up while I think.
I left loose ends, and I’ll need to tie those up. Blue or Bluebird or whatever her name is, she’s not greedy or dishonest, at least I don’t think so. She’s on the run from someone she finds scarier than me. And she’s worried about her sister. I may not have all the information yet, but there is one thing I know for sure and that is she’s not walking out of here tonight. I put in three more stitches and by the time I’m done, I see how her shoulders have slumped. Her head bobs and her eyes have lost their focus.
“There,” I say.
She looks down at her neatly stitched hand then shifts her gaze to me, her movements slow. She looks at the bottle of whiskey, then picks up the glass and peers at the remnants. She scrunches up her forehead. She’s sort of cute with her chopped hair, the top layer of which is blue, the natural shade dark. It’s a dye and cut done at home from the looks of it. But still, she’s pretty enough it doesn’t matter. Even with that scar on her face.
“Is that just whiskey?” she asks.
I smile. “Not used to it?” I take off the gloves.
She shakes her head, slow motion. “It’s not that.” She looks up at me, again cocking her head. “Is it?”
“Is it what?”
“Just…” Before she finishes, she slides sideways off the seat. I’m on my feet in an instant to scoop her up, careful to catch her injured hand and set it on her stomach.
“No, you little convict. It’s not just whiskey. Don’t you know the first rule when dealing with men like me? When threatening men like me?”
“What did you do?” She struggles, trying to get out of my arms as I carry her out of the kitchen, back down the hall and up the stairs to the bedroom I prepared for her.
“Don’t drink anything your enemy offers you unless you’ve seen him drink it first.”
“What did you… give me?” she croaks.
I draw the blanket back and lay her down. She struggles to keep her eyes from closing but she won’t win. I sit on the edge of the bed, brush her hair back from her face as she tries to fight off sleep.
“What…”
“Just a little something to help you sleep while I find out exactly who the fuck you are.”