21. Avery
AVERY
PLAYLIST: FLOWER – MOBY
“Itold you so,” I say as we both stare at the empty holding cell. The cell where Hedda was supposed to be.
“I had fifteen agents watch her!” shouts Shaw. “Fifteen!”
“Yeah, but Hedda is better. She probably walked out the front door,” I say, and while there is murderous rage in my voice, I am also soaking in the victory of being right.
“That bitch!” Shaw says.
“Get me now?” I ask because that line is usually mine.
“How did she even do it?” she asks.
“She caused an outage with two circuits,” I say, pointing from the pin pad to the camera. “The rest was a 45-second job.”
She looks at me, at the ripped cables, back to me.
“You would’ve done it the very same way.”
“Absolutely,” I say, smirking.
Shaw sighs.
“Okay, you were right,” she says. “Next time we’re doing it your way.”
“I don’t think we’ll find her anytime soon,” I say. “Unless with the right bait…”
“Don’t make me break more rules,” she says.
“Technically,” I begin, for the sole reason of teasing her.
“Don’t start with technically,” she snaps at me and walks away from the holding cell.
“Let us have lunch,” I say as I follow her.
“No,” she says.
“I brought lunch with me,” I say.
“You did?” she asks incredulously.
“I did. Not homemade, of course, but I know you like your routine here.”
“Huh,” she says. “You really meant that with the you can’t be selfish around me, didn’t you?”
“Apparently,” I say, lifting my nose and walking away.
She sniggers and follows me.
She sits behind her desk, and I sit at the small meeting table. We don’t talk much. There are so many things she doesn’t know, and now that I can’t lie to her anymore, it feels like every topic that touches my life is a problem.
“How did you find out about Asher Tolliver?” she suddenly asks me, and because I am caught off guard, I take a full bite of my salad before I answer.
“You are aware you won’t like what you are hearing?” I ask.
“I am.”
“Are you? Because I don’t want to hear a single complaint afterward for being honest.”
“You won’t.”
“Rossi snooped through your apartment, your parents’ house, and therefore your sister’s bedroom.”
She breathes in so deeply while biting her lips that it is safe to say it takes all her willpower to keep up with the promised no-consequences.
“So I was right,” she says. “You were in my apartment.”
“No,” I say. “Rossi was.”
“Well,” she says, “Let’s hope I’ll never meet him, because I might forget my oath.”
I laugh.
“You already met him, four times actually, no—five by now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No,” I say. “Rossi is just that good.”
“One day,” she says threateningly.
“One day, you will love him just like I do,” I say as I finish my salad. “Come to my place tonight.”
“To meet him?”
“No, silly,” I say. “Just come, you’ll see.”
With that, I throw the paper box and the fork into the trash can and get up.
“Where are you going?”
“We have a thief to find, haven’t we? We won’t find her by sitting in this office.”
With that, I am gone.
I don’t walk home. I walk to Madison Square Park and sit on my bench.
Then, I wait.
A dog jumps at me, and I give it a cuddle.
“Hi, cutie,” I say and ruffle through his longer fur.
“I see they reinstalled the collar,” says a known voice, and when I look up, I see Rossi. Dressed up as the Greenwich Village eccentric he is in his heart, except for the very blonde hair on his head.
“Nice hair,” I say and laugh. “Where did you get the dog?”
Rossi points at something, and I see Omar dancing with himself on the grass some yards away from us.
I sigh.
“He has a dog now,” I say, as a statement, not a question.
“He wants to go steady, babe,” says Rossi as he sits on his bench next to mine. “He likes you.”
“Omar despises me,” I say.
“Not Omar, silly, Peter,” he says and points at the dog.
“Omar has a dog whose name is Peter? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“What would be a better name? Do you want to scream Habibi or Fighter Jet through Manhattan?”
I laugh.
“So your little stunt went unpunished?” he asks.
“Apparently,” I say, and we both watch Omar dancing. Omar is a ballet dancer with a love for performance.
“Come on, babe, give me something,” he says.
“She wants to meet you,” I say and lean back against the backrest of the bench. “I said no.”
“You better,” he says, and I watch him from behind. He looks so different with the hair; I would have never recognized him if not for the voice. “I’m not ready to meet the girl I have to share you with.”
“You have Omar,” I say.
“So you won’t murder him?”
“Did he do anything?”
“No, no,” he says.
We don’t speak for a moment, and I caress Peter absently.
“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be this careless?” he asks me, and points at Omar. People watch him, and he enjoys every moment of it, of dancing expressive ballet in a park, and now even rolls over the ground like a theatrical dying swan.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Never gave it a thought, really. After all those years of running and hiding, why would I?”
“You could be free,” he says.
“I am free.”
“You have a five-mile leash around your neck,” he says drily.
“But what if everything I need is within those five miles?” I ask him.
He smiles.
“She changed you,” he says. “For the better.”
“Meh,” I say.
“Can we trust her?” he asks.
“Yes, we can,” says a voice next to Rossi and rips us both from our thoughts, and I shoot forward. Shaw sits down next to him.
“Hello, Rossi,” she says and leans back.
He looks at me.
“You followed me here!” I shout at her and lean back again so I can look at her.
“I don’t need to follow you, because I can see where you are,” she says casually.
“You violate my privacy,” I say.
“Technically, you’re still on work hours,” she says.
“Who’s starting with the technically now?” I ask her, angrily. “And where are those set in my deal? Nowhere. Stop adapting my ‘technically’, that's my word.”
“Oh, so you have a right to words now?”
“Oooookay,” says Rossi and tries to remove himself by standing up. “Whoever you people are, I will be—
“Sit down,” she orders Rossi.
“Or what?” he asks. “Are you a cop or what?”
“Actually, I am,” Shaw says. “A damn good one, Mister Ronald S. Schmiel.”
I have to keep myself from laughing out loud. Because Rossi’s look is fabulous.
He sits back down without a word.
I tap him on his shoulder and say, “Told you she’s taking your last nerve.”
But I also shoot a look at her.
I don’t like her invading my space like this; there are some boundaries. She is everywhere these days, and I feel like my entire life is uprooted by the same human being who is around me at all times.
“Why this bench?” she asks
“No cameras, thirteen getaway routes, and a view from every angle,” says Rossi.
“Ah,” she says, and trails off for a moment. “So, do you have any news on where Hedda could be?” she asks.
“Why is she talking to me?” asks Rossi me. “I didn’t agree to having to talk to anyone other than you.”
I don’t answer. I am angry with her for violating my privacy.
“Well, that was fun,” she says and gets up. She taps Rossi on the shoulder without looking at him; instead, her eyes wander over the park.
“See it as a little peace offering,” she says, and holds a paper bag out for him to take. With that, she is gone.
We both lurk inside the bag, only to find a bottle of wine in it. The same Rosé that I have in my fridge for him.
Rossi and I look at each other, and both start laughing.
“She’s alright,” he says. “I believe.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“But did you find anything on Hedda?”
“No, but I checked L.A. for you, the address she gave you.”
“And?”
“There was a seal on it. I went inside anyway and found no trace of anything.”
“Neighbors?”
“Haven’t seen anyone living there for years,” he says.
“So we’re nowhere.”
“I also went to the tree and exhumed the grave,” he says carefully. He knows it’s a touchy subject, which is why he probably didn’t tell me.
Goosebumps spread over my arm out of nowhere, except that I already know what he is about to say.
“It was empty.”
It takes me a second to understand what the information does to me. All those years, all this time, I tried to live up to a promise she broke first.
“Thank you,” I say and get up. “Tell Omar he won’t die immediately.”
With that, I walk to my studio.
When I am inside, I get to my art studio and open the safe with a swipe of the chip.
I take out Cleopatra’s bracelet and the folded napkin I have stored in there all those years.
I put the bracelet in my pocket, throw the napkin in my kitchen sink, and search for a lighter.
I stare at the three letters on it.
The three letters Emily wrote on it when we were in Paris together. She was the only person I ever trusted with my heart, and she faked it all.
I should be mad, angry, feel something. But I don’t. I feel so detached from it.
So I hold the lighter to the napkin, and it burns with an orange flame until nothing but black dust remains.
I open the tap and flush it down the drain.
I stare at the empty sink for one moment.
It is done.
It is finally done.
I glance around in the studio.
Somehow, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.
It feels like the last piece of a dissolving artifact.
I take out my phone.
“Where are you right now?” I ask Shaw.
“In my car outside your door.”
“I’ll be right there,” I say, and hang up.
I walk out the door, take one glance back, and then close the door to the studio.
It is time for the future.