Chapter 1 #3
As I left Tanoshimu I noticed that the security team had rotated. Lucas was gone, replaced by one of the other security guys I didn’t know nearly as well. I nodded to him anyway, and ignored the stares from the line of people who were yet to be let into the club.
Even though it was late, I didn’t want to go home yet. I’d been avoiding the apartment and all its ghosts and responsibilities. Luckily the rain had eased off a little, so I made the decision to walk off the tension from my meeting with Wilson.
I headed south, through the liveliness of the West Village and into the streets of Tribeca, which were much quieter than they were during the day.
The streetlights were unbroken by shadows, faceless mannequins stared blankly out of shop windows, heat rising up from the subway grates.
Despite New York’s reputation, I felt safer here than anywhere else in the world.
It helped that I was armed.
I’d been walking for a while, lost in my own thoughts, before I noticed the figure following me.
My anger flared again.
Wilson had sent one of his people to see where I’d go next, I was sure of it. This was exactly the kind of trick he liked to pull – keeping both allies and enemies on their toes, never really sure what he was going to do next.
I crossed the street, then jogged over the next intersection and took a quick series of left-right turns to try to lose the stalker.
My feet knew where they were taking me, and even as I tried to think up another plan, a better plan, I turned a corner and found myself across the street from Federal Hall.
My heart slammed in my chest, and I cursed myself up and down for being stupid enough to come here. And yet, it was the one place anyone who knew me would least expect me to go, making it a good place to hide.
Eight weeks, three days and about nine hours ago, my mom had died on the steps of New York’s famous Federal Hall National Memorial on Wall Street, bleeding out from a gunshot wound to the stomach.
The police report was closed quickly, concluding that Corinne Walker was an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time.
An unlucky New Yorker caught in the crosshairs of a gang fight.
Except that hadn’t made sense to me, even in the fog of confusion I experienced after learning my only parent was dead.
Gang fights didn’t generally happen on the steps of a national monument, in broad daylight, on a weekday afternoon.
It didn’t matter how much I argued with the NYPD – they didn’t want to dig any deeper into my mom’s death.
I’d purposefully avoided this area the past couple of months, not wanting to have a public breakdown. The cover of darkness was a blessing now, but even then I couldn’t bring myself to cross the street and stand on the patch of sidewalk where paramedics had fought to save her life.
I hung back in the shadows of the building opposite the memorial museum, pressing my hand to my stomach to try to keep the devasted, sick feeling inside. With a huge effort, I calmed my breathing, looking around to see if the person had managed to follow me.
For now I was alone.
Even two months on, I still had no real answer as to why my mom was outside Federal Hall.
The building was grand, with steps leading up to the white, Grecian columns and pointed roof – the site where George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States.
My mom had a keen interest in history – she was an antiques expert, after all – but it made no sense to me that she would have come here that day.
I walked up Wall Street, toward the only thing that did make sense, and stopped in front of the bank that my family had used for generations.
Like others in this area, it was an impressive, opulent and imposing building, and I’d entered enough times to know it felt like that inside, too.
This bank was one of several we used across the city, splitting up money across different accounts for different arms of the business.
It held the business accounts that my great-grandfather had set up a hundred years ago and had passed down through the family ever since.
I had to assume my mom had been here on the day she died, since she was in the neighborhood. If she had, she could have been making a deposit or taking out cash that she could then have been mugged for. I had no proof of any of that, though, and the not-knowing was eating me up inside.
Logically I knew I would never see my mom again and that I was on my own now, but I’d had a really hard time actually wrapping my head around that fact. Standing here now, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
My breath got heavier at the thought, my chest heaving with an impending panic attack.
I had to get out of here, but I couldn’t make my feet move.
My stomach rolled dangerously, but I already knew I wasn’t going to throw up – all I had eaten today was a mostly stale sandwich, and the sickness was entirely emotional.
I glanced down the street, urging myself to move, and saw a figure standing just behind a streetlight, cast in shadow. When he tilted his head to the side, I realized in a rush that it was Lucas. So Wilson had sent one of his guys to follow me.
I couldn’t help but feel like something had changed since my mom had died – I couldn’t rely on inheriting old allegiances or arrangements.
Wilson wasn’t the type to come straight out and say what he wanted either.
He would subtly negotiate himself into a new position based on my flaws and weaknesses, ensuring that he was the one to come out on top.
Sending Lucas after me, to see where I went with the earrings, felt like the sort of thing Wilson would do to make sure I stayed emotionally unbalanced and easier to manipulate.
I stumbled away from the steps of the bank, loathing Wilson deep in my gut.
When I got to the end of the street I paused under a streetlight, waiting to see if Lucas was still following me.
It was hard to tell. I pushed up my jacket high enough to get the gun out of its holster, and shoved it into the pocket of my jeans instead, my finger curled protectively round the trigger.
Then I straightened my spine, rolled back my shoulders and walked home.
The sickness in my belly was gone, replaced with a hot, feral rage.
How dare Wilson send Lucas after me, like I was some low-class street thief who needed to be monitored?
He might work with a whole network of scumbags, but I wasn’t one of them.
I almost didn’t care if Lucas chased me down. Let him try.
I was in the mood to shoot someone.