Chapter 23
twenty-three
RODRIGO
After a tense drive in Alana’s expensive rental car, we’re back in the upscale hotel room Billie and Alana have been staying at.
A chandelier hangs from the ceiling. Mints wrapped in tinfoil have been left on the pillows.
But none of that matters, now, because Alana is racing around the room and throwing everything she can find in her suitcase.
“I figure we have ten minutes, maybe fifteen tops, before Marco’s men show up,” Alana says cheerfully, shoving her designer shoes in a special compartment of her carry-on.
“We’ll have to be out of here by then so they don’t shoot us all.
” Alana’s tone is chipper— almost like she’s happy to have a new adventure on her plate.
“I killed someone,” Billie says, lacking even an ounce of Alan’s enthusiasm. She’s sitting on the end of the plush bed with her head in her hands, looking like she might throw up. She’s making no effort to pack. “I mean— I killed someone. A person. Who was alive, and is not now. Because of me.”
“Billie.” I say her name carefully. “You were trying to save my life— it wasn’t your fault.”
“Technically,” Alana says, from across the room, not looking up from the bathroom counter where she’s sweeping toiletries into her bag like they’re items on a supermarket conveyor belt, “you defended yourself. Big difference, legally speaking!”
“He’s dead because of me,” Billie whispers, and I can see the genuine remorse in her eyes. I wish I could take it away. I sit down next to her on the bed and put my arm around her shoulders.
“You didn’t do it on purpose,” I say. “The Twin Ledger is a dangerous organization. Mateo was a bad man who caused thousands of people pain.”
“Oh my gosh!” Alana shouts from across the room, holding up her cell phone.
“Look, Billie, they’ve already taken out a hit on you and even given you a nickname!
They’re calling you The Negotiator. It takes most people years to earn an alias.
Congratulations!” Alana drops two wrapped soaps into the side pocket of her duffel.
Then considers the shower cap. Takes it.
Beside me, Billie groans. She turns to look at me.
Her eyes— and I have to be careful here, because I’ve thought about her eyes constantly since we reunited at the compound— are enormous and brown and full of distress.
The kind that comes not from fear, but from someone trying to locate the part of the situation that can still be made right.
“We should call the police,” she says.
Silence.
Even Alana stops moving.
Then Alana turns around, one hand on her hip, the other still holding a miniature bottle of mouthwash she has absolutely no intention of putting back.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says, with the warm, pitying smile she’d use if she were explaining Santa Clause to a five-year-old, “no. I mean, can we get over the guilt-fest? Like, Mateo was going to kill both of you the second we walked out of there.”
“We should call the police! It’s what you do,” Billie insists again. “When something happens. You call?—”
“The Twin Ledger has three people inside the national police force, two inside Interpol, and at least one judge they keep on retainer for situations exactly like this one.” Alana uncaps the mouthwash, sniffs it, recaps it— keeps it.
“Calling the police would be like calling Marco directly. Except Marco would at least have the decency to pick up.”
I watch Billie absorb this. She does it quietly, which I appreciate. There’s no theatrics; just a grounded acceptance as she recalibrates her world.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Okay.” And then, after a moment: “I’m still going to need to process this later.”
“Absolutely,” I tell her. “Later is good. Later is bueno.”
She looks at me, and suddenly I’m aware that we’re sitting very close to each other— on a bed.
Thoughts of what I’d like to do start to take over my mind, and I’m considering doing them when— a slam from inside the bathroom.
Alana emerges with a hotel towel in hand, which she shoves into her suitcase.
“Can you believe these are one hundred percent Egyptian cotton?”
I wait for Alana to disappear back into the bathroom before I lean into Billie. She’s been looking at me this entire time, as if I might have answers. “I have a plan,” I whisper to her, not wanting Alana to hear. “I’ll get us out of this, Billie. Don’t worry.”
Something shifts in her face. Not quite a smile, but the precursor to one— the tectonic movement before the surface breaks. I find I want very badly to be the person who gets to see what’s on the other side of it.
There’s a loose strand of hair across her cheek. It’s been there since we arrived at the hotel room, and some part of my attention has been snagged on it the entire time— a thread caught on a splinter. Without quite deciding to, I reach out and tuck the stray hair behind her ear.
She goes very still.
I do too.
Just then, Alana enters again, and I instinctively move away from Billie.
I want to ask Billie— and the list feels embarrassing in its length— where she grew up, what she does on Sunday mornings, whether she prefers the coast or the mountains, what she was like at twenty-two, what she thinks about when she’s trying to fall asleep.
I want to take her somewhere that isn’t this.
Somewhere with a tablecloth and a good wine list and enough hours in the evening that we could actually get through the list. I want to ask her questions until I understand exactly who she is.
I don’t.
Because Alana is six feet away, and we are currently fugitives, and the timing is— even by my flexible standards— not ideal.
But Billie’s big, honest eyes look up at me and they are not closed. They are not guarded. There is something in them that says yes, I know, I feel it too, and I tuck that away somewhere careful inside my chest, where it can wait.
“We’ll figure it out,” I tell her.
“Right,” she says quietly. “Figure it out.”
“You two are talking to each other without me,” Alana says, from the bathroom doorway.
We both turn.
Alana is leaning against the frame, arms folded, watching us with an expression that is both amusement and something more complicated.
She’s managed to acquire what appears to be a full-size shampoo bottle from somewhere in the last three minutes, and it is tucked under her arm like a clutch at a gala.
“I’m not jealous,” she says, preemptively, which means she is at least partially jealous.
“I’m making an observation.” She pushes off the doorframe and crosses to the bed, where her bag sits half-zipped.
“Also I think it’s rude of you to leave me out of strategy discussions when we are actively being hunted by an international crime organization, but that’s just me. ”
Then she stops.
She’s still looking at her bag, but I can see it— the change in her. The way she goes quiet has nothing to do with sadness and everything to do with calculation. I’ve seen this before. It’s the face she makes when she’s working something out. It is not a face that leads anywhere comfortable.
“Wait a second,” She holds up a hand without turning around.
We wait.
“Marco is going to come for you,” she says slowly, still not turning but pointing at me. “Rodrigo, obviously, and you, Billie. My original plan was to ditch you both at the train station. I figured I’d just abandon you and disappear for a while, maybe to Ibiza?—”
“Thanks,” Billie says, her tone acrid.
“— but it actually makes more sense for us to stick together.” She turns the ring on her finger. It’s the one she stole from Mateo’s corpse; the one she pulled from his cold, dead finger.
“I think you should go to Ibiza,” I counter, trying not to shout at her and playing it cool instead. “Leave Billie and me to our own devices.”
“Aww,” Alana makes a kissy face at me, finally turning around. “Aren’t you sweet, always wanting to make sure I’m safe! Nooo… I think we should stick together.”
“Why’s that?” Billie asks.
Alana smiles at her. “Marco doesn’t send people for things that are personal.
And you two—” She turns now. “—have made it like, very, very personal. Marco will want to kill you himself. If I know Marco will come to you, I know where Marco will be.” She points at both of us.
“Which means I know where the other ring will be.”
The room settles.
Billie looks at me.
“The second ring,” Alana says as if to clarify, because we are stupid and don’t seem excited enough.
“Duh! Together they open The Twin Ledger’s vault!
Marco will have it on him. He always does— he and Mateo both wear them.
It’s the whole point and I’ve already got Mateo’s.
” When Billie just stares at her, speechless, Alana turns to me.
“You know what’s in those vaults, Rodrigo.
Benny must have told you. You know what we could?—”
“No,” I say.
“If we?—”
“No, Alana.”
Something in her expression shifts into the pleasant, reasonable mask that means she is about to be completely unreasonable.
“You and your little— your Bambi here—“ She waves a hand at Billie, who makes a small, indignant face that I find extremely charming— “my friend, who you seem to be stealing— have managed to dismantle years of careful career-building I’ve done in a single evening. My access is burned. My cover is blown. My relationship with the Ledger is— like,” She pauses.
“Complicated, now that Mateo is dead, and the person who killed him is standing in my hotel room.”
“Billie,” I say carefully, “defended herself.”
“Yes! Absolutely! Still dead, though.” Alana holds up both hands.
“All I’m saying is that the least you two could do— the bare minimum— is help me get both rings so I can be set for life.
” She looks at me levelly. “You weren’t going to give me a wedding ring, Rodrigo.
You couldn’t even do that. The absolute least you can do is help me get this one. ”
I stare at her.
She stares back.