29. Mike
MIKE
Carla works at the stove, stirring sauce for chicken parmesan, the kitchen full of garlic, tomatoes, and hot oil. Ryan chops onions at the counter, too fast, like the knife owes him money.
"Slow down before you lose a finger," Carla says.
Ryan smiles without looking up. "I did this in prison, Ma."
For a minute, it feels like home. Not the clean version. The real one. Queens, sauce on the stove, Carla feeding us like that could fix anything, Ryan close enough to touch instead of behind glass.
I sit at the kitchen table and watch them fall back into being a family.
"So lay out the plan," Ryan says.
"You need people to see you somewhere else when it happens. A place full of witnesses. Cameras. Time stamps." He sets the fork down. "Like maybe a baseball game. You take selfies and shit," I say.
"I like it," Ryan says.
"You stay the whole game. That's a good three hours you're covered."
"Yeah."
"How soon do you want it done?" I ask.
"Mets start a three-game series against the Braves Thursday," Ryan says.
"That's soon after Frank. They're coming right to you, alibi or no alibi."
He's got his elbows on Carla's kitchen table, turning a fork over in his fingers like he's still deciding what to do with it.
"Not if she's never found," Carla says.
"That's true, Ma," Ryan says.
Carla refills his coffee without being asked.
"It'll look like she took a little vacation; nobody knows where she went. She's upset after her suspension and disappeared voluntarily. Maybe she went to Thailand or some shit. Who knows? No body, no murder."
"Alright, I'll have to go to her place and pack her clothes and shit to make it look like she left, figure out what to do with her body."
"Burn the body," Carla says. "It's the best way."
I keep my face still. I've kept my face still for five years around this man, and it's the only skill that's ever mattered.
I nod.
Carla touches my hand on the table, quick, like a blessing. "This is for all of us," she says. "You understand that."
"It's a plan," I say. "Let me know when you get the tickets."
We sit and eat while The Bold and the Beautiful plays in the living room, all beautiful people ruining each other in soft lighting.
Carla keeps telling Ryan to take more chicken, and Ryan keeps pretending he doesn't want it, but I barely taste anything.
I'm thinking about Janet somewhere out there in the dark, and how every minute I sit at this table is another minute she's in danger.
I head back to the city.
I call Janet.
This number is blocked. Please contact the recipient through another means.
I drive to a bodega on Northern. The guy behind the register barely looks up when I ask for a prepaid phone. He takes one off the rack, scans it, slides it across the counter in its plastic shell.
Back in the car, I tear it open with my keys and turn it on while the engine idles. The screen glows cheap blue in my hand.
I dial Janet's number.
Voicemail.
Her voice comes on, flat and professional, asking me to leave a message.
I don't.
I sit there holding the phone, listening to the empty line after the beep until it cuts me off.
The burner stays on the passenger seat the whole way into Manhattan. Every few blocks, I look at it like it might move. Like she might call a number she doesn't have. Like wanting something so badly can make physics bend.
By six, I'm outside her building.
Her apartment is dark.
I park across the street and wait.
People come home with takeout. A woman walks a dog in a yellow raincoat. A delivery guy leans on his bike and smokes under the awning. Lights go on in the building one by one, little squares of other people's lives.
At nine, I get out and walk. Her windows are still black.
At three in the morning, I head home.
I lie in bed with the lights off.
She's still here, somehow.
Not in the room. Not in the bed. But in the sheets, in the pillow, in the place beside me that won't stop looking like it belongs to her. Her perfume is almost gone, which makes it worse. I keep turning my head, trying to catch what's left of it.
She's here like a ghost.
And if Ryan finds her before I do, that's all she'll ever be.
That gets me out of bed.
By five pm, I'm outside Janet's office in a baseball cap, standing half a block down with my hands in my pockets, trying to look like nobody. People come out in waves. Lawyers. Assistants. Men in suits with their ties pulled loose. Women walking fast, phones in hand, faces already somewhere else.
Rosemary comes through the doors.
I follow her to the subway.
Not close enough for her to feel me. Not far enough to lose her.
She gets off in Harlem and walks to her building with her keys already out. I wait until she's inside, catch the door before it shuts.
The lobby is quiet.
At the elevator, she turns.
She recognizes me.
Her eyes go wide, and I see the scream before it leaves her mouth.
I close the distance before it comes out, one hand catching her arm, the other raised open where she can see it.
"Don't scream. Please. I'm not going to hurt you."
She goes rigid against me.
"We're taking the stairs," I say.
"What floor?"
"Four."
I follow her.
"Don't hurt me. Please."
"I won't."
"Please," she's shaking the whole way up.
"Let's go."
"What do you want with me? I did nothing."
We get to her door. I knock and wait, listening past it for another voice, for footsteps, for anything. Nothing.
We go in her apartment.
I lock the door.
"Sit down."
She sits on the couch.
"What do you want from me?"
"I need you to listen."
"Janet's in trouble," I say.
"You're Ryan Keller's brother." She says it like it's an answer to something, and I guess it is. Her whole body is shaking. "Frank Liu is dead, and you're standing in my living room telling me not to be afraid."
"I need to find her."
"I don't know where she is."
"Call her." I take her phone from her purse.
"No."
"She's not safe."
"Because of you."
I step towards her and she flinches. I hold the phone up to her face. The screen unlocks.
"You asshole."
I find Janet's contact. My thumb's already shaking by the time I hit the call.
It rings once. Twice. Rosemary is sitting, her arms crossed over her chest like she's trying to hold herself together from the outside, watching me the way you'd watch a man holding a gun he swears isn't loaded.
"Hi, Rosemary."
"Janet. It's Mike."
Nothing.
Not a breath. Not a word. The sound of a line that's still open and a silence that goes on so long I have to check the screen to make sure she’s still there.