Chapter 5 Watching #2
"Occupational hazard. Though you're one to talk, pattern hunter." He leaned back, studying me. "What kind of patterns have you been finding lately? Still connecting dots?"
I thought about last night's work. Two more Institute girls located through careful digital tracking. Both sold to international buyers, probably overseas by now. The Transport company's routes mapped and documented. Three more names added to my list of people who deserved basement time.
"Always," I said. "Though lately the patterns keep pointing to Prague. Weird, right? Everything leads to Prague eventually."
His expression sharpened. "Prague's interesting this time of year. Lots of medical tourism. People go there for procedures they can't get elsewhere."
"So I've heard." I met his eyes directly. "There's a doctor there who specializes in... behavioral modification. Very exclusive clientele."
"Dangerous clientele, from what I understand." He set down his glass carefully. "The kind of people you don't want to get tangled up with. Even if you're looking for someone specific."
The way he said it made me wonder how much he actually knew. About the Institute, about the network, about what I did in basements when I wasn't serving drinks. Nathan Cross was too informed to be just looking for one missing girl.
"Good thing I'm just a bartender," I said brightly. "My biggest danger is paper cuts from inventory lists."
"Right." He smiled, the real one that actually reached his eyes and made my stomach do complicated things. "Just a bartender who works Thursday through Saturday, always has bruised knuckles despite claiming to avoid danger, and occasionally smells like bleach and copper."
"I'm very clumsy," I protested. "And Matt makes me clean the taps. They get gross if you don't bleach them properly."
"Of course." He stood to leave, earlier than usual. "By the way, there was another body found this morning. Some businessman with connections to human trafficking. Tortured before he died, just like Marsh. Police think there's a serial killer targeting the network."
"How terrible," I murmured.
"Terrible," he agreed. "Though some might say appropriate. Some might even say overdue." He left his usual cash plus a significant tip. "Some might say be careful, because that network has resources and reach, and they'll notice eventually if their members keep turning up creatively dead."
After he left, I spent my break in the bathroom, staring at my reflection and trying to reconcile all the fractured pieces.
Bunny the bartender. The girl who hunted predators.
Lilah Winters who existed only in missing person reports.
Batch 47 who belonged to Gabriel, created by Gabriel, existed only in relation to—
"Stop," I told my reflection. Gabriel wasn't here. Might be dead. Might have abandoned his dolls to scatter in the wind while he disappeared into a new life somewhere. And I was here, playing word games with a detective who made my pulse race in ways that had nothing to do with fear.
The night shift passed in a blur of customers and calculations. Nathan didn't return—he never did nights—but I felt his absence like a missing tooth. Kept glancing at his empty seat, expecting green eyes and careful questions.
"You've got it bad," Matt observed during close. "Never seen you this distracted."
"I'm not distracted." I miscounted the till twice, proving myself a liar. "Just thinking about Prague. Maybe I should take a vacation."
"To Prague. Right." He helped me recount. "This wouldn't have anything to do with your afternoon activities, would it?"
"You mean Nathan. Or the pest control?"
"I mean the guy who's got you twisted up like a pretzel without even trying." He locked the register, giving me a serious look. "Men like that are dangerous, Bunny. They make you sloppy. Make you want things you can't afford to want."
He was right. I knew he was right. But knowing and doing something about it were different things, and when 3:10 rolled around the next day, I was still watching the door.
3:17 came and went. No Nathan.
3:30. 4:00. 4:30.
"Maybe he found what he was looking for," I told myself, serving other customers with mechanical precision. "Maybe Lilah isn't that interesting after all."
But at 5:23, the door chimed.
He looked wrong. Disheveled in ways that his usual control wouldn't allow. His jacket was missing, shirt untucked, and there was a smear of blood on his collar that made my professional interest perk up.
"Sorry I'm late," he said, taking his usual seat. "Got held up at work."
I poured his scotch without asking, noting the scrapes on his knuckles that matched mine. "Rough consultation?"
"Something like that." He downed half the glass in one swallow, very unlike him. "Turns out some patterns are more dangerous than others. Some networks don't appreciate scrutiny."
My blood chilled. "Nathan—"
"Did you know," he interrupted, staring at his glass, "that the Institute kept detailed records? Not just of their... products. But of their buyers. Their network. Their methods. All very carefully documented and hidden."
I couldn't breathe. "How do you—"
"Because someone's been hunting those records. Following the same patterns I have. Asking the same questions." He looked up, and his eyes were darker than I'd ever seen them. "Someone with a very personal interest in finding out what happened to Gabriel Mire."
The trafficking phone buzzed in my pocket. Nathan's eyes tracked the movement.
"That's not your regular phone," he observed.
"No."
"The kind of phone someone might use for... specific communications."
"Yes."
We stared at each other across the bar, all pretense finally stripped away. He knew what I was. I knew what he knew. The dance was over, and I wasn't sure what came next.
"So," I said finally, refilling his glass. "What now?"
"Now?" He laughed, short and sharp. "Now I decide if I'm going to tell Lilah's parents that their daughter is dead, or if I'm going to help Bunny the bartender find out what really happened to the man who killed her."
The words hung between us like a challenge. Like an offer. Like a recognition of something neither of us quite understood yet.
"He's not dead," I said quietly. "Gabriel. I'd know if he was dead. I'd feel it."
"Maybe." Nathan's hand covered mine on the bar, warm and solid and real. "Or maybe you just need him to be alive because you don't know who you are without someone to look for."
The truth of it cut deeper than any basement blade. But I didn't pull my hand away.
"Same time tomorrow?" I asked.
"Wouldn't miss it," he said. "After all, patterns are important. Even dangerous ones."
Especially dangerous ones, I thought, watching him leave. Because Nathan Cross was becoming a pattern in my carefully constructed life, and patterns, as he'd warned, had a way of unraveling everything they touched.
But I was already too tangled to stop.