“Yes. We’re all good here.”
“Okay, then. Go to bed, it’s late.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“I love you.”
“Love you, too, kiddo. ’Night.”
I knew I couldn’t tell my parents. They would freak out, try to call Angelo, and …
Angelo.
Angelo was on assignment.
Who had sent him?
It could just be a coincidence, I told myself, even though Angelo rarely worked cases out of the city anymore. But what if someone wanted to get him out of the city, knowing that he would protect me at all costs, just like he had done that Halloween night twelve years ago?
I couldn’t take any chances. I dug out my civilian phone and dialed his number. “Angelo,” I whispered after I got his voice mail. “I just wanted you to know that the newspaper was delivered but the headline was misspelled. That’s all.” Then I paused before adding, “I love you.”
Translation: Angelo, the case is bad. Get out now. Run.
Chapter 32
When Roux, Jesse, and I met up the next morning two blocks north of Gramercy Park, my nervous energy had given way to steely focus, and I was bouncing on the soles of my feet. Next to me, Roux was mainlining coffee, her eyes starting to look like slot machine windows. “I need about ten more cups,” she said as she passed me the coffee so I could take a sip. “That should put me at normal.”
Aside from that tiny sip, I wasn’t drinking anything. Caffeine can make your hands shake, and I needed them to be as steady as possible. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in that apartment, but whatever it was, I was going to have to be ready for it.
Jesse showed up a few minutes after us, looking fresh as a daisy, complete with damp hair. “That jerk,” Roux muttered. “Why do guys always manage to look good after getting only thirty seconds of sleep? I feel like my eyes are so puffy that people in Philadelphia can see them.”
“Let’s focus on the big picture,” I told her. “Hi.”
“Hey,” Jesse said. “You guys get any sleep?”
“A little.” I shrugged. “Enough.”
Roux just held up her massive coffee cup. “Does this answer your question?”
“How about you?” I asked. It was so odd to make small talk with him now, after all the big talks we had had. I couldn’t tell if he was still pissed at me or not, but it was a conversation that would have to wait.
“Good, good,” he said, even though we all knew he was lying. No one was good that morning. I was pretty sure that if someone harnessed our collective nervous energy, it could power Manhattan through a holiday weekend.
“Are you ready?” I asked them. “Last chance to back out.”
“I’m in,” Jesse said.
“Me, too,” Roux agreed. “I have a bio test this morning that I didn’t study for, so there’s no way I’m going to school today.”
“Okay.” I took a few cleansing breaths and forced myself to focus. You’ve been training for this your whole life, I reminded myself. This is just a job.
I remembered what Angelo said to me once when I was frustrated by not being able to open a particularly difficult safe: Let a veil of calm fall around you. Become very focused, very unperturbed by anything around you. I knew what he meant now.
“Let’s do this,” I told Jesse and Roux.
Our first obstacle was probably the trickiest: the doorman. I had no idea how we were going to get around that, but Roux had just said, “Leave it to me.” That had seemed like a viable plan yesterday, but now that we were about ready to walk through the door, I was wary.
“Roux, did you—?”
“Hi, Harold! Hiiiii!”
God help me, the poor, put-upon Harold was sitting behind the front desk, hands folded, like he fully expected to see Roux come sailing through the doors.
“Harold, don’t you just love Mondays?” Roux sighed dreamily. “A fresh start, a new beginning? Ugh, I’m such a romantic, it’s disgusting.”
“Do we know this guy?” Jesse whispered to me. “Or is this the beginning of Roux’s breakdown?”
“We know him,” I whispered back. “It’s her doorman. Roux! How did you do this?”
She shrugged. “I can be very convincing.” Then she smiled. “My parents’ money can be even more convincing.”
I looked at Harold, who still hadn’t acknowledged that any of this was unusual. “Please tell me that the doorman who’s normally here isn’t bleeding in a gutter somewhere.”
“How ridiculous.” Roux shook her head. “He’s working at my building. God, Maggie, you’ve gotten so dramatic.”
Roux was either a genius or an evil mastermind, but I didn’t have time to figure out which it was.
“So, Harold. Friend, pal, chum.” Roux folded her hands on top of the desk. “Are you going to buzz us in or not?”
We knew we had to go to #11N, since that was the apartment that Oscar Young had first rented back when he tried to kidnap me (he didn’t use that name, of course, but I recognized the Collective’s all-purpose code name of Joe Miller on the digitized census reports). There were no changes in the name on the apartment, but if you thought Oscar was dead, then you would also think that the Collective had hung on to the apartment and never changed the name on the lease.
“Go on up, miss,” Harold said, waving us through the lobby and toward the elevators.