I look at him. He knows, and sees it. The same look I had before Emma. Before Beth. Before everything went to shit. The look that says I've found something.Someone. The look that comes before the fall.
"I'm sure."
He nods, and gets up. "Try not to get dead."
"Yeah."
I won't get dead. I might get worse. Might get better. Might get her.
Phone buzzes again.
Goodnight, Wrong Number. Thanks for... whatever this was.
This isn't over.
It should be.
Should and will are different words, Angel.
Using my own words against me is cheating.
Everything about this is cheating. Cheating fate. Cheating sense. Cheating the rules.
I don't like cheaters.
You don't like safe either.
Goodnight, dangerous stranger who makes me make terrible decisions.
Goodnight, Angel who makes too many tamales.
I pull up the trace again and narrow the search. Weekend nurse. Latina. Makes tamales. Lives alone. Thirty-one years old. Somewhere in Phoenix. Someone who texts a stranger about bullets and comes to his voice. Curses in Spanish when control breaks.
Someone named Angel who won't say my name but knows I'm dangerous. Knows I'm too old. Comes anyway.
I will find her. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But soon.
I count to sixty.
She's gone for tonight. Can feel it. The way the air changes when someone leaves. Even through a phone. Even through miles.
Still count to sixty. Lose track at forty-three thinking about the Spanish.
The clubhouse fades. The noise. The smoke. The life I built after Emma. All of it secondary to a voice that breaks just right. To texts that cut through the nothing.
To an angel who makes forty tamales and comes to my voice—a voice she doesn't know belongs to someone named Zane Quinn, President of the Iron Talons, killer of men who deserve it.
She just knows it as the voice that makes her break. In English first. Spanish when control dies.
Mine to find.
Mine to keep.
Mine.
Chapter five
Photo Exchange
