“Meet me at your girlfriend’s apartment in thirty minutes,” he replies. “Come alone, or your girlfriend gets it.”
The words are so cliché. Half of me wants to laugh at their absurdity. But the other half recognizes that even if this guy is a reject from some 1960s mafia movie, he has Sofia. I look at my father, the shock clear in my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, ready to fly into battle with me if that’s what it takes.
I swallow my anger, focusing on what I need to do to keep Sofia safe. I can’t drag my father into this, or Sofia will be killed. I can’t let him know that anything is wrong, and I don’t have time to explain what I found out about Andretti.
“What’s wrong?” Dad insists.
I have to tell him something. I grab his hand, as if I’m thanking him for something he hasn’t done yet. There’s no time to waste. I must go right now. I have a brilliant insight that I hope will kill two birds with one stone. I can’t allow my father or his men to come with me, but maybe I can tip him off. If he can mobilize and show up without my explicit instructions, I can use his help to extract Sofia from captivity.
“Do you remember that graduation gift you gave me?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, confused.
“Thank you,” I say sincerely. “From the bottom of my heart.”
I drop his hand and rush toward the door, having precious little time to spare. The graduation gift I’m talking about was a pocket watch. But it’s not the watch I want him to concentrate on. He installed a tracking device inside it so that he could find me in case of an emergency. Hopefully, my father will understand what I meant and use the technology to find me. I can’t stick around to make sure he got the meaning though. Sofia is in trouble, and she needs me. I race out to the garage and jump into my car, putting the pedal to the metal as I speed away from the house.
CHAPTER 36
SOFIA
My heart is beating so fast, I’m worried that it’s going to come unglued from my chest. Wouldn’t that be ironic, if I die of a heart attack while waiting for Frankie to rescue me? I’m surprised Mr. Harlan has given me the opportunity to phone a friend. He could have just shot me, but that’s obviously not what he has in mind.
I’m not sure how I could have been so blind. Not only is my former boss working for Andretti, but he is waist-deep in whatever criminal action the two of them have planned. In my wildest dreams, I only imagined that Harlan was a frontman. I assumed that he wrote nice copy to whitewash whatever Andretti was up to. It looks like I was wrong about that. I can’t tell how deep Mr. Harlan’s ties to the mob run, but the more he talks, the clearer my understanding becomes.
“You just had to keep poking,” Harlan says. He waves a gun at me, awkwardly pacing in my tiny apartment.
There’s not much room between the kitchen and the living room, and he takes up more space than usual. Maybe it’s the gun in hishand, or the way he hates me. I never got this kind of vibe from him before. I guess he’s as good a liar as he is an editor.
“You put some kind of virus in my computer,” Harlan concludes.
“It wasn’t a virus,” I say.
“Then what was it?” he demands.
“I just wanted to know what happened to Danny!” I shout. I’m through playing the coward. If these are my last moments, I want answers.
“You want to know what happened to him?” Mr. Harlan taunts.
“Yes!” I respond.
“I killed him!” Harlan tells me with glee. “I shot him right in his own living room, and damn, it was easy. He had no clue that I was going to do that to him until the last moment.”
I swallow my anger as a rush of grief washes over me. I must sit down, even though I’m still in danger. My legs give way, and I drop to the sofa. After all the time I’ve spent chasing my brother’s killer, to know that he was right there all along is devastating.
“Why?” I whisper.
Harlan comes down on one knee before me, happy to tell his story now that he's going to kill me, there’s no need to hold back. “He was investigating my partner, Carlo Andretti,” Harlan says. “I couldn’t allow him to do that. He was getting too close and collecting too much evidence to allow him to continue.”
I press my eyes shut, wishing I could block out all the vicious energy Mr. Harlan is giving off. He’s like some kind of evil battery, humming with delight over something that should makehim sick. Regular people don’t get so excited confessing their heinous crimes. Regular people feel guilt or remorse when they’ve done something wrong. But not Harlan. He’s ecstatic. It’s like he wants me to know how much fun it was ending my brother’s life.
I think I’m going to be sick. I put one hand over my mouth and lurch for the bathroom. Harlan watches me go, still laughing.
“Keep the bathroom door open,” he instructs.
I do as he asks, leaving the door wide open as I fold myself over the toilet bowl. I haven’t eaten much today, but what little I was able to consume burns on the way up. I heave until my stomach quiets, and my heartbeat slows incrementally. I’m not out of the water, but I feel a little lighter. I rise to my feet on wobbly legs and turn on the sink. Swishing my mouth out with water, I try to define my next steps.
