She didn’t recognize the woman who spoke. “Hello? Is this a family member of Mr. Phoenix Walker?”
Her tone struck Veronica with fear. Time slowed. “Yes. I’m his mother.”
There are moments when self-preservation inspires the brain to slow the speed of input, because it can only absorb so much at a time. Veronica heard “accident,” “train,” “surgery”and then her mind shut down. It couldn’t be him. He was on his way straight here.
“Where?” she asked. She pushed against the weight of the news to stand up, her focus narrowed to the one place she needed to be right now.
Veronica grabbed her Louis Vuitton satchel. She caught sight of her waitress, champagne flute in hand, mouth wide with surprise. For the first time in her life, Veronica fled without paying and didn’t give a damn.
“Howis he?” Veronica was overcome by desperation. She stood up from the hospital’s plastic chair. Her high-heeled feet, swollen from pelting pavement, complained at bearing her weight. She ignored them, angry at her own weakness. Phoenix was who mattered.
“We don’t know yet. I just came to check on you. You have someone coming?” The nurse’s hand hovered near her, as if ready to comfort a lost child.
“Yes, I’m about to call my other son, Caleb. Here’s a picture of him.” She bent to pull up the home-screen photo on her phone.
“So handsome,” the nurse said, eying not Caleb’s features but Phoenix’s. It was often the case, that even as people complimented her boys, they lingered on Phoenix’s tousled hair and blue eyes. Both were good-looking, but Caleb frightened strangers off with his scowl and tattoos. In contrast, Phoenix’s warmth held universal appeal. The screenshot had been taken years ago. It showed young adult boys, virile with the lie that nothing could harm them.
Fear rose in her throat. “It can’t be him. Please don’t let it be him,” she pleaded, both with the nurse and an omniscient being. The rigid seat caught her collapsing mass.
CHAPTER 3
MANY SHADES OF BLACK
Caleb
Traversing the narrow corridor leading to his New Brunswick tattoo shop granted Caleb Walker a few minutes before starting work to grieve his father’s death. His dad had been the ballast against his mother’s bias, and it was now a year since he’d died.
The room was empty in the morning before weekend opening hours. The interlaced black and white linoleum tiles echoed with each scrape of his booted heels. Caleb looked around at the walls dotted with framed prints of the shop’s best work, ornate tattoos of celebrities, pets, kids, and arcane symbols. From the number of tattoo revisions the shop undertook, he knew that sometimes the things people initially loved would later become the bane of their existence.
He fingered the small animal skulls atop a metal-rimmed glass case. The yellowed bone reminded Caleb of the dead animal that had led to his first love. He lapsed into fifteen-year-old high school memories, and one particular blue-sky day. Caleb had only dug the squirrel’s grave a foot deep when an attractive teen girl drew closer.
“What happened?” Her voice had lilted.
“Dunno.” He shrugged, lifting his dad’s shovel. “Just found it. Figured I better bury it before animals get him.”
She knelt, ruffling the squirrel’s fur.
“Hey, don’t do that.” He dropped one denim knee onto the soil inches from her hand. “It might’ve been sick. You don’t want to get whatever killed it.”
She sat back, cornflower blue eyes round with respect. “You’re smart. You must be Nixy’s brother.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You’re here to see Mr. Straight-A, huh?”
She snickered. “What’s your name?”
“Caleb. And Nixy’s my brother,” he had said, pleased at the ease in swapping importance, mocking his twin’s newly bestowed nickname.
So what if she was captain of the swim team? Beneath the stylish bangs and clear braces, she harbored a dark streak that wanted to touch dead animals. Phoenix, student president, star athlete, could have any girl.Why not leave this one—pretty on the outside, fucked up on the inside—for me?
The phone interrupted his reverie. Caleb checked his mobile. Ah, it was off.Probably Mom trying to guilt me into coming into the city, when all I want is to be alone on the anniversary of Dad’s death. I’ll tell her I’ll come in tomorrow.
He grabbed the old-fashioned black handset before the answering machine kicked in.
“Yeah?” He listened to the voice on the other end with growing alarm. “What the—”
His free arm steadied himself against the telephone stand, his only stability against the failure of his legs.
Whywas his ex-girlfriend the first person Caleb thought to phone?Because she’s my business partner,his distraught brain reasoned before he punched up Sascha’s number.
