“If she had suspicions, she should’ve checked. But I guess that would’ve required a conscience, and Ines is short on that.” I don’t cry, but oh, how I seethe…
The instant the elevator dings, I get in. When I reach the lobby, I turn my cell phone off and hand it to Jorge—Liz’s daytime replacement. “Ran out of juice. Can you keep it here until I come back?”
“Would you like me to charge it?” he asks.
“No.” And then I’m out the door and sprinting through the streets of Boston.
I’m not trying to run away from my present or outrun my past. I’m only trying to put order in my mind before I say or do anything that will cost me my family’s love.
I run—first aimlessly, then with purpose. An hour later, I’m standing at the reception desk of Cillian’s gym, asking the woman where I can find him.
“He’s not due in until two.”
“Call him,” I command her, my eyes aglow. “And pass me the phone.”
She does as I ask. Every dial tone feels like a gong marking the passage of time—and not in seconds but in years. When I get his voicemail, I almost crush the receptionist’s cell.
Would he have answered had my name lit up his screen? I suddenly regret having left my phone back in my building, but I hadn’t wanted my family to track me.
“Where’s the employee parking lot?” I ask.
“Take a right and then another right and you’ll see the entrance of a lot. It’s one floor down.”
“Forget you ever saw me.”
As I follow her directions, I wonder if it’s too much to hope for that he’s hanging out in his car. And then I wonder why Cillian’s the person I’m seeking out.
Because he’s not an Atlantean,my mind supplies before my heart can twist my impulse to find him into something else.
When I spot the faux-wood station wagon sticking halfway out of a parking spot, I assume I caught Cillian mid-departure. Until I realize the reason his car is parked so poorly—there’s a small camper behind it.
So this is where he sleeps… Here I pictured him unrolling a cot on the Volvo’s backseat.
I peer through the car’s windows only to find it empty, then circle to the door of the camper and knock. No one comes out. Since there are no windows to peer through, I try the handle. Locked.
Before I can let my moral compass intervene, I use magic to unlock the camper and step inside. The bed must be a pull-out, because the space contains only a tiny banquette, a screw-in table, and a door that leads to a pocket-sized bathroom with a showerhead over the toilet.
Guilt suddenly overwhelms me, and I backtrack. I might’ve unlocked the camper to see if Cillian was there, but exploring it is a clear invasion of privacy. I step out just as a sedan pulls into the spot beside the camper.
A hugely muscled man with a bald head unfolds himself from the diminutive vehicle—one of Cillian’s fellow coaches. What was his name again? Ah, yes…
Carlos looks me up and down, eyebrows arrowing low.
“I was looking for Cillian,” I tell him. Goddess knows why I don’t just wipe his mind like I did the last time we met. “You know where I could find him?”
He tilts his head to the side, as though a new angle might help him place me. “How’d you get into his camper?”
“He gave me a key.” I tap my pants pocket.
“You must be something special ’cause heneverlets anyone inside. We have bets going with the other coaches that he’s hiding a dead body in there.”
“No dead bodies. Or live ones.”
“Huh. So, are you, like, his girlfriend?” Carlos asks at the same time I say, “Have any clue where I could find him?”
He shrugs. “Could’ve gone to someone’s house to ‘teach a private.’ The guy’s annoyingly popular with the ladies. Which—if you’re the girlfriend—is probably not something you wanted to hear.”
“Why did you air quoteteach a private?”
