“She was living in a hostel in Jersey City. You could try there.”
She lived in a hostel? “Have you got the details?”
He hums. “No, actually. Damn, I wonder how we could …”
As he’s talking, I push through the door to the outside, and someone bumps into me. I’m just about to apologize when something catches mefrom behind. What the …? I tip forward, and my hands shoot out, my phone flying out of my hand. Something wrenches right across my back as I hit the ground, landing on my side, face bouncing off the concrete. I lose my glasses as a searing pain runs from my cheek through my head. I manage to roll, expecting somebody to land on top of me, but all I see are two blurry figures running away. Laughter drifts back over the grass.
What the hell?
I groan.
My glasses. Where are my glasses?
My face throbs. I pat the path around me, making wider and wider circles until my hand latches onto a plastic arm several feet away. When I put them on, one lens is cracked and the right arm is bent at an odd angle. I try to bend it back against my head as I look across the grassy area between the buildings, but there’s no sign of the guys who jumped me. Christ. I touch my face gingerly, and it stings. It’s the other cheek this time. As I glance around, I realize my backpack has disappeared.
Fuckingfuck.
My fuckinglaptop.
Good luck to them. The security on that thing is rock solid. But they don’t usually bother with what’s on machines when they steal things these days; they wipe the hard disk and resell it. Someone will probably give them no more than fifty bucks for it.
Jesus. Where’s my phone?
With a sinking heart, I stagger to my feet and start searching, but even after I scan a big area, there’s no sign of that either.Shit.
I was in the middle of a call with Des!
Did he hear what happened?Oh, fuck. He’ll be losing his shit. I put my hands on my hips and take a deep breath, then peer down at myself and dust off the grit and dirt. I need to let him know I’m okay somehow. I walk around, sweeping across the thin grass between the buildings, keeping one eye out to make sure that no one’s coming back, but I still can’t find my phone.
Should I report this to the local NYPD precinct? Can I remember what those guys in the stairwell looked like?Maybe.But what will I gain? It’s going to take hours to make a statement, and I can’t believe they’ll find mylaptop or my phone. As I start down the path, my right hip throbs and pain radiates all the way down one arm where I landed on it before my face hit the concrete. As I make my way out of the projects and down the street, there’s hardly anyone around, and those who are don’t even look at me. I think about Jane calling me when she fell off her bike, and snort to myself. At least I don’t think anything’s broken aside from my glasses, and it’s way more important that I find Sadie right now. I can’t believe she lived here for most of her life with guys like that hanging around.Jesus.And fuck, I need to get back to the apartment.
Chapter 33
Sadie
My phone vibrates again, and I groan. I have to settle my mom and get my thoughts in order before I talk to James and shore myself up for the distance and disappointment I know I’ll see in his eyes. But as I look down, my eyes snag on the words “JAMES IS IN TROUBLE!” as a message flashes across the top of my screen.
Shit!I tap on it.
JAMES IS IN TROUBLE! He went to Queens to look for you. He called me. Something happened to him. I heard a shout and a scuffle. Call me.
My mouth drops open. James went to mymom’s? Why? But I guess I did just disappear from the office. I look at my watch:for six hours.Never in a million years did I think James would come looking for me, but then … I stare across at the black frame of the hostel bunkbed opposite. He knows aboutJake.God, I made him worry. Now I’ve created even more trouble. But going back in there to face Jo and James with them knowing what I did … I groan and sink onto my bunk.
I press James’s number, but it goes straight to voicemail, and my voice wavers as I leave a message saying that I’m okay and I’ll talk to him soon. Then I call Des.
“Sadie.”
“Des. I’m so sorry.”
“Sadie, what the fuck? Where the hell are you? James said you disappeared from work.”
My hand starts to shake where I’m gripping my phone. “I’m back at the hostel. What happened to James? Where is he?”
“I don’t know! One minute I was on the call, the next there was a scuffle and a shout, and the phone went dead.”
A scuffle?I glance around the empty dorm: the clean wooden floors and the gray sheets. Mom headed out to the grocery store about ten minutes ago. It’s all a million miles away from South Jamaica. Christ, this is all my fault. How much did James tell Des about Jake? My body gets hot.
“He went to my mom’s apartment? My stepdad is a loose cannon. If he met Jake, then all bets are off.”
