“I won’t be staying long, thank you, though.”
I looked up at Matteo. “Conference room?”
He nodded.
I stepped past him, followed the hall, and took my usual seat. I folded my hands on the table in front of me, lowered them to my lap, then back to the table again, this time palms down. They left sweaty wet marks on the polished wood. I put them back in my lap.
Matteo stepped inside and closed the door behind him before taking his usual seat at the head of the table. He lowered himself into the chair with a grunt. “You’ve lost a lot of weight, Jack. You look thin.”
He didn’t. He looked like he put on another forty pounds or so.
“I’m alive. You’ve seen me. What do I need to sign in order to turn my allowance back on?”
“I really thought you were dead, Jack. The way you disappeared. Poor Will didn’t know what to do. He said you snapped, blamed himself.”
Poor Will. Poor little Willy.
I leaned forward. “Willwas spying on me.”
“He was watching you for me.”
“And who are you watching me for?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You collect a nice salary from my trust, as administrator, right? Nowhere in there does it give you the right to police my life…watch me…guide me. None of that. You’re supposed to pay a few of my bills and make sure I receive my monthly stipend, that’s it. I didn’t need a babysitter back then, and I sure as shit don’t need one now. All I need is for you to do your job, pay out my money, and leave me the fuck alone.”
Matteo didn’t flinch. His eyes remained fixed on me. “I made certain promises to your aunt, as a friend, and I plan to follow through on those promises. You’re clearly going through a rough patch, and I blame myself for that. I gave you more freedom than I probably should have. I thought you could handle it, but I was clearly wrong.”
“Who are the people in the white coats?”
“You said that on the phone. I assure you, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Do they pay you, too? They do, don’t they? They pay you to keep an eye on me. To keep me on a leash.”
“Move back into your apartment, Jack. Stay here in Pittsburgh. Let me find you some help, someone to talk to…in confidence. A professional. You’ve seen so much death, more than anyone should ever deal with in a lifetime, in a hundred lifetimes. It’s eating at you. If you’d rather, we can enroll you in a program somewhere. Someplace quiet. Someplace where you can work through all of this and put your life back on track.”
“You need to give me my money.”
“I can’t watch you die.”
“Then don’t.”
I hadn’t realized how loud our voices had gotten until we both stopped speaking. The two of us stared at each other for a good long while, then Matteo finally reached into his breast pocket, pulled out an ATM card, and slid it across the table to me. “If I thought forcing you into a program would help, I would do that. I would find a way to do that. But you need to want to get better, and it’s obvious you don’t. I really hope someday you do. When you’re ready, call Tess. You don’t need to talk to me if you don’t want to, but call Tess. Even if it’s just to let her know you’re okay every once in a while. You should call Will, too. He graduated last month, twelfth in his class. I think he’s going to work with his father. He’d like to hear from you.”
I scooped up the ATM card and shoved it into the pocket of my jeans. I left Matteo sitting there at his conference table, his eyes burning into my back.
There was an SUV double parked behind my Jeep.
It wasn’t white.
The SUV blocking my Jeep was black, a Cadillac Escalade with windows tinted to the point of being opaque sitting high up on sparkling chrome rims. As I approached, three men stepped out. I recognized the driver—Reid Migliore. I hadn’t seen him since our freshman year of high school, but it was him for sure. I didn’t know if he graduated, but I knew who he worked for.
Reid kicked at a small rut in the blacktop with the toe of his boot and looked up at me. “He wants to see you.”
“I don’t give a shit what he wants.”
“He says you will. Says it’s about the girl.”
