He said it soft, but the word hung in the chill, slick and ugly.
Sal’s hand went flat on the table, hard enough to make the chair jump. For a second, nobody said anything.
The older man kept talking, like he couldn’t help himself now. He named a Norridge address, then two women who had gone before, both dead. I watched his eyes while he said it. I watched the way his pupils got small at the end, like a man about to pass out.
The room got even colder.
I did not want to hear anymore.
I left Sal and Tonio to it. I went up the stairs, through the kitchen, and out into the courtyard. I did not bother with my coat. I wanted the cold to do something to me, but it didn’t. Itwas nothing. The sky was a smear of black and sodium yellow, the kind of night that never quite lets go of the city.
Olimpo padded out after me and settled at my side. He was heavy enough to lean against if I needed it. His breath steamed the air. He watched the door in case I tried to go back.
I put my hands flat on the brick wall and pressed until my palms stung. The bandaged one was throbbing. I flexed it, felt the ache, let it live in my bones for a while.
I made myself think about her.
I thought about the kiss. The way her hands had gone to my chest, not to push me away but to hold. The way her mouth had opened under mine. The way she had made a sound, small and raw, a sound that was not pain and not hunger and not anything I could name but need.
I tried to tell myself she had done it to escape. That she had used me, because that was the only card she had left. I tried to believe it. I ran the sequence in my head, slow, frame by frame. Her hand on my coat. Her mouth. The heat of her body against mine. The shudder at the end, like she was about to go off a cliff.
I thought: you are an idiot. You are a child. She did it to run.
But that was not the truth. The truth was, she had not run when I made the sound. She had not run until she had put her mouth on me a second time, until she had gotten what she needed, and what she needed was me.
She was running from herself, not from me.
I pressed my forehead to the brick. It was cold. I let the cold into my skull, tried to push the thoughts out with it.
She’s gone, I thought. You’ll never see her again, I thought. You are poison, and she knows it.
I stood there for a long time, letting the night freeze me to the core.
Then I made a decision.
I would find her. I would keep her safe. I would not touch her, not ever. Girls like her weren’t for people like me.
Olimpo whined, low in his throat. He leaned in, a hundred and ten pounds of dog, waiting for me to move.
I pushed off the wall. I scratched behind his ears, and the big head tilted up, searching my face for something I could not give.
“I’ve got to go, boy,” I said. “If I don’t find her and take her in, these people, these dangerous people, will find her. And their plan for her—it’s worse than death.”
He wagged his tail, just once, slow, like he understood every word.
I turned for the door. Olimpo followed, steps soft and steady. The cold was still nothing.
I tapped Marco’s number into my phone. Time to work.
BysixMarcohadthe network up.
He had men at O’Hare, men at Midway, men at every rental car counter, even a kid at the Greyhound station just in case. There were Caruso soldiers running every block from Wacker to Roosevelt, and by sunrise every one of them knew her face, knew her name, knew not to touch her if they saw her—just call Marco and wait for me to get there.
I ran point from the kitchen table, stacking pages, cross-referencing the CCTV from the club with the feeds Marco could pull from the city traffic cams. I watched the clock. I watched the door. I waited for the call.
At 6:42 it came.
Marco had the Greyhound station. He had a clerk in back, a kid who owed him a favor. He had the manifest for the 6:05 to Detroit. Gate four. Single female, ticket bought with cash at 5:50, no checked bag, just a carry-on.
