course, but one of the T-shirts worked. Black, advertising a Northeast Philly bar called the Grey Lodge, coming down to midthigh.
Hardie said, “You look a lot better.”
“Ugh. I’m banged up and cut and scraped to hell. I’m finding bruises I didn’t even realize I had this morning. Guess I won’t be on any magazine covers for a while.”
“But you’re alive.”
“I am alive.”
Hardie saw her differently now. Not just because the grime was gone, or because she was wearing his T- shirt. All day he’d more or less dismissed her as a snotty bitch who’d gotten herself into trouble. But for the past three years, their lives had been more similar than Hardie ever would have guessed.
“It’s going to be okay,” Hardie said.
“I know.”
There was an awkward moment of silence before Hardie excused himself and walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind him. The off-white tile walls were still damp with condensation from her shower. Hardie put his palms on the enamel sink and looked at himself in the mirror. Hey, tough guy. How handsome are you?
He stripped off his dirty, bloody clothes—ripping the rest of his T-shirt, actually, because that seemed easier than pulling it over his head. He stepped into the shower, cranked up the water. The pressure sucked. The water spat out in a weird pattern that hurt his skin but didn’t actually get him very wet. But it didn’t matter. As long as he could wash off most of this day. The crusted blood, the smoke, the dirt, the film of sweat. His wounds still bled but at least he could replace the old blood with some new.
After tucking the bottle of Vicodin under the pillow, Lane lay back on the bed and allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes for a moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done that without worrying about something—her choices, her career, the incident. Usually when she closed her eyes, the demons would pounce. The middle of the night was the worst. That’s when she’d pop awake and think about all the things that could go wrong in the world. Everything from never working again to drinking too much to a global pandemic to catastrophic financial meltdown to an asteroid smashing into the ocean and obliterating every living thing. She hated the night. The morning sucked, too, because most days the pounding behind her eyes was relentless. But at least it wasn’t night.
Now, though, she felt a little more at ease.
Because after three years, God had finally called her on it.
Her worst sin.
And she was still breathing.
He hadn’t reached down from Heaven to smite her in a flash of blinding white. Maybe he’d tried with the Accident People, but if so, it wasn’t a full-on, full-court-press try, because she was still alive.
Still breathing.
Until she chose not to.
The air conditioner hummed in the corner, and the water beat against the shower tile steadily, incessantly. She wondered if she could fall asleep. Just for a few minutes. Her protector was in the next room. They were hidden away, at random in the middle of nowhere L.A. Maybe she could indulge herself, just a little.
The total blackness and icy numbness came faster than she thought.
But it wasn’t the kind she’d been hoping for.
—Tagline from
HARDIE TURNED the cheap metal handle to the Off position. He used mostly cold water so the steam wouldn’t make him sweat, and the cold was nice and bracing and had the curious effect of calming him down a little. After patting himself dry, he took a stab at taping up his chest wound again. As soon as Deke made it here, he’d go have it checked out. He promised. But in the meantime, one little Vike couldn’t hurt. Hardie rooted through his toiletries bag, trying to feel for the familiar round shape of the bottle. Nothing. He looked. Everything else seemed to be here. Toothbrush, razor. No painkillers, though. Great. He probably left them behind at the last gig.
So instead, Hardie busied himself with brushing his teeth, halfway through when he realized that all his clean clothes were in the suitcase out in the other room. He wasn’t about to wrap a towel around his midsection and go parading around out there. The towels were ideal for preteen girls, not for a guy the size of Hardie. The actress might get the wrong idea. So Hardie put on his smoky, torn, blood-splattered jeans again and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a big mess. But at least it was better than the towel. His mouth still felt metallic, stale, so he squeezed out more toothpaste and started to brush again and had just opened the door when something pinched his neck and he found himself, inexplicably, on his knees.
Someone whispered:
“Shhhh, now.”
Hardie’s arms felt like rubber. The toothbrush started to slip out of his fingers. Tightening his grip didn’t work. His fingers didn’t want to do what they were told. The toothbrush slipped completely out of his fingers.
A gloved hand caught it before it hit the carpet.
More gloved hands picked him up.
The lights were off.
But he could see what they had done to Lane over on the bed.
Factboy had put a standard trace on all calls and e-mails coming to Special Agent Deacon Clark, Philadelphia office, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Home, office, and cell. Again, not hard to do with the magic of the Patriot Act, even when the subject was a federal agent. Hell, Clark’s being a fed made it easier. Still, Factboy couldn’t believe it when a hit popped up almost immediately—a call from a hotel room in Los Feliz, near Hollywood.
Not only was Mann’s new team already assembled, but they were rolling up and down the streets of old Hollywood already. The hotel was two minutes away. They were pulling up within forty-five seconds.
Mann actually thanked Factboy and told him he did good work. Factboy was too stunned to reply and stammered something about the trace being a good one (like what the fuck did that even mean?). The line disconnected and Factboy wondered if he was actually done for the day, if he could go upstairs and rejoin his family. That’s what he really should do. Try to smooth things over with the wife, look at his kids and tickle their bellies and tell them that he loved them. That he did all these awful things because he loved them.
Isn’t that what all fathers did?
Lane was there, on the bed, waiting for him. She’d been stripped naked. Only her panicked eyes seemed able to move, along with a slight up-and-down motion of her chest. They’d let her continue breathing. For the moment. Hardie tried to look away but a gloved hand pushed on his jaw, facing him forward.
“Uh-uh-uhhhh,” a soft voice said. “Look at her. You’ve wanted her from the minute you saw her. Haven’t you, Charlie? Your little celebrity.”
Hardie recognized the voice. Topless. Why was it that whenever he heard her voice, he happened to be staring at naked breasts? And why was it that, at the same time, her voice chilled his blood and made him think of death?
The gloved hands guided him over to the bed, holding his midsection, working his legs. The sensation was horrible. He was completely helpless, a pile of rubber meat hanging on plastic bones, ready to be posed and moved and positioned any way they wanted. As Hardie was moved closer to the bed, he saw that Lane’s eyes were open —glassy, but open. They’d given her something, too.
