“Have you had breakfast?” he asked, once they were inside.
“No.” That was the truth.
“Okay, let’s get something to eat.”
When she thought about it, she was actually starving. She grabbed a sandwich and a fruit salad and a cookie and a bag of salted nuts, and she ordered a hot chocolate. When they sat down, the man said, “I told you who I am last night, but it’s not like we’ve been properly introduced. My name’s Desmond Edgars.” He waited for her to speak. She didn’t. “And you’re Polina Brantov.”
“No one calls me Polina except my mother. It’s Polly.” She glanced around the café. “Everyone is staring at us.”
“They’re staring at your shiner. It’s pretty bad. They’re also wondering what I’m doing, having breakfast with a high school student. You’re seventeen, right?”
She nodded.
“Why aren’t you in school, by the way?”
She didn’t want to explain anything to him. “I stopped going.”
“Your mother’s okay with that? My mother would never, in a million years, have let me quit school. Though when I was thirteen, fourteen years old, I wanted to.” He gave her a smile, but it looked sad to her, like something that had broken long ago. “My mother was afraid I was throwing my life away and she… she stopped that from happening.” His shoulders hunched slightly and he shook his head.
“Your mother’s dead?”
“Yeah. She died a long time ago. Right after I went into the Army.” He gave her that same fractured smile. “Sorry. I get emotional when I talk about her. My mother sacrificed so much for me.”
“My mother doesn’t care what I do. I don’t think she even realizes I stopped going to school.”
“What about Max? Does he care?”
She eyed him warily. “He won’t like it, when he hears about it. School’s a big deal to him.”
“Right. Somebody told me he got accepted to Harvard. That’s really something.”
She nodded, warming to the subject. “Max is brilliant. Going to Harvard was always his dream.”
“But he didn’t end up going, did he?”
“No. He… he got into some trouble and… he couldn’t.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Polly wrapped her arms around herself. “I can’t talk about it.”
“Okay. Let me tell you about my sister instead. Her name was Dominique Monaghan. You ever meet her?”
“No, but I think—” She tried to stay cool, as if she didn’t really care. “I think I might have heard the name Dominique. But I’m not sure.”
“You’d remember if you met her. She was such a sweetheart. She was ten years younger than me, so I thought she was a pain in the neck when we were kids. But later… I loved having a baby sister to take care of. It was a bit like having my own kid.” Desmond looked down, but Polly could see enough of his face that she caught the tug-of-war between sadness and sweetness.
“You’re talking about her in the past tense,” Polly said.
“She’s dead. I’m still trying to get used to that idea, but she is.” His eyes weighed heavily on her conscience.
“Dominique is dead?” She couldn’t hide her shock. “How did she die?”
“She was in a house in the Poconos. You know where that is? Upstate Pennsylvania. Pretty area. Anyway, she was there with her boyfriend, Gary. Max was at the house, too. Dominique and Gary died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Somebody set up a problem in the furnace, and he sealed all the windows, so no air could get in.”
“But she…” Polly’s voice trailed off. She remembered standing inside that pretty country house in the Hudson Valley. Val never let her go away anywhere, so she’d been thrilled about the trip. He’d described his little project like a game. All you have to do is stand there with a gun, Polly…
A gun? That part had frightened her.
It won’t be loaded. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You’ll be completely covered up. No one will know it’s you. Just don’t say a word. This is kind of a delicate job, so I don’t want to use one of my freelancers. I want you to be the one in the room with me.
At that house in the Hudson Valley, all she’d had to do was stand silently and point an unloaded gun. After Val put the man and the woman in the van, he gave Polly the keys to a shiny green Jaguar and told her to follow him on the highway. They drove for two and a half hours before Val signaled her to stop at a campsite. She sat there, waiting in the car for hours and freezing. When Val came back with the van, he’d wiped the car down for prints, even though she’d done what he said and wore gloves the whole time.
Where’s the couple? Polly asked.
They’re settling in for a romantic weekend right about now.
That hadn’t made any sense to Polly. All this, for a romantic weekend?
That’s how it’s going to look, Val told her. Don’t worry about it. I’m driving you home now. Tomorrow I’ll come back and deal with the loose ends.
What happened to your neck? she’d asked him. That looks like blood.
Val had put his hand to it, and he’d cursed long and loud. He never told her what cut him.
“You said… Max was in the house, too?” Polly asked Desmond.
Desmond nodded. “Definitely. Max’s blood was found there. He might have fallen and hurt himself. The police don’t really know. Dominique told me about Max on the phone. That’s the only reason I knew he was there.”
Max was there? Polly squeezed her eyes shut. Why hadn’t Val let her go with him to the house? Sometimes she hated her brother with such a passion. Val was forever going on about how they had to do something to help Max, when the only person being helped was Val himself. Polly felt sorrow for Desmond’s sister and the man who died, but she was grateful Max hadn’t been harmed.
“I’m very sorry,”
