“You sound like my CO now.”
“Your CO thinks it’s crazy, too? Oh, that’s a good sign.”
“He’s just looking out for me, Alex. A few days ago, I was the new kid on the block. Now I’m going undercover.”
“You’re undercover, all right. If this goes any further, you’re gonna be about as deep undercover as you can get.”
“They’ll take over a whole floor of the hotel, Alex. There’ll be men in the rooms on both sides, and across the hall. Cameras, microphones, the whole deal. I’ll be the safest woman in Toronto.”
“Yeah, until the bad guys show up.”
“They had another homicide today,” she said. “Out in Regent Park, with a gun from the States. That’s twelve already this year. Twelve people shot dead and it’s not even July yet.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but-”
“They told me I could keep the clothes when we’re done. Not bad, eh? What do you think?”
What I thought was that she was making jokes about it because she had no idea what she was getting into. That she was even more scared than I was, if that were even possible.
“Natalie, for God’s sake. Are you gonna be careful?”
“Of course I am. When we’re all done here, you’re going to come out and visit me, right?”
“Sure. Of course I will.”
“I’ve got to go to bed now, Alex. I need to meet with everybody again first, then get ready for another meet at the coffee shop.”
“You’re gonna call me tomorrow night?”
“I honestly don’t know. I’ll try to call if I get a chance. But things might happen fast here. Once I get in the hotel, we’ll be pretty much working this thing around the clock. It’s like my whole life will be on hold for a while.”
“I understand. Call me when you can.”
“I will. Just don’t wait up for me, okay? It’s going to be hard enough.”
“Hard enough? What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry. That sounds bad.”
“Just tell me.”
“I’ve got to do this, Alex. Okay? I’ve got to do this the only way I can. I can’t be thinking about anything else tomorrow.”
“All right,” I said. “I got it.”
“I wish you were here right now. I really do.”
“Me, too.”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
I didn’t want to end the call like that. But I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to put any more pressure on her, didn’t want to add any more weight to her burden. I said good night and that was it.
A week later, and I still hadn’t spoken to her. She’d leave a message every couple of days. Always during the day, never at night. I’m okay, she’d say, things are moving fast, talk to you soon. I couldn’t call her back, of course. At any moment she might have been in character, with Rhapsody or God knows who else right there in the room with her.
Seven days, and the only time I wasn’t thinking about her were those few minutes on the night of July 4, when I was pulling those guys off the sinking boat. Otherwise, no matter what I was doing, working on the cabin with Vinnie, sitting at the Glasgow, lying in my bed and staring at the ceiling, she’d be right there in my head and I’d be wondering if she was safe.
Seven days with me going quietly insane while Natalie put her head in the lion’s mouth.
Chapter Three
The morning after the boat wreck, I woke up so goddamned sore, it was like I had been in the wreck myself. My arms hurt, my back hurt, and it felt like I had somehow pulled both hamstrings. Getting out of bed was comical. I got in a hot shower and let the water pound on me until I loosened up a little bit. When I was dressing I looked outside and saw the trees bending. That plus a light rain I knew would feel like cold buckshot in the wind. It’s July 5, I told myself. This is not a hallucination. It’s really the middle of the damned summer.
A cup of coffee and I was out the door. I could have gone down to the Glasgow for breakfast, but I wanted to get two hours of work done before I did that. I got in the truck and headed down the access road, past the second cabin my father had built, then the third, the fourth, and the fifth. They were all empty now. The people who had booked them had looked in the newspaper, had seen a high of maybe fifty-two degrees, a low of thirty- nine. They had decided they could just stay home and be miserable instead of coming all the way up here. I couldn’t blame them.
I came to the last cabin, a half mile down the road. I had been rebuilding it for the past few months. Vinnie had been helping me when he could. Things had once gotten a little sideways between the two of us, and this is how we made up. He showed up to help one morning, and without saying a word we were good again.
When I got out of the truck, I spent a few minutes looking around the outside. The little grooves I had cut on the bottom logs were doing their job, collecting the rain and letting it drip off away from the foundation. Thank God the roof was on now, was all I could say this morning. There’s no way we could get up there today and work on it without killing ourselves.
I went inside the place. It was still just a rough shell at this point. I had been trying to restore it to its full glory, to make it the best cabin in the Upper Peninsula again. This was my father’s masterpiece, after all. When it was burned down…Well, it had become an obsession with me to rebuild it.
I went inside and took my coat off. About five minutes later, I knew I either had to put the coat back on or build a fire. I wasn’t sure which was more ridiculous, but I figured the fire would make things a little cozier at least. I put some paper and wood in the new stove and lit it. That’s when Vinnie showed up. Vinnie LeBlanc, in his old denim coat with the strip of fur around the collar. His hair was tied in a ponytail today.
“Why aren’t you using the fireplace?” he said. He was the kind of guy who never said good morning. Or goodbye.
“I wasn’t sure how long I’d be here.”
“Is that draft still coming down? You’ve got to fix the flue on this thing.” He bent down and looked up the airway. This fireplace had always been his favorite part of the cabin. The way my old man had saved up all the rocks he had dug up over the years, until he had finally taken on this monumental task of building a two-story fireplace by hand. I couldn’t even imagine how he had done it alone. Hell, for that matter, how he had done any of this alone. Clearing the property, building these cabins, each one better than the last. It must have been therapy for him, after my mother had died. Something to do instead of sitting at the window, staring out at the street.
“What are you going to start on today?” Vinnie said. “The stairs?”
“I thought we should get the flooring in first. Then we can do the stairs.”
He looked up at the beams crossing the room above our heads. “You want to put the second floor in before you even build the stairs to get to them?”
“That’s what ladders are for. It’ll be easier to do the stairs after we have something to build up to.”
“You just want to get the floor in so it’ll look almost done. I’m telling you, it’s a bad decision.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re too impulsive. You know that. You don’t do things in the right order.”
I stood there looking at him. “You’re being a little abrupt this morning,” I said. “Even for you.”
“Abrupt? Who says ‘abrupt’?”
“What’s the matter, Vinnie?”
“Nothing,” he said. He didn’t look me in the eye. “Let’s get some work done. We can do it your way if you really want to.”
As he bent down to pick up his tool belt, I heard the little grunt he let out. I saw him stand back up a little
