Missing (17 page)

But it was too late.

Standing at the club exit were the cops.

And not just any cops.

Of course not,
Sam thought.
Of course it would have to be them. If they weren't here, this wouldn't be my life.

 

“MY FRIEND WOULD LIKE TO GEEVE
you a kiss,” Thierry whispered in his thick French accent, leaning close to Gaia.

“Oh, I couldn't
possibly,
” she drawled, holding a limp hand to her chest. Her thigh and calf muscles tensed—poised for a
quick attack. But she kept her big, dumb smile plastered to her face as if nothing were wrong. As if she hadn't already heard what his friend
really
wanted to do to her.

“We would
all
like to geeve you a keess,” one of the new guys said with a wicked smile. All the others giggled excitedly.

“Now, you boys better
stop,
” she said, still pouring on the Betty Sue.

“Oh, come on,
b
é
b
é
,
” Thierry crooned, draping himself over her.

She brushed him aside and stood—very calmly, very quietly. If they wanted, they could still walk away. They could still save themselves. “Sorry, boys,” she murmured. “I'm not that kind of girl.”

“Non,”
Philipe growled. He bolted from his chair and grabbed her arms from behind.

Breaking free of his lame grip took only minimal effort. But as she spun around, she saw something she hadn't expected: a knife.
The temperature of the fizz in her veins shot up several degrees.
Well. This was exactly what she'd been waiting for, wasn't it?

“Thank you,” she sang out.

“Fermez la bouche, salope,”
Philipe whispered. Translation:
Shut up, bitch.

Gaia replied by cramming her elbow into Philipe's gut. His eyes bulged. As he doubled over,
she shot her leg out at his face with a lightning-swift side kick, sending him sailing back into the umbrella of one of the other tables. The back of his head struck the metal post with a clang, and he collapsed to the ground.

The other boys stared at him in shock. And fear.

“Do you want to end up like your friend?” Gaia asked them in French.

Thierry came running at her. Pitiful. She leisurely planned her counterattack as he lunged for her hips— swiftly grabbing him by his ridiculous upturned collar and slamming his head down on her knee. He let out a whimpering bark.
It reminded her of a Chihuahua.
He fell in a sniveling heap.

Two down, three to go,
she thought. She maintained her defensive karate stance, waiting to see if another fool would be stupid enough to attack. They might be thinking that good old Betty Sue had just gotten a couple of lucky kicks in. For all she knew, the notion of a girl's beating the crap out of a bunch of guys might seem even
more
implausible to the French than it did to the sleaze back home.

Philipe had apparently recovered from her initial attack. And then he actually did something unexpected. Gaia realized how tired and out of it she must have been because she usually approached these situations like a game of chess . . . not only anticipating her opponent's next move, but his entire game plan, so
that there could be no surprises. But Philipe cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered.

Three more men in hideous club attire came running from the alley.

They joined the others and formed a loose circle around her.
The fizz was now at a fever pitch, but Gaia was perfectly calm.
That made
eight
of them total. And unfortunately, as she had learned time and time again with a group of assholes: The bigger their mob, the less afraid they were to attack.

Like now.

Yup. They didn't waste any time. One of the new men, in a silk black running suit, obviously fancied himself a martial artist. He came at Gaia with a barrage of kicks he must have learned in some lame middle school competition.
Ooh. Scary.
When he finally reached Gaia, she simply tripped him and hurled the weight of his body into another guy—causing them both to topple over.

Two more men instantly followed, though. They came at her, frantically punching away. She flipped one of them hard onto his back, but the other made contact, getting a good uppercut on her chin that snapped back her neck. As pain surged through her body, she realized that the food and exhaustion and glasses of wine had slowed down her reflexes.
To take on eight, she needed precision.

She didn't have it.

The one who'd made contact was huge, so she had
to take care of him first. She grabbed his wrist and twisted it in an inhuman direction. He cried in pain. She flipped his entire body on its back, sending his fat frame crashing against the concrete. But then there were two men holding her arms down—
and then a hard punch to her stomach that hurt like a bitch, and another.
It was all happening so fast; she couldn't focus. She used the support of the two men holding her to snap a flying kick at her assailant's face—then she jumped up and landed smack down on her captors' feet, causing them to cry out in agony and release her. That was the one advantage of fighting in evening wear:
heels.

But before she could even regain her balance, they were at her again. There was another unexpected blow to her face, then a kick from behind. She found herself tumbling into another man's clutches. He flipped her around and choked her.
They were like disgusting little growling savages, reveling in their collective violence.
But she couldn't stop them. There were too many of them, moving in closer and closer—collapsing on Gaia, kicking and punching and shouting....

She wasn't afraid. She just knew she was in serious trouble. She knew that there was a chance she could die on this beautiful street. And that filled her with rage. She couldn't let her life go. Not now. Not when it had just turned itself around.

 

“SO WE GOT YOU ON DISTURBING
the peace, assault, destruction of property. And I doubt very much you are of drinking age, Mr. Moon.” Detective Bernard laughed. He couldn't have looked more ecstatic if he'd grown himself some actual hair. “Throw in the little matter of this
murder charge,
and
hooo-eee!
We've got ourselves a full-blown criminal here, Reilly!”

Reilly nodded. He looked about as happy as Sam had ever seen him, too. Terrific.
They were having the time of their lives.
Destroying
his.
Were all cops this sadistic?

“Do you just follow me everywhere I go?” Sam grumbled, still panting heavily from his bloody encounter. He and Josh were both pinned against the wall just outside the bar door—and the cops had conveniently positioned themselves to block the iron stairway back up to the street. There was no escape.

“Well, what do you know, Reilly,” Bernard announced. “Mr. Moon seems to have
another
roommate's blood on his hands! Boy, this kid doesn't waste any time, huh?”

“Please,” Sam moaned—practically begging at this point. “Just let me go home.” He didn't even have the energy to be scared of the cops anymore. He didn't
have the energy to be angry, or righteous, or speak up for himself.
He certainly didn't have the energy for any more quasi-witty banter.
He just wanted to go home and nurse his aching wounds and pass out.

“He didn't even throw the first punch,” Josh muttered. “It was total self-defense, so unless you're gonna arrest us for a thirty-second bar fight, why don't you get out of the way so I can take my friend home?”

Bernard glanced at Reilly. They both shrugged.

“You know what?” Bernard said. “You're right. He should go home and rest up.” With that, both he and Reilly stepped aside and made way for Sam and Josh to leave.

Weird. But whatever. Sam didn't want to waste any time questioning their newfound kindness.
He'd never been able to figure out these two, anyway.
He began to climb dizzily up the narrow iron staircase. It took a fair amount of focus and concentration at this point; the thing was like a fire escape. Each step sent shooting pain through Sam's limbs. Josh followed slowly behind, basically spotting Sam all the way.

“We want him nice and fresh for his indictment tomorrow,” Bernard added.

Sam stopped in his tracks and looked back down at the detectives. “What?” he groaned, not sure he'd heard them correctly.

“Oh, did I forget to mention that?” Bernard asked with a sour smile. “I just found out today. The state deemed there was enough evidence. So Sammy's going to be indicted for the murder of Mike Suarez. Can you believe it?”

Sam knew that he should have felt terror at this moment—a whole new kind of terror. This was no longer a paranoid fantasy or an anxiety dream. It was no longer the thing he feared might happen. It was real now. It was happening. He knew that he should have felt more pain, more rage at the overwhelming injustice. . . . But he couldn't.
He was maxed out.
He was too exhausted to be anxious. Too saturated with tequila. His anger had been deposited into Brendan's head and gut.

Sam stared blankly into Bernard's eyes.

“I didn't do it,” he said with robotic simplicity.

Bernard gave Sam and Josh his most smug smile yet.

“You know, that's just what OJ said. And no one believed him, either. See you at the indictment, Sammy.”

Bernard and Reilly waved good-bye.

Josh looked down the stairwell and spat a disdainful gob of spit a few feet from the detectives. Then he turned around and helped Sam down the street.

“Come on, buddy,” he whispered, with his hand on Sam's shoulder. “Forget them. Let's get you home.”

Numbness. That's all there was: numbness. Josh supported Sam as they trudged down the next few blocks—step by step in silence, back toward the dorm. The only sound Sam made was the high-pitched wheeze of his stilted breathing, obstructed by the dried blood that had clotted his nasal passages and the corners of his mouth. Thoughts came in and out of his head.
Yearning for Gaia.
How would he tell his parents? What would he tell Mike's parents?

But no thought lasted for very long.

“Don't worry, man,” Josh soothed. “We'll straighten this out.”

For what must have been the hundredth time in the last few days, Sam wondered what he'd done to deserve a friend like Josh.
The guy was like an angel
—
appearing out of nowhere when Sam needed help the most.
Divine
help. He was almost too good to be true, in a way. Here he was, an RA in Sam's dorm—somebody who was supposed to enforce the rules—and yet he had taken Sam out to drink, even though Sam was underage and it violated . . .

Wait a second.

An unformed thought scuttled at the edges of Sam's consciousness, like a bug in the shadows. But he ignored it. Paranoia had done enough damage. Josh was
good.
Josh was a
friend.
And suddenly it
occurred to him: Josh deserved to know everything. He deserved to know the truth. After sticking his neck out for Sam for no good reason . . . yes. Sam needed to do this. Even if it meant risking the loss of Josh's trust. Josh needed to know the facts—before the police did.

Sam took a deep breath.

“Josh, I want to tell you something,” he began tentatively, as they made their way up Fifth Avenue. “But it's going to sound kind of crazy. So the thing is ...no matter how crazy it sounds . . . I need you to believe me. I mean . . . I just need you to trust me, Josh, I'm talking blind faith here.”

Josh nodded. He didn't say a word. He just kept holding Sam up.

And before Sam knew it, everything was pouring from his mouth. The entire Ella Niven story. The seduction. The betrayal. The stalking. The night Sam had found the needle in Mike's arm and Ella had hinted that she was the culprit . . . and then the awful discovery that Ella was Gaia's foster mother— and, of course, that morning when he'd seen Ella's dead body in Washington Square Park.
But in spite of reliving these horrors again, in spite of having to
articulate
them, Sam felt a strange relief.
Everything had been pent up inside him for too long. He
had
to talk about it.

“Sounds pretty nuts, doesn't it?” Sam concluded.

Josh didn't hesitate for a moment with his response: “Not any more than anything else. I believe you. And I don't want you to worry, Sam. We're going to get you out of this mess, all right? We'll figure out something.”

Sam nodded. But for some reason, when he should have been relieved (mildly, anyway) ...a nasty inexplicable feeling began to rise up in his gut—
a dreadful sort of sensation that polluted his thoughts like a dark, unexpected smog.

“There's something about this night,” Sam heard himself say. “The way I just
nailed
Brendan . . . the way that
bar
was . . . this whole night feels . . .
evil.
Maybe that's too strong a word.”

“Come on,” Josh whispered. “You're just bugging out. You're under a lot of stress. A lot of stuff has happened to you. More than one person should have to go through, you know?”

“No, man,” Sam insisted, trying to classify the sickness corroding his body. “I've just got this feeling about tonight. Like . . . the worst hasn't even happened yet, you know? Like something else just horrible is going to happen. Something . . . I don't know . . . the only word I can think of is
evil.
”