Sliding Past Vertical (7 page)

Chapter
13

The first thing Sarah saw the
next morning was an empty birdcage. The tiny door dangled by one hinge; green
and blue pinfeathers fluttered in the broken wires.

She’d had a nightmare. The
parakeet had come back for revenge, a million times its normal size, and beat
her with her own useless T-square. She blinked a couple of times, thinking she
was still dreaming, but the cage remained.

The
cage. The Guns N’ Roses and Bon Jovi posters. The uniforms in the closet. Emerson
put me in Dee Dee’s room! Gotta get that cage out of here before she comes
home.

Sarah swung her legs over the
side of the mattress but misjudged the distance because she was unaccustomed to
sleeping on a real bed with a frame. Her feet thudded onto the floor and almost
took her entire body with them like a Slinky dropped down the stairs. In the process
of catching herself, she whacked her palm against the bed frame.

As she rubbed the pain out,
cursing bed frames and the situation that had left her rooming with a
parakeet’s ghost, she heard the squeak of shower knobs and then a ringing phone
no one seemed interested in answering.

“What now?” she groaned,
stumbling into the hall.

It had to be Emerson in the
shower.

Rashid was still asleep on
what remained of the sofa.

His glasses were off. If not
for the little mustache, he’d look about twelve years old.

She picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“No slave boys to screen your
calls?”

This nightmare was real. She
smoothed rat’s nest hair out of her eyes. Her head and hand throbbed. “Don’t
start with me, Jay.”

“What’s with Mutt and Jeff
dissing me on the phone last night?”

“They were just trying to
protect me.”

“From me? What did I ever do
to you?”

I’ll
make you a list.
“Someone
busted up our place yesterday.”

Silence.

“I think you know who did
it.”

Finally he responded, his
voice grave and cracking. “Did they take anything?”

“Is that all you care about?”

“No, of course not. You’re okay?”

“Yes, thanks for asking.”

“Did they take anything?”

A wicked grin crossed her
face. She wanted to tell him she’d flushed the coke. He’d go berserk. So would
whoever else might be listening. “We shouldn’t talk about this on the phone.”

“I’ll be there in ten
minutes.”

Emerson and Jay face to face
before she had her coffee. She cringed. “No, don’t—it’s not a good time.”

“Why, the boys won’t be done
with you by then?”

“Fuck you.”

Rashid stirred. Sarah pulled
the phone into the kitchen.

“What else am I supposed to
think, when two strange men answer your phone at one thirty in the morning and
tell me to shove off?”

“That maybe they’re trying to
help me out of the royal mess my asshole boyfriend got me into.”

He had the gall to laugh.
“Hah. I bet they’re helping you.”

“Fuck you again.”

“I’m coming over. Save me a
turn.”

She wanted to slam the receiver
down in his ear but he’d beaten her to it. She stomped around the kitchen,
making coffee and silently fuming.

Rashid appeared in the
doorway in an orange Syracuse University T-shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms,
all of them rumpled from sleep.

“Sorry I woke you,” Sarah
muttered.

“I was just about woken up
anyway.” He adjusted his glasses. “May I help you with that?”

“It’s already brewing.” She sat
at the table with a thud.

He joined her, barely taking
up any space on the chair across from hers.

“We are having a visitor?” he
said finally.

She blinked fuzzily at him.
“Something like that.”

His gaze met hers for a
second before it dropped to the sugar bowl. He had kind-looking eyes so brown
they were almost black. He fingered the little chip in the ceramic lid. “Maybe
I’m out of line to tell you this, as I don’t know you so well as Emerson, but
maybe it is not a good thing for this
goonda
to be coming here.”

“It’ll be all right.”

A long silence fell between
them.

“He is bad news. If he makes
you curse at him—”

She sighed.
Great. Now I have two Emersons for the price
of one, telling me what to do.
 

* * * * *

It began to rain, a sudden,
heavy downpour that fogged their windows and turned to steam on the hot
sidewalks. Emerson, still damp from his shower, sat at Dee Dee’s kitchen table,
sipping milk and ignoring Sarah.

She’d forgotten how sullen he
could be in the morning, especially when he was mad at her. If it were later in
the day, he might lance her with sarcasm. At the moment, though, she’d prefer
barbs to silence. At least she wouldn’t feel so isolated.

Jay pulled up in front of the
house and leaned on his horn. She turned toward the noise. Turned back. Emerson,
caught looking at her, glanced away, playing hurt little boy games.

“I’m sorry.” She touched
Emerson’s arm. His muscles tensed, pushing her off of him. “I have to do this.”

He said nothing.

Jamming her rat’s nest hair into
a ponytail, Sarah dashed out. Cold splats of rain landed on the back of her
neck. She threw open the car door.

Jay searched her hands, his
eyes raking her with frantic cobalt fire.

“It’s gone, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Sarah yanked the
handle behind her. “It’s gone.”

Jay cursed while pounding on
the steering wheel.

Knowing better than to say a
word until he calmed down, she waited, hands clenched in her lap, until he was merely
gripping the wheel and muttering. Technically she’d told him the truth. Either
way he would have gone berserk. But this way, he wouldn’t go berserk at
her.
 

“Okay,” Sarah started quietly.
“You have five seconds to explain how your friends knew I had it.”

Jay turned on her with an
evil sneer. “They’re not my friends. I don’t know how they knew.”

She wanted to slap him. “Bullshit.
What are they, telepathic? Have super-human scent glands, they could smell it
from the Pike?”

“Sarah—”

“They killed Dee Dee’s
parakeet.”

He gaped.

 
“And I won’t even tell you what they did
to the shirt you gave me. It’s like they were sending you a message.”

Color drained from his
cheeks. He stared straight ahead. The rain picked up, bombarding the car. The
deluge seemed to go on forever, during which neither of them spoke. Sarah was
too angry, and Jay, apparently, had lost his voice.

She crossed her arms over her
chest and threw herself back against the seat. “I spent five hours cleaning
last night and the place still looks like Bosnia. And my roommate’s smoking
again, thanks to finding her tampons shredded and little Petie dead on her
bedroom floor.”

She let that soak in a while.
He wasn’t so smug anymore. Even his cut-glass cheekbones seemed to have
softened.

“You don’t know,” he said
finally, voice cracking. “These guys...you short them or something, they don’t
exactly forgive and forget...”

He swallowed a couple of
times and started drumming on the wheel with his index fingers. He looked
scared. It was about time. Maybe he’d finally tell her what was really going
on. “Do they have something to do with the reason why your friend never called
for his stuff?”

He shook his head. “He did
call. He got picked up and had to lay low for a few days. Since I already had
the money, he wanted me to give his stuff to the guys who bailed him out, for
payback. Turns out they’re the ones who broke my windshield. I told you, these
aren’t happy-go-lucky guys.”

Sarah had a sudden, awful
feeling Jay was into this deeper than he knew. And by association, so was she.
“So I’m guessing you put off calling them?”

He turned away. “Something
like that.”

“And maybe...they came
looking for it themselves? And somehow figured out on their own that you’d
given it to your girlfriend to hold?”

His eyes darkened. “Don’t
push this.”

“Why?”

“Because...I might tell you
something you don’t want to know.”

She glared at him and then turned
toward the window. A maple tree shuddered behind a curtain of water on the
pane. “Fine. Then don’t tell me.”

He let out his breath. His
palm landed on her knee, sending a jolt up her leg. “Sarah...baby, I didn’t
want you mixed up in this. All you wanted to do was help me...”

He slid closer. Leather
squeaked against leather. “I’m really sorry this happened...”

The hand traveled up her
thigh. He was nearly breathing in her ear. Did he actually think—?

 
“Baby, I’m so sorry...”

The words vibrated through
her. She began to respond like a well-tuned Stratocaster. Boiling with fury, at
him and at herself, she whipped around, scaring him off of her.

“Too little, too late by a
long shot!”

“I can’t turn back time!” His
voice was hoarse, his hands outstretched. “I’ll buy Dee Dee a new parakeet.
I’ll pay for all the damage. Anything you want. I’ve still got most of the
guy’s money.” He reached for his wallet.

She couldn’t look at him. “I
don’t want your freaking money.”

“Then what can I do?”

Get
help
, she thought,
but the words stuck somewhere along the way. Her eyes dampened.

He slumped against his seat,
pushing a hand through his hair. “Man,” he said, after a long stretch of
silence. “I really fucked this up, didn’t I?”

Sarah wiped her eyes with the
back of her hand.

“Just when I thought you and
me, we had something special...”

Something in her heart went
“click.” She’d assumed he was talking about how he’d screwed up the deal.

“I thought, you know, that
you were the one...I wanted to ask you...” He smiled sadly as his gaze fell
away. “Never mind.”

She blinked at him through
tears. “What?”

He shook his head. “It
doesn’t matter. I’ve blown it. End of story.”

She should get out of the
car. Go upstairs to Emerson and cry on his shoulder for the hundredth time. But
she stayed. She had to know.

He worked his hands together
between his knees and worried the long fingernails he used instead of a pick.
“I was going to ask you to help me get into rehab. Not that half-assed place I
went to before,” he added quickly. “But something that’s really going to work.
Maybe a therapist. Or hypnosis. Or that thing at the hospital. I know I can do
it if you’re around to support me. And then maybe...maybe we can talk about the
future?”

He suddenly met her gaze,
eyes never bluer, lashes never longer. Eyes not just touching her everywhere at
once but also doing things to her she’d never had done before. And she was
thinking about them. He squeaked against the seat, pulling at his jacket.

“Baby...” His voice was a low
purr. “Look, this is kind of uncomfortable, talking in the car. You want to go
to my place for a cup of coffee?”

 
“Oh...Jay, I don’t think...” She knew
what would happen if she went to his apartment. He’d continue this magic trick
and she’d have sex with him, and it would be great because he felt so guilty,
so great she’d forget about times like this and all the other times before when
she’d wanted to strangle him.

“I just feel so...” The hand was
back on her leg. The eyes glittered. “You know,
close
to you right now. Now that all of this is out in the open.”

Except for the fact that
she’d flushed his coke down the toilet and let him believe it had been stolen.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m too upset.”

“Come on. I’ll help you take
your mind off it.” The hand drew music along her thigh: G chords and grace
notes and adagios. “Just one little cup of coffee?”

The voice was soft and heavy.
Her lids were sinking; her lips parted moistly. She wondered if she could be
alone with him and not succumb. They did need to talk, after all. And it was
getting awfully damp and stuffy in the car.

“All right, I guess, but...”
She thought of Emerson upstairs, waiting for her, worrying. She looked up and saw
a shadow move across the window. She imagined him behind it, eyes haunted,
mouth drawn down.

 
“Mutt and Jeff, huh?” He peered up to her
apartment. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you back before they miss you. Which one’s
Emerson? The Brit or the one who sounds like his balls just dropped?”