The Brokenhearted (34 page)

But just as quickly as he woke up, he falls unconscious again.

“Totally normal,” Jax says. “He’ll be in and out for a while.”

I cry a while longer, until it feels pointless to keep it up. I study Jax as she stitches Ford’s chest, the needle moving back and forth under his taut, smooth skin. Her tattoo flashes on her arm every other stitch. The little red heart around the word
Noa
.

“Who is Noa?” I ask at last, after Jax ties a knot in the thread and has put a white gauze bandage on top.

Jax purses her lips, not answering for a long time. Finally she looks up at me and takes a breath. “She was my daughter.”

Then she corrects herself. “She
is
my daughter. No longer living among us, though.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur, my eyes filling up with tears again when I imagine everything Jax has been through. “What happened to her?”

“Congenital defect in the left ventricle of her heart. She was six years old.” Jax draws a shaky breath, her blue eyes magnified behind her thick glasses steady on mine. “She was dying. All the medical interventions had failed. We had the best specialists. I called in every favor I could through the university lab. And when eight different surgeons told us it was a matter of days before she died, I tried to correct it myself—” She shakes her head and her silver curls bounce. “And . . . I failed. She died on the table. My husband pressed charges. I lost my lab, my license, my family, everything. All at once. And now . . . well, now I’m here.” Jax winces, then forces a pained smile.

I study Jax, absorbing this horrible story. A few tears snake again down my cheeks. “How do you do it? How do you go on each day, living with the death of someone you love?”

Jax looks at me and sighs. A sad smile plays at the corners of her lips. “It’s things like saving you that give me a little peace. The anomaly isn’t not being able to save people—that happens all the time, to all of us, every day. There are people everywhere suffering, people we can’t help. It’s the few people you
do
help that get you through.”

I look at the filthy floor, my throat aching as Jax starts fussing with Ford’s breathing tubes.

For the next hour, we both sit silently watching over him, waiting. Ford does not wake up. The only sounds in the lab are his shallow breathing, the heart monitor, and Mildred banging her food dish against the bars of her cage.

My whole life, I’ve been waiting . . .

I let my fingers travel through his soft black hair.

Wake up, Ford. You’re the one, of the two of us
, I want to tell him.
The one with no blood on your hands. The one who still has a chance at being happy.
A few salty tears slide into my mouth.

I stare down at him, willing him to wake up and tell me:
What is it you’ve been waiting for?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER 42

“That’s all I know,” I say for the twentieth time, making sure to look directly into the eyes of the two police officers seated across from me at a bare metal table bolted to the floor. Liars look away, and I need them to think I have nothing to hide. “I’ve told you everything.”

At least everything I can. Which isn’t much.

The police interrogation room is freezing. I shift my weight on the hard metal chair, trying to find a way to get comfortable. But at four in the morning, after everything I’ve been through tonight, comfort is unlikely to find me ever again.

I know enough to realize I should probably have a lawyer with me, maybe Lyndie Nye, but when I mentioned it, the police said this was just “a little chat about what happened on Sumac Street” and that if I wanted a lawyer, they’d have to alert my parents. Nobody was accusing me of anything, the cops took pains to assure me when they intercepted me outside Fleet Tower a few hours ago. Not yet, anyway.

“It’s just, I’m really tired,” I say. How long have we been here? Two hours? Three? I’ve gone over my story a half-dozen times to Officer Rodriguez and Detective Marlowe, but each time they keep demanding more details, finding new ways to ask the same questions. I can’t blame them—my story is thin. They know it, I know it, and whoever might be watching me behind the two-way mirror on one side of the room knows it. But I’m not about to tell them about Serge’s help, or about the criminals I’ve left gift-wrapped for them. Or about the real reason I ended up at The Boss’s house. I could get arrested for a hundred different crimes by now—including manslaughter—even if what I’ve done has prevented just as many.

And I’m definitely not telling them anything about Ford.

Spread out on the metal table between us are ten black-and-white stills captured by the surveillance cameras connected to the gate of Gavin’s house. Turns out he was monitoring everything, even his own place.

One picture is of me, my face turned up toward the camera, my features screwed into a worried grimace. There are several of random partygoers in cars, on motorcycles, and on foot. And one is of Ford, the hood of his sweatshirt obscuring half of his face.

I kept repeating that I didn’t know any of these people, but they kept going back to the picture of Ford, asking me if I was sure. I pretended not to know Ford, swallowing the lump of sadness that rose up in me every time my gaze returned to the picture of him. Underneath his hood, he looked panicked. All because of me.

They asked me repeatedly why I was there to begin with, and for a while I just shrugged, opening and closing my mouth like a fish.

Finally I decided I may as well tell them about Gavin. I have no reason to protect him from the police. I told them he was my former boyfriend who’d gotten in touch and said he wanted to meet with me. I played the lovesick little idiot, which was easy since that’s what I’ve been all these weeks.

I recapped what I could, saying that I went to the party and that Gavin was there with a gun. I said I heard people calling him The Boss, and they nodded. Clearly they’d been after him for some time. Over and over, the cops make me relive the humiliation of Gavin’s scam. I leave out Ford and the shooting entirely. I would never forgive myself if I implicated Ford in any of this. As long as I remember not to focus my eyes when I look at Ford’s picture, I can get through this without crying.

“Okay, Miss Fleet, it has been a very long evening. One final thing I want to clarify: You say the last time you saw alias Gavin Sharp before last night was the night he was allegedly kidnapped?”

“Yes.” My voice is small and haggard. I’ve lied so many times tonight, both actively and through omission. I try to tell them some of the truth, just enough to keep my secrets. But still. “My parents didn’t want to negotiate with the kidnappers. They thought it best to call their bluff.”

“That must have been hard for you,” Rodriguez says. She’s tall and broad-shouldered, in her early thirties, buttoned up in a gray suit. She’s been acting blasé and bored during the whole interrogation. Bored, or maybe disbelieving. She’s played Bad Cop, while Detective Marlowe has been the sympathetic one who brings me a can of Sparkle cola from the vending machine.

I look at the mirrored wall behind them. It’s got to be a one-way mirror, just like in cop shows on TV. There could be twenty additional police officers watching. Or nobody. I have no idea. All I want to do is go home, go to sleep, drop out of the world altogether for as many hours as I can until I sneak out to visit Ford. He’s still unconscious in Jax’s lab, but I want to go be by his side.

“I already told you, it was
very
hard for me. I was furious at them. But it turns out they were right. I was conned.” I say this directly to the mirrored wall, suddenly wishing Harris and Helene were behind it so they could hear me say it.

“And when he called you, you didn’t hesitate before going? To a place you’d never been? Didn’t think about getting a ride with your parents?” Marlowe’s bright blue eyes meet mine, and I know I shouldn’t be reassured by his nicey-nice routine, but I can’t help but feel he’s my ally here.

“I didn’t want to lose time. I was so excited to see him,” I say, my voice tight with humiliation all over again. I’ve already told them all this. How many more times can they ask the same questions? “And I knew they wouldn’t want to take me to him. Besides, they were going out for the evening.”

“And you say when you got there, he told you it was all a con?” Marlowe frowns, shaking his head slightly as if to say
What a scumbag
.

“That’s right.” My voice is small. It still feels like fifty razor blades cutting into my chest to remember it. Maybe it always will.

“And how did that make you feel?” Rodriguez takes over. “Did it make you angry? I would have wanted to kill a guy who did that to me.”

“I wasn’t aware this was an anxiety assessment,” I say. “But yes, I was upset. I’m not a violent person, though, so killing him didn’t enter my mind.”

“Just one more clarification, Miss Fleet. The man you knew as Gavin Sharp pulled a gun on you. You were in imminent danger. So I’m puzzled why you didn’t stick around when the police arrived. Didn’t you want Gavin caught?” Detective Rodriguez raises one eyebrow.

My heart feels like it’s being squeezed, and I take a second to think about the best way to handle this question. I’m drawing a blank. I put my hands on the table edge, pressing the pads of my fingers into the cool metal as the seconds tick by. Before I remember not to do it, I’m staring at Ford’s picture and my eyes prickle with tears.

“Miss Fleet? Why take off, in that moment? I don’t think I quite understood it the first time.”

“I was sad. I wanted to be alone.” I stare down at the table, my cheeks reddening. “I was . . . embarrassed.”

“And the blood we found in the bedroom? Are you still asking us to believe you have no idea whose it was?”

“I’m not asking you to believe anything,” I say. “You can believe anything you want. It probably came from one of the hundreds of people at the party that night. Maybe he shot some people after I left. I didn’t see anything, so I really don’t know.” My voice breaks, and I fall silent, thankful that Jax helped me clean off the blood and loaned me a coat and sweater when I left the lab. Mine were completely saturated with blood.

The three of us stare at each other for what feels like several minutes, nobody speaking. Suddenly I need to get out of here more than ever.

I look at my wrist, wishing there were a watch on it. “Unless you are charging me with a crime, I’m going to have to get home now.”

“All right, Miss Fleet,” Detective Marlowe says, pushing his chair away from the table and standing up. “We’ll have a security detail on you for a few days while we find the whereabouts of the perp.”

“I don’t need a security detail,” I say tightly.

“He could come back and try to hurt you. After all, you’ve seen his face. He’s a very dangerous man.”

Let him try,
I think, staring at Marlowe petulantly.
Let him dare to try.

“Fine,” I say finally. “But you’ll keep your word about this . . . staying between us?”

“Absolutely. And here’s my card, in case you lost it the last time.” He winks as he hands it to me, which feels simultaneously creepy and oddly comforting. I pretend I don’t notice.

“Great. Thanks.” I start to stand up on wobbly, half-asleep legs. “Check the mall, the place they call Hades,” I say halfheartedly. Nothing in me believes they have any hope of finding “the man I know as Gavin Sharp,” but I may as well give them a fighting chance.

“Don’t worry. We’ll do our job,” Detective Rodriguez chimes in, resting a hand lightly on my shoulder and looking me in the eye. “And you do yours, all right? Stay safe out there. Any details you remember after you get some rest will help out tremendously.”

Officer Marlowe holds the door open, and I walk through it into the coffee-scented bustle of the police station, where four cops dressed in riot gear are dragging a couple of teenagers down the hall. One of them, a green-haired girl wearing a dirty white faux-fur coat, has a black eye. I swear I see two of the riot cops smile at each other.
We’ll do our job,
Detective Rodriguez said. What exactly does that mean in Bedlam, I wonder? Breaking up protests and clubbing people in the face? Gassing people for no reason? Because from what I’ve seen, it definitely doesn’t mean cleaning up the black market, or ending the drug trade, or catching the real criminals who control this town, or making sure good people are safe.

My job,
I think bitterly as they usher us down the hall and out to the lobby,
is to forget about all of this. To forget, or die trying.

I’m too exhausted to run home, so I call a cab. When I get home it’s five in the morning. I eat four of Lily’s blueberry muffins, crawl into bed, and fall into a sleep filled with nightmares of Gavin in a police uniform, handcuffing me to the table in the interrogation room, booking me for a thousand different crimes while my parents and Will and Serge look on, their faces blank and impassive, as if I am a stranger to them.

I nap on and off all day, making an appearance for lunch to tell my parents I’m writing a history paper in my room.

Come sundown, I’m wide awake. I need to be near Ford, but there are unmarked cop cars stationed by the front and back doors of Fleet Tower, monitoring everyone who goes in and out. I peer down to the street and realize there’s no getting out of here via the ground. I just have to hope the security detail is too busy monitoring the street to spend a second looking at the sky.

I open my window and step out onto my tiny balcony. I turn around and grab onto a gargoyle just above my window, preparing to climb. I should be terrified, but grief and rage have made me sure-footed. Or maybe I just don’t care all that much about dying anymore.

It takes less than a minute to lift myself up one story to the roof, my fingers and legs clinging to the few bricks that jut out in a decorative pattern from the façade. I move hand over hand, fighting the wind, and then I pull myself onto the roof to sit on a metal grate in front of the building’s tall metal spire.