“Good morning, Pippa,” I tell her. Pippa from now on. Not Newan.
She shoots me a filthy look. “Got any drugs in this place?”
“If there are, they’re not legal,” I inform her. “Besides, you’re the one with the script pad. Prescribe yourself something.” I slap her on the back, doing my best to hide my evil smile when she groans.
I stand out in the hallway for thirty minutes, making a number of phone calls. There’s still that one loose end I’m working on tidying up, but by the time I’m done on the phone, everything is set in place. I have plans for Sloane today. Big plans. I feel positively fucking devious when I head back into the apartment, almost itching with excitement. Been a long time since I’ve felt like this. In fact, I can’t ever remember feeling exactly quite like this.
Michael and Sloane are up. The three of them, Sloane, Michael and Pippa, are slumped on the couch in the lounge, looking mighty sorry for themselves. Sloane looks the least sorry—I’m pretty sure I fucked the hangover right out of her this morning—but she’s clearly still a little green around the gills. Ernie is spread out across all three of their laps, docked tail quickly flicking back and forth like a demented windshield wiper.
“You should have me put down,” Michael groans. “I feel worse than death. What happened last night?”
He doesn’t remember me coming in and holding him up in the shower, or he doesn’t want to remember. Either way, I don’t say anything about it. “You were all disgracefully drunk. I put you all to bed like fucking three-year-olds.”
“Any three-year-old put to bed by you would be mentally traumatized,” Pippa says, pressing her fingertips into her eye sockets. I point at Michael, enjoying the look of panic on his face.
“On your feet. I have a job for you this morning.” Michael looks like he’s about to puke again, but he doesn’t. He lifts Ernie’s backend up so he can rise shakily to his feet, and takes a deep breath.
“What? How are you planning on torturing me now?”
I write down what I need him to find for me on a Post-It Note, which I hand over, and Michael’s eyebrows rocket up to his hairline. Or where his hairline would be if he didn’t have a buzz cut. “You’re kidding me, right?”
I shake my head. “Better get moving, I need all that by the end of the day.”
Michael shoots Sloane a dubious look and then leaves, grumbling under his breath.
She gives me a confused look. “What was that about?”
“You need to get in the shower. We’re leaving in twenty minutes,” I tell her. “And despite how lovely it is to see you, Pippa, it’s time you went home. My girl and I have things to attend to.”
Pippa glowers at me. Good to see some things haven’t changed, but it’s nice to see she can bear to be in the same room as me for more than two minutes without trying to warn Sloane off me, too.
Once Pippa’s disappeared and Sloane’s showered and changed, I drive her across the city, listening to her softly humming in the car. She begins to get antsy as we approach the warehouse. “Where…where are we going, Zeth?”
“Exactly where you think we’re going.”
“Oh.”
Since we’re no longer being stalked by crazy gang bosses, it’s definitely safe for us to come back here. I can understand her hesitancy, though. Things have been easier at The Regency Rooms. They’re a blank slate. And, well, Lacey never stayed there with us. All of her things are at the warehouse, scattered all over the place—a fact I used to give her shit for all the time.
I haven’t been back here since well before she died. If I could get out of being here now, I fucking would, but I need to face it. I need to begin processing what life’s gonna be like without my sister in it. When we arrive at the warehouse, we head inside in silence.
The place feels like it’s haunted, though not by Lacey. It feels haunted by the people we were a couple of weeks ago—angry, lost, and unhappy. To some degree, we’re still all of those things, but now things just feel different. Now, I don’t want to be any of those things.
We walk past the many reminders of my sister, Sloane’s hand in mine, and I guide her to the access door past my bedroom. Down we go, down the stairs into the basement, and I collect the sledgehammer I left resting against the wall months and months ago, the last time I came down here.
“Here.” I hold it out to Sloane. She eyes it cautiously, folding her arms across her chest.
“What do you want me to do with that?”
“I want you to smash it into that wall behind you.”
“What?”
“Smash it into the wall. Tear it down.” She just looks at me like I’m mad.
“Are you going to bury me behind there or something?” she asks. Once upon a time, she might have asked me that question in all seriousness. Thankfully, she’s joking now.