“No.”
“But you do work for a crime boss, don’t you? Don’t you!”
Zeth doesn’t reply. He gives me a worn look. “Sloane, I need you to look after Lacey.” We glare at one another for a long time while I try to work out if I should be trying to hide with him or calling for help. This feels like a pivotal moment right now. He’s denied shooting someone, yes, but he hasn’t denied being on a seriously dangerous criminal’s payroll. I know what that means. Whatever this man may be—murderer, thug, criminal—he is honest. With me, I know he is honest. Our bizarre little conversation in the hallway has only highlighted that. By not giving me an answer, he’s found a way around lying to me. He gives me a loaded look; it’s almost pleading. And then he actually does plead.
“Just…please. Please, Sloane. I’m going to fetch your sister. You can do this for me.”
“Yeah. About that. Where is she? I should come with you. She’s shy, Zeth, she won’t just leave with you.”
He shakes his head. “She’s somewhere you can’t come. Somewhere dangerous. I want you and Lacey here, where I can have people keep an eye on you.”
“Zeth! She’s my sister!”
“You wanna fight me on this, I won’t bother fucking going at all,” he growls. “Either I get her outta there alone, or I stay put and you can keep on missing your sister.”
Oh my God. He knows. He knows how badly I want to get her back and he’s using that to get his own damn way. “Okay. Fine!”
He looks away quickly. No expression of relief. No thank you. No nothing. Walking briskly, he brings me to a gleaming, matte-black Camaro, parked in perhaps the darkest corner of the entire lot. Through the window on the back seat Lacey stares worriedly back at us, knees tucked up under her chin.
“You brought her with you?”
“I’m leaving now, Sloane. If the cops think I had something to do with Archie being shot, then it sounds like I’m due a trip out of Seattle, anyway.”
I could kill him. I could literally wrap my hands around his neck—they probably wouldn’t reach the whole way around, but who the hell cares?—and throttle him to death. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
Zeth opens the door to the souped-up muscle car, leaning inside to scoop Lacey out. She looks even paler than when I last saw her in the hospital, although her eyes seem brighter, quicker, more responsive. He stands, holding her, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, and for a moment he looks torn. He cares for this girl. Loves her in his way. For the fifteen millionth time I wonder who the hell she is to him. But now isn’t the right time to ask.
“I’m tired, Zeth,” Lacey mumbles. “Just take me home.”
“Can’t, kiddo. Gotta leave you with the doc for a while, okay?”
Lacey eyes me surreptitiously and then buries her face into Zeth’s chest. He gives me a hard look. “Which way to your car?”
I feel like being a dick about it. You tell me. You’re a psycho, right? You’ve been watching me. You should know where my car is. But what purpose would that serve? The purpose of fuck you, that’s what. Still, I turn around and set off in the direction of my car. When we reach it I open the passenger door but Zeth shakes his head.
“She can’t. She won’t,” he says.
Okay. I guess I should remember that. He places her carefully onto the back seat and a small rucksack, that I didn’t even realize he’d grabbed, goes in there after her. Once he shuts the door, he places his hands on my shoulders. “She needs to see Pippa.”
I nod, at least not arguing with him on that front. “I’ll make that happen.” I open my car door, fully intent on getting inside and driving away as fast as I can—perhaps if karma is on my side, I’ll be able to spin up a few puddles of rainwater into his face—but he grabs hold of my arm, stopping me. The door makes a repetitive ding, ding, ding, sound as he stares down at me.
“I’m sorry, Sloane.”
I blink up at him, trying to read his expression. It’s a number of things mixed together, making it hard to decipher
“You’re sorry?”
An apology? Coming from his mouth? I’m so stunned I can barely believe my ears. Just seems like something he would never do.
He looks away, back across the car lot, clenching his jaw. “I don’t ask anyone for help. But I know I can trust you,” he rumbles.