I’m about to tell Carolyn the barmaid not to bother fetching me another drink anyway, but my cell phone starts vibrating in my pocket. When I pull it out, I see Angela Ricker’s number flashing on the screen. Lord knows what she wants. I haven’t heard from her in a while. In fact, I haven’t done any work for Rise and Fall Magazine in well over a year. I answer the call, making an apologetic face at Shane. “What’s up, Angela?”
“Callan Cross. You’re a hard man to reach. I’ve been calling you for days.” She probably has, and I wouldn’t have a clue. I’ve been far too preoccupied with Coralie and her father. “I even swung by your place last night but the doorman said you were out of town. South Carolina? I told him he must have been mistaken. Big city boys never go back to their small town roots once they’ve escaped.”
“Ha! And yet here I am.” There’s a long pause on the other end of the line. Angela seems to be waiting for me to tell her what the hell I’m doing back here. She’s going to have to come out and ask me if she wants to know, though, and even then I probably won’t be telling her the truth.
“Right, well,” she says. “I have a job you won’t be able to turn down. You’ve been dodging R and F assignments for far too long, Cal. There’s no way you’ll turn down this shoot, though. No way in hell.”
“I don’t want it, Angela.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet.” She’s one of those women who pouts unnecessarily. I can picture her doing it right now as her forehead creases in frustration. “It’s a chance of a lifetime. And the pay is phenomenal. I’m not going to stop bugging you about it until you’ve at least let me explain.”
“Fine. Tell me what it is so I can tell you no again and hang up.”
Angela grumbles in the receiver, making displeased noises. She’s not used to having to pitch jobs to photographers. Normally photographers are clawing each other’s eyes out to get a foot in the door with them. “We want you to take some political shots. Alberto Capali is being sworn in as the new mayor of New York, and we want you to go to his house and take shots of his family, his home, him fucking walking his fucking dog if you like. But we want candid shots. No propaganda. If you see something that looks strange, shoot it. If he argues with his wife or his kid, shoot it. If you think Capali standing out in the freezing cold in his boxer shorts would make an amazing photograph, then you take the damn photograph. He’s agreed to be an open book.”
“I don’t do political work, Angela. You know this.”
“Bullshit. Every single picture you take is political. And the magazine has a budget of thirty grand for the piece.” She pauses. When I don’t make any comment, she says, “ Did you hear me, Cross? That’s thirty grand for a couple of days’ work. Normally you’d have to slave away for two months to get a paycheck like that.”
Thirty grand is a lot of money. And she’s right: it does take me a couple of months to get paid out like that. “All right. Since it’s a New York job, I’ll consider it. Send through the information. When I get back, I’ll take a proper look at it.”
“Come on, Cross. You should know better than that. This has to happen this weekend. I’ll have to put you on a flight first thing in the morning, and you’ll have to go straight from the airport to Capali’s place. That’s the only catch.”
“Right.” So this will be it. I’ll only have tonight left in Port Royal if I take this job. Shane can obviously hear what’s been said on the phone. He quirks an eyebrow at me, waiting to hear what my response will be. I sigh, then take a swig from my beer.
“Okay. Fine. Send me the ticket. I’ll come back to New York in the morning.”
I hang up, and Shane thumps me on the arm. “Man, I didn’t think you were gonna agree to that.”
“What do you mean? You were telling me five seconds ago that I should be excited to go back home.”
He frowns. “Yeah, well. I don’t know. I didn’t really think you’d listen to me. I thought you’d stick it out here, figure this shit out with her. You’re a stubborn motherfucker, Callan. When you have your heart set on something, you don’t normally give in all that easy.”
“Mmm.” I finish my beer, moving onto the next. “I guess. But you know what they say about the definitely of insanity. Repeating the same acts over and over again, expecting a different outcome. I’m done chasing this down, Shane. She was right all along. Too much pain has passed between us. Too much suffering. I don’t know that anyone would ever be able to overcome what we’ve been through. I have to be smart. I have to know when to call it a day. And right now, I think that time has come.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CORALIE
End of the Road
NOW