Michael and I spend six hours kicking over rocks, seeing what we can discover, but the time is wasted. The bitch could be back on vacation for all we know, come to check out Pike Place Markets and the E.M.P, and we’d be none the wiser.
There is one person we could ask, of course. Mason obviously knows what she wants. He’s been asking weird, probing questions about my life, trying to tease information out of me, but I can’t quite figure out what he’s trying to make me spill. I don’t want to pin the guy to a wall and demand he tells me what the fuck is going on yet, though. Something’s telling me to watch, to wait, to see what happens. Either way, the kid’s going to fucking pay. My blood was boiling in my veins for days after I saw him talking to that unmistakable blonde bitch outside Mac’s, and it’s still simmering quietly now. It won’t quiet until I’ve made the kid hurt for betraying us. Fair enough, he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t owe me much, aside from the fact that I didn’t kick his ass and straight up leave him in the gutter when he first broke into the gym. But there’s honor amongst thieves in this shady, dark world we’re treading water in, and you can’t just go around working with the fucking DEA and expect no one to find out.
Michael and I sit in silence as we drive back into the city, each of us thinking deeply as we slip through the early dusk, heading toward the gym. As we grow closer to our destination, I feel fucking itchy and uncomfortable in my own skin.
Lowell isn’t just here for a vacation.
She’s here to mess up my shit, just like Rebel said she was. I did professionally embarrass her. I did steal her dog. Technically, she gave Ernie to me at the end, but I doubt she sees it that way. Of course she fucking doesn’t. Just when things were starting to look calm, like life was slowing down a little, like I was done dealing with shitty people, done with looking over my shoulder every time I walk out of the house, Lowell shows up again and throws me back in at the deep end. Sure, I could ignore this and let her do her thing, but it won’t work out that way. I know it won’t. Her arrival in my city is a precursor to terrible, awful things, and I need to be ready for every last one of them. If I’m not, I’m either going to end up dead or back in Chino and neither of those options are acceptable to me. Not now that I have Sloane to think about.
Speaking of which…
My phone, sitting on the dash of the Camaro, chimes, and I see ‘Doc’ quickly flash up on the screen.
Sloane: Are you busy? I need you, baby.
I immediately throw the car into fifth. “You okay to lock up after you work out?” I ask Michael.
“Sure.”
“Great.” I burn my way through the last five minutes of the journey, hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel. I’m not worried. If Sloane were in any kind of trouble, she wouldn’t have text me to ask if I was busy. She would have called until I picked up. If she absolutely had no other choice but to send a text, she’d have written SOS and nothing else—she knows the procedure if she’s threatened in any way.
Still, she needs me. She said she fucking needs me, and I won’t ever keep her waiting when she sends me a message like that. I drop Michael off, barely stopping for the guy to climb out of the vehicle before I’m tearing off in the direction of the hospital. I find Sloane in St. Peter’s deserted loading dock at the rear of the building—she’s taken to escaping there when she needs a moment to breathe—sitting on a concrete step where nurses and hospital porters sometimes come to smoke, hiding from their patients and their families.
It’s almost dark now, but I can see the pale shape of Sloane’s white coat shifting ever so slightly as I jog across the loading dock toward her. She looks up at me as I reach her, unsurprised by my sudden appearance.
“That didn’t take you long,” she whispers.
“I knew a shortcut.”
She scowls, because she knows my shortcuts involve running red lights and undercutting any driver I consider too slow, which is basically everyone else on the road. “My reckless boy. You’re gonna end up on a gurney, flat on your back, being wheeled into here one of these days.”
I shake my head. “I won’t. And if I did, I know a really good doctor. She’d probably put me back together again.”