Ctrl Z (25 page)

Luca lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. Patel, two steps away,
gave him a benign smile.

“I thought
you
were watching, Mr. Alden,” King
growled.

 “I did keep tabs on him,” Marq said, worry making his
voice sharp, “but something’s up today! He never takes off, but this morning he
did. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later on I had a meeting
with this guy, Woodrow. And when we were talking he said something that made me
wonder if Jude was in trouble. ‘Cause Woodrow said how he was certain that—”

“Is this going somewhere, Mr. Lopez?” King said darkly.

“Yes,” Marq hissed, “absolutely! Luca
told me
that
the police were looking for Jude.” King turned, glaring at Luca over his
shoulder. “And I know why they’re looking for him. It’s because Professor
Woodrow went to the police about him!”

“He did WHAT?!?” King roared, his black gaze pinning him in
place.

“Woodrow went to the police,” Marq answered. “He’s a
professor at the univ—”

“You talked to this guy?” King barked. “He TOLD you this?”

“Yeah – like an hour ago. ”

Luca came toward the desk, cracking his knuckles.

“Did you tell anyone else?” King demanded.

“No,” Marq said. “I came here, right away. I need you to
help me find Jude. Please! I’m really worried!”

King smiled, and then, for the first time in all the
meetings Marq had had with him, he did something different. He stood up.

“You did the right thing telling us.” King said, reaching
his open hand out across the desk. “Thank you, Marq. I appreciate you coming
directly here.”

Marq shook his hand, his fear easing a notch. This would
change things. They’d find Jude. King would protect him.

“It’s been a pleasure working with you, Mr. Lopez,” King
said as he released his fingers. “I’m sorry that it has to end this way.”

“What?” 

“We need to clean house,” King said calmly. “Luca, you know
what to do.”

The next seconds moved so fast Marq didn’t even realize what
was happening. Luca’s hand slipped into his jacket, and he pulled out a gun.

“Come with me, my friend.”

Marq scrambled backward, terror making him bold. He sprinted
from the room, making it to the elevator before Luca reached him. A single
bullet to the brain took him to the floor. Luca frisked Marq’s body, pulling
out a wallet and a phone. He stood up, avoiding the growing pool of blood on
the tiled floor.

“Get rid of this,” Luca said to the guards standing nearby.
One of them groaned. “Now!” Luca barked, and both men came forward sheepishly.

Luca headed back into the office, striding across the floor
and setting the items on King’s desk. King reached out, picking up the cell
phone. He flicked the phone on, unlocking it with his thumb. The screen opened
without delay. There was no code.

“Stupid fuck,” King chuckled. Luca glanced up, but King
didn’t go on. Instead, he gestured to the door. “Luca, I need you to go pay a
visit to the professor. I want him gone, and the body disposed of before
morning.”

Luca nodded, walking out of the room. In the foyer beyond,
the two guards had pulled Marq’s body away from the elevator doors, and were
staring down at him in annoyance.

“You need a tarp, guys,” Luca grumbled. “C’mon, it’s not
rocket science.”

Luca side-stepped the smear of blood on the floor and
pressed the button on the elevator. In the office, King turned to Patel. He had
Marq Lopez’s phone in hand, and he held it out before him.

“I want Alden,” he said, handing him the phone. “Do whatever
you need, but make sure you bring him in. The phone might be useful.”

Patel smirked.

“Perfect.”

Jude’s phone had buzzed so many times in the last hour that
he’d finally turned it off. Marq was freaking out about something, but Jude
didn’t have
time
for him right now. He was finally making progress with
Indigo, and though they still hadn’t talked about what had happened at
O’Reilly’s, she’d let him come along when she’d met with her mother.

That felt huge.

Jude kept the camera at his side, moving it from place to
place when the conversation lulled.

“…so I was a hostess for a while,” Indigo said. “I met my friend,
Shireese, at the place where I worked. She was there on mornings, cleaning; I
worked nights, and we kind of hit it off. We’re roommates now. She’s sort of
like a big sister sometimes. Takes care of me.” Indigo glanced at Jude,
dropping her eyes almost immediately.

“She sounds nice,” Sherry said, voice wavering.  

“She is,” Indigo replied. “She’s part of the reason I went
back to school. She kept harping about how I could do something better with my
life. That I should think ahead…”

Indigo was saying things without directly saying them, and
Jude wondered if her mother even realized that. It struck him that he’d made
the exact same assumptions in the time he’d known her. That sometimes it was
just easier
not
to see what was there.

“…and in this class I’m in,” Indigo continued, “we had to do
a documentary, but I didn’t really have any pictures or anything.” She nodded
to Jude. “And then Jude had this idea of finding you.”

Jude smiled, and Indigo smiled back, and he began to hope.

“If you need pictures,” Sherry said, standing up from the
couch, “then just give me a second.”

She headed out of the room, leaving the two of them behind.
Jude reached out, turning off the camera. Somewhere in the distant room,
drawers were being pulled opened and closed again. Indigo fiddled with the seam
of her jeans, running her nails along the crease.

“Your mom seems nice,” Jude said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Kind of weird to see her after all that
time, you know?”

Jude nodded just as a door in the distance closed. Seconds
later, Sherry Sykes appeared carrying a baby’s photo album in one hand. Jude
flicked on the camera again as she sat down on the couch next to her daughter.
Side by side, Jude realized, the similarities between the two of them were
striking despite the differences in their coloring: lean build and fine
features, but especially their eyes. Indigo’s mother looked like a sibling
rather than a parent.

“There it is, Indie,” Sherry said, smiling. “I… I never
finished it, so only the first few pages have pictures. I always meant to do
the rest, but after you were gone, well, it just hurt too much to look at
them.”

Indigo stared at the album in her hands.

“Thanks, Mom,” she choked out.

Her mother reached for her, pulling Indigo into an awkward
sideways hug.

“I’m glad you came back,” she whispered hoarsely. “I missed
you.”

Indigo nodded, turning her face into her mother’s shoulder.

“Missed you too.”

: : :
: : : : : : :

It was dark when Cal came out of the university, the
security lights casting spectral shadows through the leafless trees. He flipped
up his collar, footsteps crunching through snow as he walked toward the parking
garage. He’d spent all day hoping that Marq Lopez would call him again, but
whatever he’d said had spooked him. Cal had phoned twice, only to get his answering
machine. This
should
be an easy request, but everything seemed to be
conspiring to stop him. He sighed, running a hand over his face, surprised to
feel how stubbled his chin was. Whether he intended it or not, it was happening
again. Indigo drew out the hidden side of him that scared him… the side that
said ‘
screw the consequences’
and took the risks that the
public
Professor Woodrow never did.

He grimaced. Maybe searching for Jude Alden
wasn’t
such
a good idea. Indigo would be furious if she ever found out. His shoulders
slumped as another came to mind:
‘Maybe it’s time to let her go…’

Reaching the entrance to the parking garage, Cal waved at
the guard inside the tollbooth before heading up the stairs to the second
level. His feet slowed as he neared his parking spot. Sometime in between this
afternoon and now, one of the lights in this corner of the garage had burned
out. It was yet another annoyance in a day full of them. He ground his teeth,
temper rising; some days you were better off staying in bed.

With a muttered swear, Cal lifted his keys from his pocket,
unlocking the door with the key fob, and pulling it open. The leather crackled
as he slid into the driver’s seat, slamming the door behind him. With the
windows frosted white, Cal started the car, hitting defrost before settling
back into the seat.

Something shifted in the shadows behind him. Cal’s eyes
jumped to the rear-view mirror. A blond man with a knife was waiting behind
him, the blade inches from Cal’s throat.

“Don’t move, Professor,” he growled. “You and I have some
business to attend to.”

: : :
: : : : : : :

Indigo was quiet all the way back to the station. She sat in
the train, head tipped up against the glass, her eyes lost in the middle distance.
Jude waited for her to say something about meeting her mother, but she seemed
content to simply hold his hand. Whatever had unfolded today had changed things
for her, and Jude was still struggling to figure out exactly where he fit into
it all. He smiled, looking down at their entwined fingers.

At least for now, she was letting him stay.

“You okay?” He’d said the same thing many times today, but
it was all he could think to say.

She shrugged, and Jude ran his thumb over her knuckles, wanting
somehow to make it better but not knowing how. For now, his hand, warm around
hers, would have to say all the things he couldn’t. He leaned closer, wondering
what
he
would say to his own father, if life had given him a second
chance. Would he apologize for all the stupid fights? For the arguments that
had robbed them of the time they’d been given? Rage at his father for not
calling
him
instead of his ex-wife, when that gut-churning feeling of
terror had overcome him? Or would Jude sit and cry, glad for one more moment
together? Jude sighed, the old ache nearer than it’d been in years. His own
past was mild in comparison to Indigo’s, but they both carried the same anger
and irresponsibility.

They’d just followed it in different ways.

Luca’s voice intruded.
'She stole my wallet at a rave. I
caught her, of course, but when I saw her face, it seemed a pity to let that go
to waste.’
 He winced, thinking of what
else
that statement
held, the lost innocence.

Jude leaned closer. “I’m glad you let me come along,” he
whispered.

Indigo turned from the window, smiling wanly. “Me too.”

Reaching the station, Indigo pulled on her backpack and
headed off the train, Jude at her side. Outside it was already dark,
streetlights twinkling like a necklace along the street. New snow had thrown a
blanket over rooftops, the air heavy with fat white flakes. Her eyes drifted
upward. For several heartbeats, she didn’t speak, the lingering silence making
her words more weighty when they appeared.

“When I ran away the second time,” she said, eyes on the
circles of light in the snowy sky. “I had no intention of going home again. I
grifted for a while. Squeegeed windows, sold pot, panhandled, stole, slept
outside. Whatever I needed to do, to get by.” She looked over at him. In the winter
darkness, her eyes were so blue they were bottomless. “And then one day,” she
said quietly, “I met Luca Brin.”

 Jude shivered. This was the part where her story
changed.

“He told me that I could make more money than I could ever
imagine, and all I needed to do was this one thing.” She smiled, but it was
brittle. “And so I did it… and I didn’t stop for a long time.” Indigo turned
away from Jude, staring at the street. “I’m not proud of it, and I wish it
hadn’t happened, but I did what I had to do to get by. And I don’t
expect
people to understand, because they weren’t there.” She turned back to him,
features sharpened by anger. “They don’t
know
what it’s like, Jude.
You
don’t know.
But that’s the truth of it, and if you can’t handle that, then
you need to walk away.”

Jude moved closer, his arms wrapping around her. He wanted
to make all of this history disappear, to change what had happened to her, but
the only thing he could offer was himself. He pressed his face to her hair, his
hands tight against her back. She was stiff against him, allowing herself to be
held, but not participating.

“I love you, Indigo,” he whispered. “Love you so much.”

She made a choking sound, twisting so she could see him. Her
eyes were anguished, brows drawn together in pain.

“Why?” she cried.

Jude shrugged.

“I dunno, I just do,” he said, reaching up to stroke her
cheek. “Doesn’t matter how it happened.”

She shook her head. “You shouldn’t.”

“Why?” Jude said. “Because you’re a survivor? ‘Cause you did
what you had to do?”

“No,” she said bitterly. “’Cause I fuck things up. It’s what
I do! Just ask Shireese.”

“And so what if you do?” he argued. “I have totally fucked
up my life! I am so messed up, I don’t even know how the hell I’m gonna fix it,
but when I think about what matters, it always come back to you. I love you,
and it doesn’t have to make sense.”

Indigo sniffled, a line of unshed tears glimmering along her
lower lashes.

“My mom said you seemed nice,” she said with sobbing laugh.

Jude grinned. “Yeah, well, I’ve spent a long time learning
to fake that.”

His hand slid into her hair, pulling her closer. “Give me
one more chance,” he whispered. “A control ‘Z’ on the last week. I’ll do
better, Indigo. I promise, just let me show you.”

She gave him a teary smile, and Jude leaned down, kissing
her.