Dying Light (13 page)

Gloria cuts across three lanes of
traffic, while I white-knuckle her sketchbook. I finger the pages,
intent on opening it.

“
Don’t.” Gloria turns the
wheel hard, rocking me in my seat.

“
Is there something worse
than Tate Tower exploding?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, her eyes remaining
fixed on the dim highway stretching out before us.

“
About that.” Nikki leans
up between the two front seats. “We don’t have any context. It
could happen anytime, right?”

I turn so I can see her face. “A.M.P.s
can narrow an event they view to a specific day.”

Gloria glances at the sketchbook in my
lap as if seeing something through the closed cover. “It happens
the day after tomorrow.”

Neither of us question her.

I look down at the cover too, scraping
a nail along the metal rings binding the pages together. “We have a
little time. Until then, we have to focus on getting Jesse
back.”

I can’t hold the first two
times Jesse was taken against her. She was kidnapped—but this time
is different. She went
willingly
and it is hard not to be angry at her
recklessness.

I’m sure Caldwell made some threat,
but still. What are we going to do now?

I rock in my seat as Gloria slides off
the highway onto an exit ramp. Two turns later and we pull up
outside another apartment building. It’s similar to Gloria’s last
Chicago apartment except darker and less inviting.

I resist the urge to lock the car
door. “You’ve slept here right?”

Gloria gets out of the car. “We’ll be
safe here for now.”

That’s enough to get me to throw open
the door and exit the gold Cadillac. Gravel slides beneath my boots
and I hear a cat yowling from somewhere between the two brick
buildings. I close the door and peek around the corner to see an
alley with dumpsters and a herd of feral cats. Their little yellow
eyes glow in the dark.

“
Safe,” I repeat. “The
cats think so anyway.”

Nikki places a hand on my back. “She’s
holding the door for you.”

I glance over and see Gloria is in
fact holding a door open for me.

“
Oh sorry.” I lift my bag
up on my shoulder and shuffle across the dim lot, casting one last
look at the sagging brick buildings before I dart inside with Nikki
bringing up the rear.

The hallway is long and the same
squash yellow as Gloria’s kitchen back in Nashville. The wallpaper
is some kind of fleur-de-lis design in repetitious patterns from
top to bottom. Gloria hobbles up one floor, her cast scuffing the
stained, industrial carpet on the stairs. She comes to a stop
beside a door that was once white. Three brass numbers hang beneath
a peep hole.

222.

The hallway smells like curry and
someone is playing a TV way too loud. Upstairs, a baby is
crying.

The deadbolt is reluctant to give into
Gloria’s key turning, so Gloria bumps her hip against the door. The
bolt clanks open.

We step inside and Nikki locks the
door behind her. The room is cold and smells stale. I maneuver
around an armchair and go to the window, pulling it open a couple
of inches to let the fresh air in.

“
It’s freezing outside.”
Nikki drops her bag on a gray loveseat.

Goosebumps
rise on my arms.
“
We just need to get things
circulating.”

The lights click on, three weak
40-watt bulbs casting halos of illumination around the
room.

“
You’re not a fan of
luxury, are you?” Nikki’s eyes slide over the secondhand furniture,
the shag carpet the same color as the hallways, and the general
cramped nature of the room. The cabinets of the kitchen nook are an
old wood laminate and my guess is that there isn’t any food
here.

Gloria slides into a seat at the oak
kitchen table. “I have all of my needs met.”

I’m wrong about the
food
. I find a handful
of cans in the cabinet above the stove and several 2-liters of soda
in the fridge.

Gloria removes her laptop from her
pack and opens it on the tabletop. “You two can share the pullout
bed.”

“
Where will you sleep?” I
ask.

“
I won’t.”

“
Gloria,” I begin, intent
on scolding her. She’s even worse at taking care of herself than
Jesse.

Gloria sighs. “If I need to sleep,
I’ll take the chair.”

Gloria is at least twenty years older
than me. Probably twenty-five. She doesn’t need to be sleeping
upright in a chair in her own place. I can sleep on the floor, shag
carpet or no and Nikki can sleep in the chair. Of course, I already
know that will be a losing battle. Nikki won’t let me sleep on the
floor.

Nikki leans over my shoulder, peering
into the open cabinets. “Boxed mac and cheese and canned chili.”
She kisses my temple. “We’ll have chili mac.”

My stomach rumbles. “Better get on
with it.”

Gloria doesn’t look up from her
computer, already deep in her task. “There’s some cookware in the
drawer under the stove.”

I leave Nikki alone in the kitchen to
do her thing and sit at the table beside Gloria.

“
So does this place have a
back door too?”

“
Yes.” She leans out of
her chair and pulls open the curtain, revealing a bridge stretching
over a canal. She points at the shadows beneath the bridge. “I have
a boat under there.”

“
Good to know.”

“
We can jump from this
window if we need to.”

“
Are you trying to break
your other leg and mine too?”

“
Parachute
jump.”

I blink at her. She stands and
demonstrates. “Put your legs together like this and bend into the
knees. It distributes the impact evenly. Most of the
time.”

“
How can you do that with
your cast?”

“
I’ll manage.”

“
Or destroy your knee.” I
raise my voice so Nikki can hear me over the clank of pans. “Do you
know how to parachute jump?”

Nikki who’s got a pot of water on the
stove, ripping open the box of macaroni, pauses. “Unfortunately.”
She fishes out the packet of powdered cheese and dumps the noodles
into the water. Sometimes I’m amazed at how useful Nikki is, how
functional. If Jesse were here, she’d be pacing the room or lying
across the sofa whining dramatically.

I wish she was here. What is she doing
right now? Is she frightened? Does she have Winston? Is she in
pain?

I scoot my chair closer to Gloria.
“You said you know where Jesse is.”

Blue shadows dance across her face,
projected by the computer in front of her.

“
She’s here.” Gloria turns
the laptop toward me.

Here
is in the middle of Lake Michigan, about half a mile from
shore.

“
Oh my god.” I grab the
screen and adjust the angle. “They killed her and dumped her body
in the lake?”

I imagine Jesse wrapped in chains and
thrown into the icy water to die over and over and over
again.

“
No.” Gloria pulls her
computer away. “She’s in The Needle.”

It was described as a modern marvel on
our city tour. Jesse had absolutely hated being on that bus with
all the Asian tourists taking pictures of the buildings.

Why do they have to take
pictures of everything? It’s just a Coca-Cola can.

I enjoyed learning a little more about
the city. It was a nice activity, incredibly normal, and for one
afternoon it was just us. We got coffee and when I got too cold,
Jesse wrapped her arms around me and tucked me into her coat,
insisting I warm my hands in her pockets.

She was very sweet that
day.

“
So Caldwell owns the
building?” Nikki grins at me triumphantly. “You owe me
$5.”

“
I’ll pay you
later.”

Gloria frowns.

“
I bet it was Oprah’s.” I
shrug. “She seems like the type to want an impenetrable fortress
suspended over water. Don’t you think? Caldwell has so many other
properties in town, I just assumed he wouldn’t need
another.”

“
It was a good guess,”
Nikki says.

I lean over and peer at the screen.
“How are you following her?”

“
I implanted a tracker
when we were still at Tate Tower, when I yanked out her
IV.”

She’s very good. I hadn’t even seen
her do it.

I lean back in my seat. “What inspired
you to tag her?”

Gloria frowns and suddenly looks very
old. The skin under her eyes is puffy and unflattering. More lines
than I’ve ever noticed before bisect her forehead and surround her
mouth.

“
When he took her before,
we wasted too much time looking for her. As soon as I knew he’d
contacted her on the roof, I wanted to prepare for
this.”

Nikki opens and closes several
cabinets, making a whole lot of noise.

“
What are you looking
for?” I ask, turning in my seat.

“
A strainer.”

“
I don’t have one.”
Gloria’s full attention has returned to the screen.

Nikki closes the cabinet door. “That’s
okay. I’ll make do. You have a can opener though, right? If not, I
might have a multitool in my bag.”

“
Drawer to the right of
the stove.”

I reach out and touch Gloria’s hand,
forcing her to look away from the computer and meet my eyes. “How
are we going to get her out of The Needle? The tour guide said it
was surrounded by rocks that would destroy any boat and no
helicopter can land there.”

“
I’m working on that
part.”

“
No doubt Caldwell can get
in and out fine. Smart,” Nikki says from the kitchen, peeling back
the lid on a can.

I sigh and pick at a chip in the
chair’s wood with my fingernail. “Would it be too much to ask that
our villain be a little more stupid?”

Nikki turns on the fan above the
stove. For a moment, the grating whirl of the blades is all I can
hear.

“
I’ve called my back up.”
Gloria leans toward me, keeping her voice low. “They’ll join us as
soon as they can.”

“
Who?”

Gloria closes the laptop and gives
Nikki a sidelong look. “You’ll see.”

Jesse

T
his is the worst kind of torture I’ve ever experienced—close
and constant contact with an emo teen.

Just when I think Caldwell
can’t get any more depraved, he pulls
this
.

I sit on the beanbag chair, watching
Maisie lounge in her bed with her laptop in her lap. Huge earphones
cover half her head, her eyes wide and focused on whatever internet
crap she’s engrossed in. Meanwhile, I’m sitting here with a pug in
my lap surrounded by those eyeliner boys staring at me from the
walls. Every few minutes, like clockwork, Maisie lets out a passive
aggressive sigh to end all passive aggressive sighs.

Minutes tick into hours, and finally I
can’t take anymore.

“
Sweet mother of god.
You’re killing me.”

As soon as my leg muscles twitch,
giving the signal of my intention to get up, the pug leaps. He
lands on a pile of magazines. The glossy covers slide off of one
another and create a cascading pyramid on the floor.

“
What’s your
problem
?” she asks, slipping the large
headphones off of her head.

“
I can’t just sit here and
watch you read articles about Jonathan Kiss-a-lots or Grant
Great-hair or whatever the hell you’re doing. It’s making me
crazy.”

“
Sorry.” She throws up her
hands. “I don’t have an abundant social life here. I don’t know
anyone who flies, do you?”

I resist the urge to look
for Gabriel, who’s been strangely absent despite the fact it’s just
me and the kid. “
Did
you have friends?”

Her face goes as ice cold
and unreadable as any sculpture in the Art Institute. “Yes.
I
have
friends.”

“
I’m surprised.” I shrug.
“Caldwell doesn’t seem like the type to encourage outside
connections.”

She blinks at me.

“
Listen, I’m going a
little stir crazy here. Don’t you ever sneak out or anything? Don’t
you teens smoke or do drugs? Are you sure there’s not some way to
get a little fresh air?”

“
Eww, gross. And no.
There’s not,” she says with the same flat expression. “Unless you
want to jump onto the rocks and get brained.”

“
I could use my shield,” I
say. “I can jump with Winston. Just point me to the
window.”

“
You’re not
listening.”

“
You’re
not listening. I can’t stay here.”