Page 52 of Refrain

Does it matter? Something warns me that it does. Every bit of her seems to add up to one indiscernible picture—Little Miss Yellow. I could draw her using just that one shade and never lose any detail. But it isn’t long before my brain turns to more than sketching.

“They’re still intact,” I tell her, pulling away. “The stitches, I mean.” I head for the door without looking back and keep moving until I’m in the alley behind the bar. I lean against the nearest wall, pull out a pack of cigs, and light four of them up one by one. I inhale them all down to nothing, flicking the ashes at my feet.

I fish out another cig and flick the end of it with my lighter. It’s been a long time since I chain-smoked a whole pack at once. But why quit now? I’m already halfway there.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHLOE

I’m aboutto head downstairs to help Francisco open when the burner phone in my pocket rings. Unease pools in my stomach as I fish it out. For Grey to call so early, something must be wrong. He works fast, but not this fast.

“What kind of shit are you playing here, Parker?”

I wince. The fact that he’s shouting proves my suspicion correct.

“What happened?” My throat feels tight, my palms slick. For good reason. If Arno decided to play some sick game at my expense, Piotr would be the last person I would need to worry about. “Did you run the number?”

“Yeah, I ran it,” he snarls.

“And?”

“Andare you sure you got that number from Mackenzie? You saw ArnoMackenziewith that gun?”

“Yes…” That part was the truth, at least. “I saw him with it. Whose is it?”

Grey sighs so heavily into the phone that all I hear is static. “That gun belongs to a cop,” he breathes out a second later. “A thirty-year veteran of the force. The soon-to-be fully instatedchief of police, to be exact. You know the guy. Richard Van Hallen. Someone who I know for a fact isn’t dead.”

Shock runs through me like a lance, and it takes me a second to remember how to speak. “You’re kidding me…”

“I wish I were, Parker,” Grey admits. “That gun was reported missing almost six months ago. Apparently part of the whole mess with Vincent Stacatto’s murder.”

Vincent Stacatto, an Italian mob boss infamous for human trafficking. His murder happened right before my transfer, exposing a corruption scandal that went all the way up to the top. Things before had beentense,to say the least, but they got much worse after Stacatto went down.

“What would a gangster be doing with that gun?” I ask. Arno or otherwise.

“I think a better question is—Why leave the goddamn serial numbers on it at all? That’s sloppy. Or…”

“Or it’s a bad sign,” I say, picking up his train of thought. “Someone’s setting a trap.”

“You always were quick on the uptake, Parker,” Grey admits and laughs gruffly. “Whatever this is, I don’t like it. In fact…I’m not even going to go to the brass with this. Yet. You lie low and see if you can find out more. I’ll continue to cover your ass here.”

“How?”

He grunts out another coarse laugh. “As far as they know, you’re onvacation—the emergency, undocumented kind.”

Fair enough. I don’t question it, and with a terse goodbye, Grey hangs up. I’m already staggering down the hall toward that infamous room at the back of the bar. When I throw it open, I find Arno inside, slumped over the table.

He starts when I slam the door behind me. “What the fuck—”

“What game are you playing? I had them run the serial number on that gun. Turns out, it belongs to a cop—”

“What the fuck did you just say?” He lurches to his feet, knocking his chair over.

“And not just any cop,” I continue, unfazed as he advances on my position. “A gun that belonged to the soon-to-bepolicechief, Van Hallen.”

Arno blinks and stops in his tracks, paces away. “What’s his name?”

Something tells me that he already knows the answer before I even say it. “Richard Van Hallen.”

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