Page 17 of A Week Away
“Okay. What’s your explanation?” There was a long pause while he tried to think of one. I waited. And waited. And I finally said, “You know, I think I’d like to find a men’s room.”
It had been a really long time since I’d taken a piss. I left the kid standing there. There was a wide hallway leading out to the gates. I could see the metal detector partway down. A bored looking security guard sat next to it. There were restrooms just before you had to go through security. I went in and took my time. Yeah, I needed to do my business, but I also had to think.
I’d just challenged the kid to come up with another explanation. Was he going to be able to? What would it be? And did he even care? Joanne Di Stefano knew her husband was dead. She’d told Gavin so.
Of course, she might have lied to make his papers more valuable. I’d paid five thousand because it was a life I could just step into. Okay, that hadn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped. But still…
And maybe the real Dom Reillywasout there somewhere living a life he’d bought somewhere and just stepped into. It was possible. But the more I thought about it the more unlikely it seemed.
I washed my hands, threw some cold water on my face, and walked back out to the ticketing area. Outside on the sidewalk there were a couple of janitors smoking. Opposite the ticket area was baggage claim. A guy in a rumpled suit slept on one of the benches over there. A luggage carousel was turning though it held no luggage and wouldn’t for hours.
Cass was standing under the arrivals and departures sign looking like he hadn’t moved at all. I stood next to him and waited. After a bit, I said, “I’d like to go home and forget this whole thing. I think you should do the same.”
“I have to know if she killed him.”
“No, you don’t. Has she been a good mother to you?”
“She a great mom.”
The picture he’d painted of a flamboyant gambler wasn’t of a classic great mom, but I didn’t want to lose the advantage. “Then nothing else matters.”
“Even if she killed him?”
“Maybe she was a great mombecauseshe killed him. Maybe she’s making it up to you.”
It was a stretch, I know. Killer mom makes good. But he was just a kid and it might not be hard to put one over?—
“That’s bullshit.”
“Okay, if she’s a great mom then she couldn’t have killed him. That’s your answer.”
“You’re right. She didn’t do it.”
I felt a surge of relief. I’d be home by lunch. Ronnie would have clients in the afternoon. I’d be able to take a long nap and figure out how to fix things with him by the time he got home.
“I still need to know who killed him.”
Ah, shit. I felt my afternoon nap slipping away.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous it might be trying to find out? Not only to you and me, but to your mom?”
“It’s only going to be dangerous if you fuck up. Are you going to fuck up?”
“Not on purpose. But the way these things go… We don’t know a lot about what happened to your dad. That means we don’t know if we’re fucking up or not.”
“We’re not going to talk to anyone in the mob. You feel better?”
“No. Sometimes just talking about the wrong people is enough to get you killed.”
“You’re smart enough to figure this out.”
“That’s flattering. But it’s not true.”
“I think it is. And it’s up to me.”
I walked away. I pulled the tin of Bayer aspirin out of my back pocket and returned to the men’s room. My shoulder was screaming again, so I ran some water into my scooped hand and swallowed four aspirin. It was more pleasant than chewing them. I walked back out and just stood there for a while.
I should go back and tell the kid to fuck off. What could he really do to me anyway? Lots. He could do lots. He could call Ronnie and tell him I wasn’t really Dom Reilly. Well, I think my boyfriend already had at least some idea that was true. Ronnie would help me. We’d have to get Dom Reilly’s name off our co-op. That meant a quit claim and a refinanced mortgage—awkward since I think we’d just made the first payment. We probably couldn’t get that done before Cass called the DMV and told them my license was a fraud. That would be bad. Definitely illegal and likely to have consequences. Who else could he call? The IRS. Social Security. Those would be even stickier.
