Page 63 of Rooke
So, then, where is Rooke?
“Ms. Connor?Ms. Connor? I didn’t quite catch that.”
I must have asked the question out loud. “I’m sorry. Nothing. I can come by the station in a couple of days? Would that be okay?”
“Fine. Just, please, don’t talk to the press until we’ve made an official statement.”
“I won’t.” I hang up and immediately check my phone. No missed calls. No messages. I close my eyes.
“Would someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” This is Andrew’s best, most authoritative voice. His investment banker voice. HisI-earn-six-figures-even-in-Texasvoice.
Ali clears her throat. “Sasha’s dating a twenty-three year old ex-con with a penchant for romance novels.”
I could kill her.
“What? Is that true?”
I open my eyes, and Andrew has finally turned away from the window and is looking at me like I’m a stranger. I am a stranger to him now. We shared a past once upon a time, but now we’re both different people. We don’t recognize each other anymore. I’m suddenly struck by the awful realization that I never loved him. “That…that is so reckless, Sasha,” he chides. “Honestly, I knew you were struggling, but that is ridiculous. How can you—”
“Fuck you, Andrew.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, fuck…you…Andrew. Leave. Now.” He blinks, his eyelids shuttering, as he clearly tries to process what I’m saying. “Go back to Texas, go back to Kim. Go back to your new son, who I will refuse to call Christopher until the end of time.Go. I don’t want you here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Ali makes a choking sound when I mention his new kid. She jumps up out of her chair, her arms lifted as if jumping into action but she doesn’t really know what she’s meant to be doing. “You have another child?”
“You’ve changed,” Andrew whispers. “Are you still drinking?”
I cross the room and I slap him across the face. I’m done exchanging words with this man. I’m done looking at his face. I am done breathing the same fucking air as him. If he won’t leave, then I will. I turn, and I leave. Ali calls after me, but I don’t stop. I leave her apartment, and my body feels so much lighter. Andrew has had that coming for a very long time, and the knowledge that Casper is in police custody is almost enough to make me weep. My ribs, my face, my leg…everything feels almost back to normal. All I need now is for Rooke to show up and I’ll really believe that this nightmare is on its way to being over.
I’m in no hurry to get home. When it snows like this in New York, the city continues to throb and hum, always moving forward, surging to the beat of a persistent drum. The drumbeat slows a little, though. People seem a little more aware of their surroundings. Of the other people on the street. Of the smoke and the steam, and of the cold, the way it makes you feel alive.
I walk slowly, remembering the times I walked back from Ali’s with Christopher. I always wondered how he perceived the world without all of the chaotic noise; it seemed to me even back then that life would feel so much calmer without the sirens, the screeching of tires, the thump of helicopter blades and the chatter of street vendors. He would watch, studying the streets and the houses around him so intensely. He really looked at people, at their faces and their hands. He saw way more than most people.
God, I miss him.
I’m almost home when a silver Audi pulls up alongside me. I don’t think anything of it at first, but when the window buzzes down and a dark-haired guy leans out, I see that his shirt is flecked with blood and I really do start to think.
“Ah, Ms. Connor,” he says in a heavily accented voice. “You are far more beautiful than the photograph on the back of your book, hermosa.”
******
ROOKE
Jericho is gone.
It’s not hard to pop open the trunk of a car from the inside, and he’s worked around cars forever. If anyone’s escaping from the luggage space of an automobile, then it’s that man. I curse as I slam the trunk closed. There will be hell to pay for what happened this afternoon. He’s not going to catch me sleeping, though. No fucking way. If he hasn’t already bled out and died in a snow bank somewhere, if he has somehow made it back to the garage, I’m going to be ready for him.
ME: Are you still at Ali’s?
There’s no read receipt from Sasha. No little bubble that shows she’s typing. I have this sick, twisted feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me I need to find her.Now.
When Ali opens the door at the address Sasha texted me earlier, I can see from the look on her face that all is not well. “Where is she?” I demand.
“I don’t know. She had a fight with Andrew and—”
“Andrew?”
