Page 64 of Rooke
“Yeah. He showed up. Wanted to make sure she was okay after everything with that guy. Oh, the cops phoned they caught him. He’s in the hospital.”
What the fuck is happening right now? I was meant to deal with Casper. I was meant to dole out justice to him, and now the police have him? Well, fuck. And on top of that, I just played a part in killing two gang members, my best friend is potentially bleeding to death in a sham hospital right now and I don’t know where my girlfriend is.
“When you see her, tell her I’m mad at her,” Ali calls after me as I leave.
“Nope,” I mutter under my breath.
When I head back out onto the street, a police cruiser is pulled up next to the Skyline and there are two officers standing next to the vehicle, peering in through the windows. One of them is talking into his radio. My face is a blank mask as I casually leave Ali’s apartment building and continue walking down the street right past them. It’s only after I’m around the corner that I allow myself to be pissed off that my ride is gone. And then nearly half a block later when the dread begins to sink in. Jared. My fucking jacket’s hiding his dismembered head on the back seat. Great.
I call Sasha, but her cell just rings out. I call her again, the cold stabbing at my lungs, my feet freezing from the snow. Eventually she picks up. Only it’s not her that answers.
“You’re too late, Cuervo.”
An indescribable fear claws at me from the inside. “What have you done?”
“Nothing. Yet. But by the time you get here, your pretty little girlfriend will be long gone.”
“Jericho, let me speak to her. I need to talk to her.”
“I needed for you to not shoot me in the chest and cram me in the trunk of a shitty sports car, but look how that turned out. We don’t always get what we need, huh, Cuervo?”
“What are you going to do?” Bile is rising up the back of my throat, burning, searing, making my throat close up. I will fucking kill him. If he hurts one hair on her head… If he so much as looks at her wrong…
“Rooke!”
I hear Sasha’s panicked cry on the other end of the phone; she sounds terrified. God, I want to go back. There was a point this morning, just before the sun came up, when I was laying next to her, naked, stroking her hair. I made a decision. Instead of staying in bed and enjoying those quiet moments with her, I chose anger. I chose retribution. I chose revenge. And now, it looks as though that decision is going to get her killed. If I’d stayed in bed with her, I would never have been at the garage. Jared wouldn’t have been able to tell that stupid, outrageous fucking lie, and Jericho would never have come to find me at the house.
A chain of events was triggered by the decision I made. A chain of events I will never be able to undo. The dye is cast. The wheels to my destruction are in motion. If she dies…
“If you’d like a little wager, of course that could always be arranged.”
A roaring silence sweeps through me. Jericho and his wagers. He always honors his bets, but it’s never a fair call. “What are you suggesting?”
“Well…let’s see. You shot me in the chest. I could shoot your girlfriend in the chest, too. See if she lives.”
“Or?”
“Or I could shoot her in the chest and push her off the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River and forget about seeing if she lives. I did some research on your pretty museum curator a few weeks back, Cuervo. Did you know she’s already taken one nosedive off this bridge? A miracle, they called it. No one survives the fall. She was in her car, though. Must have cushioned the blow a little. What do you think will happen to her without it?”
God. He’s got her on the bridge. I’m not that far away, but how long will it take him to follow through with his threats? He can’t push her. Damn it, he can’t. She’s not meant to die that way. She went through the trauma of it once already, only to make it through alive. Jericho is right; it was a miracle she survived. She won’t be that lucky again.
“So. Your call, Crow. You decide which one it’s going to be. Heads, I just shoot her and leave her on the walkway. Tails, I shoot her and into the water she goes. It’s really up to you. I’m hoping you choose heads, though. Who knows? Maybe you’ll make it here in time to save her life. Maybe someone will find her and call an ambulance.”
“I’m not choosing, motherfucker.”
Jericho makes a disappointed sound. “Ahh, that’s a pity. You know how I like a good bet. Never mind, though. It’s getting late, and I’m strangely feeling a little lightheaded.”
I hear the gun go off. I hear the scream.
The line goes dead.
******
I’m running. My feet can’t keep up with my desperate need to go faster. I slip and slide in the snow. Car horns scream at me as I blindly careen across streets lit up with headlights. I have to get to her. I have to get to the bridge.
The bridge…
The bridge…
