Page 48 of Roma Queen
Lazlo’s cold, bitter laughter feels like it’s alive, oozing over my skin, poisonous and toxic. “Oh dear, Pasha. You really don’t know anything, do you?”
I roar as I bring the wrench down, shattering the speaker into pieces.
Twenty-Three
ZARA
The bus station’s deserted.I feel like a convicted felon on the way to the gallows as I follow behind Garrett; like always, he moves silently, even his footfall difficult to discern as he passes a newspaper stand and then a coffee stand, hanging a left, heading down a long, winding ramp into the parking lot below the station.
If my mother could see what I’m doing at this very moment, she’d have a fucking heart attack. Traipsing after a man I suspect to be involved in a kidnapping, down into a dark, secluded, parking lot? She’d take my fucking head off for being so stupid. I’m not completely unprepared, though. I have the gun I took from Seo-Jun’s safe in my pocket, pointed directly at the small of Garrett’s back, and my friend knows I have the thing trained on him. I flashed the handle at him as he pulled the bus into the bay numbered for the twenty-two service and killed the engine. He’s the mute one, but I didn’t have to say a fucking thing in order to make myself understood. He’d simply sighed and began walking across the station’s apron, his shoulder’s slumped, rounded in, as if he’d been waiting for this moment to arrive for a very long time.
Down we go in the parking lot, the only people in sight—a dejected, tired looking man with five days’ worth of stubble marking his jaw, and a red-headed woman carrying a bag full of death and hell burning in her eyes.
Garrett’s never had a car. Not once have I known him to drive anything other than one of the city’s buses. He leads me across the parking lot and stops in front of the shining black Mercedes Sprinter, nodding toward it with his chin.
I take in the vehicle, a little aghast. “This is it, isn’t it?”
Garrett stares at me.
I take the Dictaphone Yuri Petrov gifted to me out of my pocket, and I hit the play button. Sarah’s voice sounds too loud in the low-ceilinged underground lot; as soon as Garrett hears her speak, he visibly flinches.
“Well, hello! That looks new. Did you borrow it?”
“Thatdoeslook new, Garrett.Didyou borrow it?” I close my hand around the Dictaphone, forming a fist, and I use it to lash out at Garrett, catching him on the top of his arm. Garrett does nothing to stop me. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I scream. “It was fucking you! She was friendly when she spoke, like she fucking knew the person. And they didn’t speak. They didn’t say a fucking word! I thought it was the recording at first, but no…”
Again, I hit him. Again, Garrett does nothing to prevent me from hurting him. He stands there, taking it as I pummel him with both fists now. The gun’s still in my pocket. I could reach and grab it, I could fucking shoot him in the face for what he’s done, but I don’t. How long have I known Garrett for? Years. It’s fuckingyears, and in all that time I have never seen him look this miserable. He hasn’t denied it, and I’m never going to hear him say it, but…I need him to confirm that he was the one who took Sarah. That he hurt her. That he was the one who forced her into the back of the van we’re standing next to, and he was the one who took her to Lazlo.
I quit hitting him, exhausted, and I lean up against the side of the Sprinter, barely able to breathe. “Admit it. Tell me the truth.”
Garrett looks like he’s stepped outside of his body and left himself on autopilot. He’s unfocused. Dazed. His eyes are on me, but I don’t think he’s seeing me at all. I’m about to start screaming at him again, when it’s as if he’s shocked out of nowhere, an electric current zapping him, a defibrillator to his soul, and he’s back, right there, his eyes wide and alert. He meets my gaze, and I see the conflict in him. And…and so much pain.
Slowly, he nods.
It feels like he just took a knife to my chest, twisted it, and then snapped off the blade. My throat is so closed up, I can barely squeeze out the one word I really have to say. “Why?”
Garrett winces, hanging his head. A cloud of shame looms over him, but all I really see is the image that’s burned into my memory, of him nodding, telling me that, yes, he did hand our friend over to a murderer.
I feel like I’m gonna fucking throw up.
“Garrett, please. Tell me there’s some excuse. Tell me he forced you to do it. Tell me anything to help me understand this, because right now I’m having the hardest time wrapping my head around why you would lay a finger on our friend.” I’m so angry, I can barely see properly. My vision’s blurred and my veins are humming with so much adrenalin, it’s a miracle I haven’t gone into shock, but a part of me is still revolting against this; GarrettisSarah’s friend. My friend, too. He brings my mail up for me, even though he doesn’t need to. He lugs my huge water canisters up three flights of stairs every single week without fail. All I have to do is ask for help, and Garrett is there with a hand out, silently asking what I need. He’s not a bad person. He isnot. I just won’t believe it. I can’t bend the truth of him, the truths I knowofhim, into the shape of something ugly and sinister enough to hit Sarah and knock her out. That’s justnotwho he is.
Garrett’s face is a picture of sorrow as he turns and slides down the side of the Sprinter, opening the driver’s door. He climbs in, and then watches me through the windshield, his posture stiff and completely rigid. It’s obvious—he’s waiting for me to climb into the passenger seat.
An argument rages within me. The logical, responsible, smart side of me is insisting that I refuse. That getting in that van with Garrett will likely end up getting me killed. The reckless, careless, desperate part of me that wants my friend back no matter the cost? That side of me thinks getting in the van with Garrett is a horrible fucking idea, too, and that under no circumstances should I do it.
The problem is, I won’t get any answers if I don’t go with him. The cops are unlikely to catch him. He’ll be in the wind, and I’ll never know why a man I’ve considered a good friend would do something so terrible. So, I’m at an impasse. How badly do I want to know? How much will I risk for answers?
Argh, fuck!
Iamstill the woman holding the gun.
Iamstill in control still this situation.
At least that’s what I tell myself as I open the passenger door to the Sprinter, and I get in.
Twenty-Four
PASHA
