The Operator

With a fast motion he let go, retreating to the far end of the step before she could act. Harmony stayed where she was, hand over her arm. He had her. All that was left was deciding whose car to take. “It’s a matter of pride,” he said. “Your pride, your future. Soon as Peri finishes cleaning house, she’s going ghost. I’m going with her. She might have to kill Michael, too, unless you take him into custody first, but Bill . . .” He lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “She won’t let that go.”

Untrusting, Harmony hesitantly scooped up her baton and tote. Jack turned away and headed up the stairs. “I just want Peri,” he said when she followed. “If that means Bill dies, I don’t care. I want her to be free to live her life. I want to be there with her.” He didn’t say he loved her. He couldn’t say it anymore and sound convincing. “I could use your help.”

Why couldn’t Peri have just let everything alone? Everything had been perfect.

Steps slow and methodical, they rose up the stairway, into the brighter light, side by side, together but apart. He watched her eyes flick to the functional camera, then down to the age-gray cement steps. “I’m starving,” she said, and the tension in him evaporated. “You like Asian?”

“Love it,” he said, lurching to reach the door before her and open it, forcing her to pass within inches of him. She smelled like sweet-woman sweat, and his smile widened. It was obvious by her grimace that she didn’t trust him, but he didn’t need her to for this to work.

“I’ve just got one question,” she said. “What’s in this for you?”

He squinted in the bright light, feeing the chill wind scour him to his soul. “Peri asked me to,” he said, remembering her flippant words in her apartment. “Maybe then she’ll believe I love her.”

Harmony made a rude noise, then looked over him to the horizon. “You don’t love her.”

Hands in his pockets, he shrugged and pushed himself into motion, sure she’d follow. She doesn’t know that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Feeling muzzy and slow from her headache, Peri slid the clock on the tiny armchair table toward her, squinting at it in the dim light of a scarf-draped lamp. It was the only spot of femininity in the entire room—apart from her. “Almost midnight,” she breathed as she pushed it back, realizing where her sudden disquiet was coming from. Withdrawal. It had been only five minutes since Silas had left to get some tea. It had seemed like five times that.

She stood, wavering until she found her balance and shuffled to the industrial-looking three-piece bathroom that LB’s conjugal closet came with. The small suite had probably once been a janitor break room, and between the bed, couch, and the huge TV screen, there wasn’t much floor space.

“I told you to turn that off,” she said, jerking the TV’s cord out of the wall on her way to the sink as she passed Jack—the hallucination, not the real one. The TV flickered, then held firm; the game show was an illusion as well.

“You didn’t say please.” His head down, Jack continued to synch his phone to the TV. She knew the flat-screen wasn’t really on. She knew the man in his thief-black suit wasn’t really there. But by God, it sure looked real. She’d begun hallucinating him right about the time Silas had started pushing that herbal tea on her, the delusion voicing the darker side of her psyche as Silas steadfastly adhered to the sunny side of drug addiction.

Peri splashed lukewarm water on her face, not looking at herself in the cracked mirror as she dried herself and shuffled back out. LB’s digs had been a noisy blur when she and Silas had come down the freezer staircase earlier today. The little hidey-hole just off the big playroom had been a little slice of heaven when LB had shown it to her, telling her she looked like shit and to take a nap while he and Silas talked. After she had assured Silas she’d never blacked out from hitting her head on the Pinto’s roof, he had left so she could collapse on the overstuffed couch.

That had been hours ago, and instead of waking refreshed, she’d been pulled from sleep by a migraine-like pressure in her skull. The clock said it was withdrawal, not a concussion, and it had swiftly been joined by the twin feelings of nausea and debilitating hunger. She’d gone through drug hangovers before in the course of duty, but this was an unending misery.

Pulse racing, she collapsed onto the couch, elbows on her knees and head in her hands. “Will you please stop fiddling with that,” she whispered.

“You didn’t say with sugar on top.” Jack chuckled. His attention went to the steel door that led into the big communal room, and she wasn’t surprised when a light knock sounded, shortly followed by Silas’s voice.

“Peri? I found some more tea.”

Great. Her expression scrunched up. “Come on in.” She tried to pull herself together as the door opened, a flush of noise coming in with Silas. He had a thermos in one hand, a bag with a pharmacy logo on it in the other.

“Here you go, Peri.” The wide-shouldered man closed the door with his foot, pace fast as he came to refill the ridiculous teacup already on the tiny table. “Nice and hot.”

She sighed, but the deep breath spun in her gut and made her that much more ill. “I don’t care if it keeps me hydrated, it tastes like Chernobyl cardboard,” she said.

His eyes flicked up, then back down. “I’ll just put it over here.” He hesitated, finally setting the thermos on the bedside table before gingerly sitting on the couch with her. “How are you doing?”