Then, ta-da, she’d be on her own. Not cleaning up the disgusting aftermath of other people’s lives. She looked at herself in the dresser mirror. Today was the first day of the rest-
“Princess!” Kev’s voice grated on her, it always did. Like he was king of the-
“What?” Her voice came out all twisty. She’d have to chill.
“What?” she said again, working on what normal sounded like. Not like brother Kev would notice. She could always tell him she was having a “bad day.” He hated her to talk girl stuff.
“Gotta hit the road again,” he yelled through the door. He pounded a couple of times.
What a moron.
“Why you telling me?” Good deal. They’d be gone, and she’d have some real privacy. “Adi-fricking-ós.”
“Adi-fricking give me a break,” Kev said. “I’m saying, we got a call from the cops. Another job. So we gotta go make nice on the landlord. Get this puppy in the bag.”
“Another…?”
“Some rich old lady got killed,” Kev said. “But fine. We’ll go, we’ll check it out, we’ll make a killing of our own. You don’t have to come. Whatever. We’re outta here.”
Rich. The magic word. And you know what it meant? It meant she’d had a great idea.
“Hang on, asshole. I didn’t say I wasn’t coming. Dad says I have to, remember?” Kellianne reached under her bed, grabbed the canvas handles of her empty tote bag, and pulled it to her. She picked up the bear, not really looking at those beady little eyes, and shoved it back into the tote bag.
“Two seconds!” she yelled. She jammed the bag back under the bed and adjusted the flowery dust ruffle to look like nothing had been disturbed.
She checked her image in the mirror. Her skin would clear up, once this was all over, and she’d get a real haircut instead of one of those student things, have an actual colorist make it blond, instead of doing it herself at the bathroom sink, like, every month. She actually had a pretty good body. That’s what she’d been told. She smoothed her jeans over her hips, imagining. Everything she thought she hated turned into exactly the opportunity she needed to make her life happen.
She checked the dust ruffle. Perfect. Plenty of room under the bed for whatever she was about to find at the rich lady’s house.
28
“Finn!” No use. The wind and the honking cars and the hiss of the traffic carried her voice away from him. Jane plowed across the plaza, grateful for her chunky black turtleneck, even though it was quickly becoming a wet black turtleneck.
“Finn!” Her ankle twisted under her, the heel of her boot stuck in a now-invisible crack in the uneven concrete. She caught herself, one-handed, on the freezing metal of a bright blue mailbox. She paused, throat dry from the cold.
“Finn!”
He turned her way-yes-but didn’t seem to see her. She pushed off the mailbox and sprinted, as carefully as she could, toward the retreating figure. He was almost to the T entrance. Now or never. She stopped, made her hands into a megaphone, and gathered her voice. “Finn!”
He stopped. He turned.
She waved and trotted toward him, like it was perfectly natural for her to be outside at City Hall Plaza at three in the afternoon in a gathering snowstorm with no coat.
“I thought that was you.” She dragged in a ragged breath. “I was in the Kinsale, saw you through the window.”
“Jane Ryland?” Finn’s eyebrows approached his hat’s plastic band. “Whoa. I told everyone you were in our office today, talking to Maggie, so cool. They all wished they could have seen you in person. They said you work at the paper now, cool. Hey. Where’s your coat?”
“Oh, Finn. You are a lifesaver.” She hated to lie to him, or to anyone, but she needed this info. This was going to be a total seat-of-the-pants fast-talking fabrication. “I was calling my story in to the paper, the Callaberry Street incident? I was sitting at the counter, dictating to the news desk, and I realized-I never got the correct spelling of Bree’s last name. Maggie’s long gone to Anguilla, lucky girl, but that meant I had no one to call. I was going to be in so much trouble with my boss! Then I saw you, and I was so psyched to see you, I forgot my coat.”
She paused, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling the snow stacking up on her hair and shoulders. Her nose was probably bright red, and she could no longer feel the tips of her fingers.
“I bet you’re on your way to the train, Finn, I’m so sorry. But you’re the only one I can turn to. Is it B-r-e-e or B-r-i-e? And how do you spell her last name?”
“This oughta be good.” Jake and D tramped up the snow-sodden wooden steps of the Allston duplex. A narrow front porch displayed a collection of soggy newspapers, some still in their plastic bags, and a teetering stack of abandoned yellow phone books. Two battered metal mailboxes, open and empty, one with a peeling label that said CKER. Left side, 343A Edgeworth Street, was vacant, according to Sergeant Hirahara in Records. Right side, 343B Edgeworth Street, was occupied by a Curtis James Ricker. Who was right now expecting the prize patrol. Not realizing that he was the prize.
“Almost feel sorry for the guy.” DeLuca poked the grimy doorbell with one finger. “Almost.”
A muffled thumping came from inside, like feet hurrying down the steps from a second floor. Someone was playing music, loud.
“Almost,” Jake said. “Be great to get his cell phone, you know? We could find out if he used it to call 911.”
“I’ll snatch it,” D said. “You distract him.”
“Good plan. Then we’ll figure out who’s gonna distract the judge from the Fourth Amendment.”
The inside door, white, pockmarked, pulled open, and a lug of a guy appeared behind the cracked glass of the storm door. Flannel shirt, worn jeans, face creased and puffy, like an aging pale walnut wearing a baseball cap. No shoes.
Sex offender, Jake thought. Though he knew the guy wasn’t.
“Curtis James Ricker?” Jake used the voice he’d perfected in the phone call. He raised his voice over the music.
“Who’s asking?” The guy looked him up and down, assessing. “You Mr. Emerson?”
“Mr. Ricker?” Jake said, avoiding the question. Greed. The great convincer. “We do have something for you.”
“But we can’t hear you that well,” DeLuca said. “May we come in? Maybe turn down the, uh, Allmans?”
The living room smelled like beer and cat piss. This guy probably wouldn’t open a window till spring. An open can of Mountain Dew balanced on a stack of magazines next to a full ashtray. The biggest flat-screen TV Jake had seen in a long time flickered a muted hockey game. Ricker aimed a remote at a box of blinking lights and the decibel level went down, marginally. No place like home.
“So?” Ricker held out a wide flat palm, then stuffed his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a thin leather wallet. He extracted a plastic card, held it in Jake’s direction. “I mean, here’s the photo ID you asked for. Take a seat, if you want.”
“No, thanks.” Jake took the ID, confirming that DOB and vital stats matched those in the probation records. Then he got an idea. Shit. A good idea.
“Mr. Ricker. One more question,” Jake said. “You have any… dependents? Or children?”
Ricker’s face hardened, assessing. “Why?”
“You do or you don’t,” DeLuca said.
“Forgive my colleague,” Jake said. “He’s binary.”
“Bi-?” Ricker looked at DeLuca.
DeLuca shrugged.
“Anyway, Mr. Ricker, I should have mentioned on the phone. If you have dependents, and we can locate them, your benefits might be increased.”