Probably. I pretend to be really fixated on the detective’s desk. No family pictures. No stupid figurines or knick-knacks. It’s nothing more than papers. Work. I get that.
Can I get in with Bender and Tate isn’t the question. The question is . . . do I want to? Yeah, I need the money, but these guys are seriously scary. I don’t want to be the kind of person they’d want.
“I think you could do it, Griff.” Ben clears his throat once, twice. His eyes keep cutting to Carson. “Your uncle’s been bragging about you.”
Ah, that means Paul. My dad’s brother. He followed us here shortly after we moved; set himself up in a trailer two doors down from ours. Paul’s not exactly an upstanding citizen. He deals weed for a living and sometimes does jobs with my dad.
“We’ve heard it through a couple sources,” Ben continues. “He says Bender’s interested.”
I study my cousin, spinning his tone around in my mind. Ben’s pushing this awfully hard. Is he trying to impress Carson? It feels like it. I know what he’s talking about though. I noticed the same thing. Bender showed up at my high school a few weeks ago. I had no idea why he was there. Paul was picking me up at the time, and the two of them started talking.
It’s kind of funny actually. Paul’s the one who would really want to get closer to Bender and Tate. Since he’s a small-time dealer, a connection to them could help my uncle move up in the world. I’ve stayed away from all that, or at least I have until now.
“What if you asked Bender for some work?” my cousin asks, and again, there’s that hopefulness wiggling under his cool.
He needs this. For a second, I feel pretty good about that. I’m paying him back for all those canned beans and casseroles. Then I remember how I need it too. If I want a new life, I need to graduate, go to art school, get a real job, and get my mom out of here.
The gap between what I am and what I want to be seems enormous, but maybe this could be a step to close it.
“Yeah, fine.” I look at Carson. “I’ll ask around, but I can’t guarantee anything and you’ll have to pay me—no matter what Bender says.”
Carson shrugs. “Fair enough.” He swivels his attention to Ben. “So he knows about . . . ?”
My cousin nods once and I stiffen. Carson wants to know if I know about my dad. “Yeah,” I say. “He showed me.”
“Good.” The detective leans sideways to open the filing cabinet. “We can use that. From now on, your occasional presence here will be explained by saying you’re answering our questions about your missing dad, got it? It’s a good cover.”
Cover. Jesus. I scrub one hand over my mouth, not sure if I’m hiding a smirk or a grimace. They make it sound like we’re in a spy novel. Like what happened with my dad is useful and not . . . my stomach wads up. I drop my hand. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
“I can’t give you copies of the case files, but you can look through what I have.” Carson pushes a folder across his desk. Some black-and-white photos slide out and I guess I’m expecting some scary-looking dude because, for a few seconds, I stare at the top picture, unable to bend my brain around what I’m seeing. It isn’t a guy at all.
It’s Wick.
4
I tap my finger against Wick’s face. In the picture, she’s smiling, attention focused on some younger blond girl as they walk away from the local middle school. I’ve never seen her look so soft.
“What’s Wick got to do with this?” I lift my eyes to Carson, but all I can think about is the girl who jacked up Bradford’s front tire, the one who doesn’t get mad, she gets even. I’m confused . . . but there’s something else under the confusion too . . . something tight, irritated. I just can’t seem to name it.
Carson smiles like I am his favorite student. “We suspect she’s been aiding her father. There’s no way Tate’s been able to stay hidden for this long without help. I want to bring down the whole ring, including her.”
My chest pinches. “How do you know she’s even involved?”
“Hunch.” The detective’s smile goes thin, almost lipless. “How do you know her?”
“Same neighborhood. Same school.” Which is a shorthand way of saying I know Wick the same way everyone knows each other around here. Peachtree City’s not exactly a big town, but even if I didn’t live a few minutes away from her, I’d still know Wick from all the rumors.
First it was because her mother jumped to her death. Then it was because Michael Tate escaped the cops. For a while, it was because she was my neighbor and everyone in our neighborhood knows everyone else, but, when Wick went into foster care, they moved her.
Truth is . . . I’d like to know her because I know her, because we hang out. It’s a feeling I’ve had ever since first seeing her, an ache I can’t seem to lose. No matter how much I want to.
“We worked on a project together last year,” I add, and then wonder why I told him the truth. It’s not like I owe the detective anything.