Iron Cast(34)

Ada frowned. “Doc Reeves has been coming here for years. Surely he’s not—”

“No chances,” said Johnny. He turned to Corinne. “I want everyone who doesn’t live here to leave—even Danny. Close the bar.”

Corinne nodded. Johnny was grabbing his coat and hat from the rack.

“On second thought,” he said, pausing in the doorway, “you’d better tell Gordon to stick to his post. No telling who will be nosing around.”

“Where are you going?” Corinne asked.

He was out the door without answering. The three of them were quiet for a few moments; then Ada sprang into motion.

“I’ll talk to Danny and wait upstairs for Doc Reeves,” said Ada, gesturing toward Corinne. “Come here and keep pressure on this.”

“Why me?” Corinne protested.

“I’m fine,” Gabriel said at the same time.

“I’ve been playing nursemaid for half an hour now, and it’s your turn,” Ada said to Corinne. “And Gabriel, there’s a lot of blood here, so stop pretending you’re not going to faint in the next ten minutes.”

Begrudgingly, Corinne moved around the desk and took up Ada’s post.

“What am I supposed to do if he does faint?” she called out, but Ada had already whisked out of the office.

“I’m not going to faint,” Gabriel told her. “And I can hold pressure myself.”

He pressed his hand over the top of hers. Corinne hesitated, considering Ada’s reaction if Gabriel did collapse and bleed to death. Finally she slipped her hand free from his and stood up. He had closed his eyes again, but she was fairly certain he was still conscious, so she didn’t panic. She pulled herself up to sit on the edge of Johnny’s desk, her feet dangling. There was a smear of blood on her palm, but she didn’t want Gabriel to see her wipe it off.

“It almost always takes a thespian to spot another,” Corinne said. “That’s why Johnny hired Jackson in the first place. Anyway, you’d only met Jackson once or twice, and it was dark. There’s no way you could have known.”

Gabriel’s eyes sprang open, and he gave her a wary look. Corinne couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t sure why she was trying to reassure him either.

“I’m just saying it could have happened to any of us,” she said. Had the conversation with Jackson really been that morning? It felt more distant than that. She couldn’t even remember the last thing she’d said to him. She hadn’t known Glenn that well, but he had been around for years. She hoped Johnny was going to make sure his body made its way to a proper burial.

“Thank you,” Gabriel said, still slightly skeptical, as if he thought her consolation was some sort of trap.

“You ever been shot before?”

He shook his head. That didn’t surprise her. She didn’t think he could be any older than eighteen. He’d most likely been hired by virtue of a steady gun hand and the ability to keep his mouth shut. What he probably didn’t have were years of experience running in a gangster’s crew.

“I took a bullet in the leg once,” she told him.

He watched her for a couple of seconds, then shook his head again. “Bullshit.”

“Dammit,” she said. “Usually Ada’s the only one who can tell when I’m lying.”

“High stakes are the key to a good bluff.”

“Well, there’s my problem,” she said. “I don’t care enough to try to impress you.”

He shifted in the chair and winced. The wiry muscles in his shoulders were strained in sharp definition, and his entire torso was slick with sweat.

“Why lie, then?” he asked, his voice labored.

Corinne leaned forward on her perch, suddenly certain that he was about to pass out. He didn’t, though, and after a few seconds his breathing evened out. When Corinne pulled her gaze away from his chest, she realized he was watching her expectantly. Warmth crept up the back of her neck, but she told herself he hadn’t noticed. Probably.

“To see who I’m dealing with,” Corinne said, resting her forearms on her knees. “It takes a good liar to spot another.”

“That why Johnny hired you?”

She laughed shortly. “Johnny didn’t hire me. He saved me.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. “From what?”

The lamp on Johnny’s desk cast twin glows in the centers of Gabriel’s pupils, and Corinne realized for the first time how dark his irises were. Almost black. Briefly, seduced by the deceptive intimacy of the moment, she wanted to tell him everything. About Billings and her parents and her brother and the entire life that she could never quite leave behind, that was still waiting for her even now.

Then the moment passed, and she slid off the desk.

“Never mind,” she said. “I’m going to change out of this dress. Try to stay conscious for that long.”

He no doubt had a retort to that, but Corinne didn’t stick around to hear it.

Once Corinne had changed into something less flashy and more comfortable, she went back to the office and resumed pacing where Johnny had left off. Doctor Reeves had arrived finally and was stitching the gash across Gabriel’s rib cage. Despite the doctor’s cajoling, Gabriel had declined to let a songsmith ease the pain. Corinne suspected that his staunch refusal had something to do with the memory of Harry, frothing in the alleyway, desperate for one more hit.