Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(71)

“Excuse me,” Mo calls.

Startled, Jamie looks over, and is relieved to see that he’s talking to the kid.

“Keep door closed until you figure out what you want! If you let warm air in, fridge doesn’t work!”

“Shut up, freakin’ towel head,” the kid mutters.

Mo didn’t hear him.

Jamie did.

The cake shelf is still bare, and the kid is still standing staring at the soda cans, and the store is suddenly feeling hot and close despite the draft from the propped-open door to the street and the propped-open door to the fridge.

“Excuse me, excuse me,” Mo calls again. “You need to close door!”

“Yeah? What are you going to do if I don’t? Blow me up?”

Mo scowls, but ignores him, turning away. He opens a newspaper, jerking the page so hard the paper tears.

Jamie looks from him to the young punk, and back again.

Poor Mo. He doesn’t deserve this . . . this . . . misplaced hatred.

He looks up as Jamie walks toward the door. “Can I help you?”

“No, thanks,” Jamie tells him.

But I can help you.





Chapter Eleven

Thursday evening, Allison takes a deep breath and knocks on the door to Mack’s apartment.

He’s inside—she knows that, because she heard him come in about ten minutes ago.

She’d been waiting for hours for his return from the grim task of delivering his wife’s DNA to the midtown Armory, where a registry has been set up for those missing after the attack.

Earlier, Allison watched live televised news footage of the mob scene there. The cameras unabashedly zeroed in on distraught family members pushing their way past satellite trucks and reporters, curious bystanders, religious groups keeping vigil . . .

She looked for Mack, but she didn’t see him.

She wishes he hadn’t turned down her offer to go with him, or even instead of him. But he was adamant that it was something he needed to do alone.

After he left, she walked to Union Square and found an open supermarket. The shelves and cold compartments were picked over, and one of the clerks, an NYU kid working part-time, said the delivery trucks hadn’t been able to get into the city since Monday.

“We’re hoping they’ll get here tomorrow,” he said, “so if you live in the neighborhood, you might want to wait.”

“I don’t,” Allison told him. “I’d better get stuff now, while I can.”

“Where do you live?”

“Hudson Street, off Canal.”

“And you’re staying there?”

“I’m not in the evacuation zone.”

“But still. There’s asbestos in the air down there.”

Allison didn’t know what to say to that.

There’s probably asbestos in the air up here, too.

Or, Do you think I’d be breathing asbestos if I had anywhere else to go?

She didn’t say anything. Not then, and not as the kid told her his politics, which basically translated into the United States being filled with crass capitalists and warmongers who asked for it and got what they deserved.

Allison lugged home heavy bags filled with chicken and vegetables and milk and bread, all of which could be fresher. But at least none of it was past the expiration date.

Back at her apartment, safely locked inside, she made soup.

It wasn’t something she’d ever attempted to do before—unless you counted mixing a can of Progresso lentil soup with a cup of cooked ditalini.

But it suddenly seemed like a good idea to learn how to cook, a good idea to do something for Mack, a good idea to keep her hands and her thoughts occupied.

Busy, busy, busy . . .

Stay busy, and you won’t think about the scary stuff.

After browsing through an Internet recipe database, Allison put the chicken in a pot with carrots, onions, celery, and salt and filled it with cold water. Eventually, it smelled like chicken soup, and it looked like chicken soup, so . . . it must be chicken soup, right?

Pleased with herself, she deboned the chicken, added noodles to the broth, poured it into a jar, and waited for Mack to come home.

Now that he’s here—now that she’s knocked—she suddenly wonders if she’s overstepping her boundaries. Remembering all those people she saw on the news, gawking at the victims’ families, she wonders if he’ll think she’s just another curious ghoul.

But she’s not. She’s . . . a friend. A friend he’s known just a few days, but perhaps the only friend who’s here, in person, right now when he so clearly needs someone.

Or does he?

How do you know what he needs?

Maybe she’s the one with needs. Maybe she needs to help him more than he needs—or wants—to be helped. Maybe she’s sick of being alone, or . . .

No. She’s not afraid to be alone.

It’s more the opposite, actually. She’s afraid not to be alone. When you let people in, you’re vulnerable. When you don’t, you have nothing to lose.

Mack’s door opens, and it’s too late for second thoughts.

He stands there, looking even worse for wear than he did earlier. Looking like he needs a friend, or soup, or sleep, or . . . something.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she says. “I just wanted to bring you this.”