The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(93)

Caitlin looked up from a high-top table in the corner, and her smile lit up the room. Or maybe it was just me, floating on air all the way into her arms.

“You’re right on time,” she whispered and kissed me. I could have held that moment forever. Two greasy paper plates sat out, laden with pizza, one for her and one for me. She hadn’t doubted me. While I sat down at the table, she took out her phone.

“Cancel Case Exodus,” she said crisply. “Repeat, cancel it. Order is restored, business as usual. Get back to work.”

She hung up and turned her attention toward me.

“Job’s done,” I said.

“It’s funny.” She reached out for a glass jar of hot pepper flakes, sprinkling them on her slice of pizza. “All the time I’ve known you, we’ve been veering from one crisis to another. We might have to shift gears now.”

“We might have more time to spend together,” I said, “like a normal couple. We might even need…hobbies.”

“Oh, I’m sure we can keep each other busy.”

“Agreed.” I took a bite of my pizza. The melted cheese singed the roof of my mouth, but the flavor was worth the pain. “And now I can actually look for a new place to live without being shot at.”

Caitlin reached out to her paper cup of soda. She didn’t drink it. She just played with the straw, restless.

“Daniel.”

“Mm-hmm?”

“I’ve been thinking. I’m…I’m not inviting you to move in with me. It’s too soon. There are too many questions, too many things we both have to come to terms with.”

“I would never ask—”

“But I think,” she said, cutting me off, “given how you do seem to be spending the night a little more often…you should have a drawer.”

I blinked. “A drawer?”

“A drawer. You know, for toiletries, and an emergency change of clothes, and that sort of thing. Just to make it easier. Easier for you to stay with me.”

I reached across the table and took her hand.

“I’d like that,” I said. “I’d like that a lot.”

“You’ll have to pick out which drawer you want, of course,” she said. “Sooner is better.”

“How soon?” I said.

“Why don’t you come home with me tonight?”

“You,” I said, “just want to drive my car again.”

She winked.

? ? ?

You couldn’t turn on a radio or a television the next morning without hearing the news. The cops had staged a daring moonlight raid on the Enclave, the story went, following evidence that Carmichael-Sterling’s management was behind the kidnapping ring at the New Life shelter. A hundred drugged and confused homeless people, some from as far away as San Francisco and Tucson, had been freed from captivity without incident.

The talking heads were having a field day, calling it a “real life horror movie” and speculating about how Carmichael-Sterling’s wealthy backers were involved in everything from gladiator fights to snuff movies. The headline on one tabloid site screamed “Unanswered Questions in Carmichael Case: Were the Rich Literally Eating the Poor?”

Harmony Black massaged the news, smooth as silk. She gave them sexy questions to speculate on all day long while hiding the real story. There weren’t any photographs of what the first responders found up on that penthouse floor, and the news maintained that Lauren Carmichael—along with her entire board of directors and a laundry list of names Meadow’s confession implicated—were wanted for questioning. I didn’t know if that meant Harmony had covered up Lauren’s death, snaking off with the body for her bosses back in Washington, or if there was just so little left after the fire and the fall that her remains hadn’t been identified yet.

The Xerxes mercs, the ones who couldn’t slip the dragnet, gave up without firing a shot. Angus Caine wasn’t one of them. The feds flashed his mug around too, as one of the suspects wanted for questioning, and the revelation of a British private military company working for criminals on American soil kicked up a little dust storm of its own.

No mention of Nedry and Clark, either captured or wanted. They’d gotten lost in the wind.

The doors of St. Jude’s leaned wide open to let in the morning sun. I pulled up to the curb and got out, cupping my hand over my eyes to cut the glare. Pixie spotted me from across the room as I stepped inside. She didn’t quite make a beeline for me. I saw the drag in her step.

“Hey,” I said. “Looks like business is picking up.”

She looked over at the crowd of regulars lining up at the chow tables, and nodded.

“Yeah.” She crossed her arms tight over her chest. “A lot of people came back last night. A whole lot of families are back together again. They’re still in a rough spot, but…they’re together.”

“Told you.”

She looked at me and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, you did.”

“So,” I said. “We cool now?”

“There’s stuff—” she started to say. She dropped her arms to her sides. “There’s some stuff I don’t want to get involved in, okay? Stuff I wish I didn’t know, but there’s no changing that. But, yeah. We’re cool. And if you need me, for a job or whatever…you can call me.”