Chase (7 page)

Gaia sat up slowly, touching a cut on her head and wincing as she glanced around at the crowd that had gathered. Her uncle started to cough, and Gaia helped him into a seated position, checking him over for broken bones. He was clearly shaken
but still intact.

“We're fine,” Gaia said to the little clutch of people. “Thanks.”

“Wacko,” the Con Edison worker said under his breath. “I tried to get his license plate, but it all happened so fast.”

“Thanks again,” Gaia said as the man stood up and walked off, shaking his head.

As the rest of the bystanders started to disperse, Oliver got his breathing under control. He looked over at Gaia and blinked rapidly.

“You saved my life,” he said. “Why?”

Gaia shrugged. “You saved mine first.”

Oliver looked down at his hands as if he couldn't believe they were there. “Back in the hospital, you said that Tom was . . . missing?”

Gaia's heart turned. “Yep,” she said, pretending to concentrate on dabbing the blood from the scrape above her eye with the end of her sleeve.

“But he's alive,” Oliver said.

“I don't know,” Gaia replied.

Oliver let out a breath, and his shoulders slumped a bit more. “Well, wherever he is, I'll find him,” he
said. “I'm going to put a stop to all of this. Once and for all.”

Gaia turned her head to look at him, and Oliver looked right back into her eyes. She wanted to believe him so badly—believe that he was really going to help her. But even if he really was Oliver, how long would he stay that way?

After all, Loki hadn't been born. He was a product of Oliver's bottomless self-hatred.

Good Progress

ED HAD NEVER SEEN SUCH A PATHETIC
display of athleticism in his life. There were four girls on the two racquetball courts that the school gymnasium could accommodate, and they all sucked. He hadn't seen a good volley yet. Mostly one girl hit the ball at the wall, it came flying back, the other girl screeched and ducked out of the way, and then the first girl had to chase the ball down. Then the whole process started over again. The guys sitting in the bleachers above him seemed to find it entertaining, but all Ed could think about was the fact that these were forty-five
minutes of his life that he would never get back.

And that if Gaia were here, she'd be putting all the other girls to shame.

Damn.
He wasn't supposed to be thinking like that.

“Hey, Fargo!”

Ed turned around to find Jake Montone lumbering down the bleachers toward him with Carlos Bernal in tow. The skin on Ed's bare arms
flared with heat
at the sight of him, and he turned to face the courts again, feigning such sudden intense interest, he could have been a college racquetball scout.

“S'up, man?” Jake said, standing a couple of rows down from Ed so that he couldn't avoid looking at him in his gray T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Carlos waited for Jake down on the gym floor, keeping one eye on the racquetball players for his own safety.

“Nothing,” Ed replied.

“Where's the little woman today?” Jake asked.

Ed pulled in a deep breath. “What little woman would that be?” he asked.

Jake laughed. “You know—belligerent chick with a nice big man-shaped chip on her shoulder?”

“Belligerent! Big word!” Ed snapped, in order to cover the surge of jealousy that threatened to overtake him. What the hell did this guy want with Gaia? And exactly how many guys did Ed's ex have lined up for herself, anyway? Sam, Jake . . . who was next?

“All I did was ask you a question,” Jake said, an edge creeping into his tone.

“Well, all I know is she's not here,” Ed said, lifting his feet and placing them on the step in front of him. “Out of curiosity, why do you ask?” he added, forcedly casual. It wasn't like he
really
wanted to know the answer. And it wasn't like he wanted Jake to think that he cared. But sometimes his tongue just felt the need to set him up for punishment.

“Not that it's any of your business, but I have something to ask her,” Jake replied. Then he turned and loped down the rest of the bleachers, walking with Carlos over to the far court to take their turn with the rackets.

What do you have to ask her?
Ed wanted to shout after him.
Is this like a help-me-with-my-homework-so-I-can-look-up-your-skirt question or a go-with-me-to-the-prom-so-I-can-put-my-hand-in-your-blouse question?!

But Jake was right about one thing: It
was
none of his business. Ed knew this. He had to stop obsessing about Gaia and what she was doing and who she was doing it with. This behavior was going to get him nowhere.

Unfortunately, it was tough to teach an old Ed new tricks. And he'd spent so much time focused on Gaia in the last year, it was going to be difficult to break himself of the habit. Perhaps impossible.

Ed picked at a string sticking out from the leather upper on his sneaker, wishing he had something else, anything else, to focus on. He'd thought dating someone
new would be the answer, but the further the school day progressed, the clearer it became that there was no one out there for him. This school was just
too damned small.
He'd been friends with every girl in it since his paste-eating days. And sure, there was a whole big city out there, but what was he going to do, go down to SoHo and pick up random chicks? The whole point of getting away from Gaia was to
keep
from getting his life threatened. Well, that was one of the points, anyway.

Maybe he should join a club. Or . . . or get a pet. Yeah, that was it. A dog. Or a nice cat. Yeah. Cats were cool. And then he could train it and feed it and it would cuddle up next to him at night and—

Yeah. Okay. Now he was thinking like a seventy-five-year-old woman.
Good progress.

“Hey, Ed!”

He looked up from his sneaker to find Jennifer Niccols standing on the gym floor directly below him. Her curly brown hair was tied up in a high ponytail, and she was wearing a pair of short blue gym shorts that might as well have been underwear for all the area they covered.

“I need a partner,” she said, flashing a toothpaste-commercial smile. “Wanna play?”

She took two rackets from behind her back and held one out toward him.

“I don't know,” Ed replied, finding it difficult to
imagine himself out of wallow mode. Especially as far out as he'd have to be to get up the energy for racquetball. “I'm not really in the mood.”

“Oh, come on,” Jennifer said. She put the rackets down and climbed the bleachers until she was one riser in front of him. “What if I said pretty please?”

She cocked her head to one side and pretended to pout, reminding Ed of the time in kindergarten she'd proposed marriage to him in the Housekeeping Corner. Yet another girl he'd known for way too long. They were like brother and sister to each other.

Back then, of course, Ed had given in to her girlish wiles and ended up with his first kiss on the playground later that day.

He still blushed just thinking about it.

“Yes!” Jennifer said, noting the change in his coloring. She grabbed both his hands and pulled him out of his seat.

Ed followed her down the bleachers and picked up the racket, then swung his arm around and around, loosening up. It actually felt pretty good to move. Maybe this wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe smacking a ball around would get out some of his pent-up emotion. And maybe participating in gym would take his mind off
his total lack of potential girlfriends
for a little while.

But later he was definitely going to get a cat.

Bra Strap

TATIANA LIFTED THE SMUDGED GLASS
of vodka from the bar, and half the contents sloshed over the rim onto her hand. She cursed under her breath and put the glass down again with a smack, attracting the attention of the surly bartender who was devouring the want ads at the other end of the counter.

“You gonna drink that or wipe down my bar with it?” he spat, one cheek so full of chewing tobacco, he looked like he had mumps.

Tatiana narrowed her eyes,
steeled herself to stop her shaking hands
, and downed the rest of the drink. She closed her eyes and tipped back her head as it burned down her throat, then immediately felt better.

At least she hadn't done it. Or, in truth, at least she'd been prevented from doing it by the tag-team heroics of what was left of the Moore family. And at least there were seedy, no-name bars open in this city in the middle of the afternoon—bars that didn't bother to card as long as you had cash. At least she'd been able to ditch the car and disappear.

Tatiana took a deep breath and leaned her elbows on the rough edge of the chipped wooden bar. She couldn't believe she'd just come so close to eliminating Gaia—the one person who knew how Tatiana could get her mother back.

But why did Gaia get Loki out of the hospital?
Tatiana wondered.
Why did she save one of her enemies from death?

Tatiana lifted her hand to signal the bartender, and he quickly poured her another drink. As she took another hot swallow, she realized that only one thing in this life was certain—she would never figure out Gaia Moore. But that didn't mean she couldn't use her.

I have to get her to tell me what she knows
, Tatiana thought. But if there was one thing that her near encounter with Gaia today had proved, it was that there was no way Tatiana could ever hope to take her. It wasn't as if she hadn't known this before, but watching Gaia throw herself across the street
in front of a speeding car
had just brought the point home for Tatiana. Gaia was practically a superhero. Tatiana couldn't rely on her own strength to deal with her. She had to find someone to help her—preferably someone with a little firepower. And that was the other reason that bars like this one were so handy—they were full of shady characters.

Tatiana lifted her finger again. The bartender sighed heavily, spat a wad of tobacco into a decaying glass, then trudged over to her.

“You ready to settle up?” he asked.

“Actually, I have a little trouble that I thought you might help me with,” she said, calling upon the broken English she spoke only days after immigrating to the U.S.
Her trouble with the language made her seem helpless, and guys like this bartender were often more inclined to notice a damsel in distress.

He seemed to notice her for the first time and smiled back, his teeth yellow and gapped. Apparently he wasn't the type of person who saw smiles very often.

“What kind of trouble could a lady like you have?” he asked, clicking his tongue.

“It is my husband,” Tatiana said, the lie dripping off her tongue. “He does not know how to stay at home, you know? I need to find someone who will teach him.” Tatiana filled her eyes with meaning and stared at the greasy man. “Do you know of anyone who might help me?”

The bartender stood up straight and looked around the nearly empty bar. He picked up a damp rag and fiddled with it as he weighed whether or not to trust her. Tatiana leaned into the bar, letting the sleeve of her wide-necked sweater slip down slightly to expose her
bra strap.
The man's eyes were riveted.

“I may know someone, but it'll cost ya,” he said.

“Money is no problem,” Tatiana replied.

The bartender looked her up and down. “Be here tomorrow at noon,” he said. “Brendan'll be here then. He's the one ya wanna talk to.”

Brendan
, Tatiana thought, smiling her thanks. She took a long, slow pull on her drink.
Let's just hope Brendan has a few friends . . . .

I've
decided to take this girl search very seriously. Why? Because one, I have no life and so I have time to take the search as seriously as I want. Two, if I find a girl, I will have a life and therefore will have remedied that problem. And three, I can't get a cat. I forgot that I'm allergic.

So where does one go to find cool girls in the city of New York?

1. Chelsea Piers. Pro: active chicks. Con: chicks who think that Chelsea Piers is the coolest place in Manhattan.

2. Bowlmor. Pro: chicks who can bowl. Con: chicks who can bowl better than me.

3. CBGB. Pro: musical chicks. Con: scary musical chicks.

4. The Guggenheim. Pro: cultured chicks. Con: boring chicks who can spend hours dissecting the meaning of a red blob on a canvas.

5. Washington Square Park.

6. 
The School of the Performing Arts. Pro:
Fame
chicks. Con: chicks with stage moms.

7. The Strand, half-priced-books section. Pro: chicks that not only read but know where to find a good bargain. Con: chicks that think you're Satan if you've ever been inside a Barnes & Noble.

8. Paragon. Pro: sporty chicks. Con: chicks who will spend two hundred bucks on a backpack.

9. The observation deck at the Empire State Building. Pro: international chicks. Con: too
Sleepless in Seattle.

10. Port Authority. Pro: opens up the field to chicks from Jersey and Connecticut. Con: also opens up the field to hookers.

Once Jake knew what he wanted, he went after it, and usually he got it.

Chocolaty Goodness

GAIA STEPPED OUT OF THE SUBWAY
station in the West Village and took a deep breath. The weak morning sunlight glinted in the window of a tiny shoe repair shop, and a man in a stained white apron blasted the sidewalk with water from a coiled hose. It was a new day. Gaia had come to school via a whole new route, leaving from Oliver's creaky, dirty brownstone in Brooklyn. Different subway platform, different train, different people. It was weird how seeing the world from a new angle could give a person a whole new outlook. And this morning Gaia felt strangely positive. She was going to figure out the meaning of the key she'd found at the Seventy-second Street apartment. She was going to find Tatiana. And Oliver was going to find her father. Everything was going to be fine.