Delusion Road (29 page)

Keegan remained in the doorway, watching Willa reverse out of the driveway. His back to his father, he hoped he could ignore the disagreement they’d had that morning. Evan had disapproved of Keegan’s spending the day with Willa, had even begged him to call it off, but Keegan had gone anyway. “I told you I didn’t know when we’d be home,” he said. He raised his hand and Willa waved back.

“It’s just you’re a lot later than I expected.”

Keegan turned. “I would’ve called if there’d been a problem.” Actually, he couldn’t have without cell service, but his father didn’t need to know that.

Evan moved toward him. “What if you hadn’t been
able
to call?”

“Then I guess you’d just have to trust me. For once.”

His father sighed. “It isn’t you I don’t trust.”

“You’re talking about Willa? There’s nothing to worry about. I trust her.”

“You barely know her.”

Keegan’s mind flashed to their afternoon at the cottage. “I know her better than you think.”

Evan scowled. “You can’t have a relationship with this girl. You
know
that. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”

Keegan’s fingers whitened around the strap of the bag he hadn’t needed that day, and he forced himself to ease his grip, letting the bag slip to the floor. “And
you
know all about fair, right? You’re such an expert on making decisions for everybody else.”

Evan put his hands up. “Look, I’m not getting into this with you again.
You
have to trust
me.
You don’t realize what your actions could cost us.”

Keegan flexed his fingers so they wouldn’t make fists. “You ever think about what
your
actions cost us?”

Evan looked as though the words had physically struck him. “Every day,” he said quietly. “But I did what I thought I had to.”

“Really?” said Keegan. “That
justifies
everything, does it?” He turned toward the stairs. “That may get
you
through the night,” he said, his footsteps on the treads like the raps of a hammer, “but it’s not enough for me. It never was.”

“Son, listen to reason—”

“I’m sick and tired of listening,” said Keegan as he reached the landing at the top of the staircase and pushed open his bedroom door. “I’m sick and tired of waiting for my life to happen.”

“But you don’t understand how—”

Keegan slammed the door behind him.

It was only then that he remembered his brother in the next room. He braced himself for the weeping, but he wasn’t sorry.

From now on, things were going to be different.

N
ow that Griff was on Morozov’s good side again—if, indeed, that weird fuck
had
a good side—his appetite had returned. No longer in immediate danger of being eighty-sixed by one of Morozov’s goons, he could taste food again, which was why he’d decided this evening to indulge himself at the Cheesecake Factory on North Michigan. Once he finished the Chocolate Tuxedo Cream Delight he was working on, he intended to order the White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle and then maybe the Ultimate Red Velvet Cake. Looking at the menu earlier, he couldn’t help wondering which of those desserts Talia would enjoy most, and he’d decided this was the first place he’d take her. Now that he didn’t have a bull’s eye on his back, he figured maybe he could focus on his own life for a change.

Forking more of the Tuxedo Cream into his mouth, he thought again about the information that “well-placed associate” had passed along to Morozov yesterday. Despite all the time he’d spent surveilling the target, Griff had had no inkling the guy had the know-how to do what he’d accomplished during his last night at Battaglia’s, but Griff’s failure to kill him had, indeed, turned out to be a fortunate turn of events. How had Morozov put it?
Things happen for a reason.
Maybe. Or maybe people just
got lucky. Whatever the reality, at least it gave Griff a bit of a breather. Not that this development lessened the need to find the target—Morozov’s revelation about what the sonuvabitch had done made it even more important that Griff find the guy, get the goods, and off him ASAP. No one knew when that shit was gonna rain down, but it couldn’t be much longer. If ever Griff needed to finish a job, it was now.

All the same, though, he was taking tomorrow off. When was the last time he hadn’t spent at least part of every goddamn day trying to locate the target? Even when he was working on other hits, he’d still tweak his facial recognition algorithm and then comb through the results it pulled up, all before scouring fucking Facebook. The only positive part of
that
soul-sucking chore was spending time with Talia, even if it was only virtual. In fact, she was the reason he was taking tomorrow off. After all these months of keeping tabs on her, poring over every photo upload and text message, observing her through her webcam, even listening to her talk in her sleep, he’d decided he wasn’t waiting any longer. Tomorrow they would meet.

Swallowing another forkful of his dessert, Griff thought about how tomorrow was going to play out. He intended to spend most of it at Bean There Downed That so he could go over his strategy as many times as he needed. He liked the thought of doing his planning less than a block away from where she’d be sitting in some classroom, unaware that her life was about to change.
Both
their lives.

He would arrive early in the morning to give himself enough time to consider every
If this, then what?
scenario, anticipating all the things that might unfold when she arrived later that afternoon.
His main objective, of course, was simply to introduce himself to her, but he wanted to be ready to take things further if the opportunity presented itself. Sure, it was likely that Soccerguy89 would figure into each scenario, but he intended to have options for that, too. Nothing was going to keep Griff from her. Nothing.

From time to time, that inner voice whispered Gil Atkins’s name, but Griff ignored it. He was nothing at all like that lowlife. Gil had barely known the girls he’d chosen, and his involvement with them was never going to be anything but short-term—they were just temporary solutions for disgusting urges. Griff was making plans for the rest of his life.

Bringing the final bite of the Tuxedo Cream to his mouth, he was just about to wave down his waitress to order the truffle when he felt his phone begin to pulse. Not vibrate. Pulse. He dropped the fork, heedless of the people sitting near him who turned toward the clatter of cutlery, and pulled the device from his pocket. He knew he shouldn’t get excited—he’d had lots of hits in the past, none of which had panned out—but it was hard not to hope, especially in light of what would be happening tomorrow. There was no way he could build a life for Talia and himself until he had put this problem to rest.
Please bring me that fucker.

He pressed Cancel on the screen and returned the phone to his pocket, then reached for the case under the table and pulled out his laptop. He’d programmed his phone to alert him to any hits, but he preferred to use the computer to check them out, not only because of its faster processing power, but because its larger screen and greater resolution allowed him to verify more easily whatever the FRA had found.

Raising the display, he watched as the laptop woke up, a sense of anticipation building inside him as the retinal scan gave him access and the FRA came online. Please bring me that fucker, he thought again.

“L
ooks like somebody enjoyed her day off.”

Willa turned from her locker to see Raven grinning at her. “What makes you say that?”

“If your face was a light bulb, I’d have to wear sunglasses.”

Willa’s smile grew even wider. She’d felt it the moment she’d woken up that morning, and it had returned again and again as she’d showered, dressed, done her makeup, eaten breakfast, brushed her teeth, driven to school. She’d kept waiting for her cheek muscles to start aching, but she guessed that only happened when you forced a smile. This one kept surfacing all on its own.

“Anything to do with a tall, dark-haired someone we know?” asked Raven.

Willa nodded, beaming.

“He’s a good guy.”

“Yeah,” said Willa, “he is.” She thought of everything he’d shared with her at the cottage, telling her about Curtis and Lamont, how pissed he’d been at the way others had treated his friends when they came out. And about someone named Jermaine, who’d been arrested for something he hadn’t done. Keegan had been talking about his past, telling her about the guys he’d hung out with. Without his realizing it, though, the stories he’d shared
had told her far more about Keegan Fraser, about his willingness to defend the people he cared for, his refusal to look the other way if he saw someone being mistreated. Which explained his reaction to Wynn’s assaulting Bailey. “He is,” Willa repeated, her smile even broader. “A really good guy.”

A shadow fell across Raven’s face. “Gotta go,” she said, turning and moving quickly down the corridor toward her homeroom.

“You don’t call, you don’t write,” came a voice over her shoulder, its humorous tone belying the speaker’s true meaning.

Willa turned to face Wynn and the rest of them. She wasn’t surprised by the looks Celia and Britney were giving her, but that didn’t make it hurt any less as they glared at her. What
did
surprise her were the expressions on Todd’s and Jay’s faces. They looked embarrassed standing there in the corridor, almost as if they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Wynn, of course, looked like he owned the place.

“Hi,” said Willa, ignoring his comment and addressing the others.

“Hi,” said Jay, but his greeting seemed to fizzle. Other students in the corridor threw the group furtive glances as they passed.

Another beat of silence. Then, “You still doing social work?” asked Celia.

The comment made Willa fume inside. “Bailey’s really nice. You’d like her if you got to know her.”

Wynn snorted, and Willa felt her face burn.
You asshole!
She seethed silently as his smirk telegraphed his thoughts. He was rubbing her face in what he’d done, confident there was nothing she could do about it. The smile Willa had worn all morning had vanished, but she struggled to resurrect it. “What’d you guys do
with your day off?” she asked brightly, ignoring Wynn’s sneer.

“Hung out in Wynn’s pool all day,” replied Todd. “Too hot to do anything else.”

“It would’ve been a lot nicer on the bay,” Jay said, then reddened. “That is, you know, if—”

Celia silenced him with a withering look, but Willa had no trouble finishing the thought:
if you’d invited us to your cottage.
“It
was
nice,” she said. “We spent the whole day there.”

“You and your new girlfriends?” said Britney, the brittleness of her voice making the last word sound like an expletive.

“No,” came a voice behind them.

They all turned to see Keegan brush past them to stand by Willa, his face a dark scowl. He took her hand in his. “She spent it with me.”

Willa watched Wynn’s face change, his smirk mutating into a jagged line like a scar on his perfect tanned face. She looked up at Keegan and suddenly her true smile was back.

Later, she would realize it was her smile that had set him off. Wynn took two sudden steps forward, putting him toe-to-toe with Keegan, his face a misshapen mask. “You son of a bitch,” he snarled, his words seeming to carve the air, shape it, give it a pulse, drawing the attention of everyone in that corridor. “I’m so gonna
end
you, asshole.”

Keegan smiled at him. “Go for it,” he said, and Willa could see in his eyes how much he wanted Wynn to try.

Willa saw Wynn’s hands form fists, saw him draw back his right arm, and she opened her mouth to shout at him, but it was someone else who called his name. She turned to see Mr. Richardson hurrying toward them.

Wynn froze, his face working oddly as he glared at Keegan, his body a wellspring of rage. Keegan continued to smile at him.

“C’mon, man,” said Jay, tugging at Wynn’s arm, “you don’t wanna do this.”

But it was clear that he
did
want to. Very much.

“Come with me, Wynn,” ordered Richardson as he reached them. “Now!”

“Y
ou wanted to see me?” asked Keegan, standing in Richardson’s doorway. A secretary had buzzed into Keegan’s fourth-period class requesting that he see the English teacher before he left at the end of the day. He’d half-expected Wynn to be there, too, thinking Richardson might try to mediate the situation between them, and he was relieved to see that wasn’t the case. Mediation wasn’t in Wynn d’Entremont’s vocabulary—jerks like him negotiated with their knuckles. Keegan wished he could share with the teacher what he knew about Wynn so someone else would understand what the guy was capable of and, more importantly, could keep an eye out for Bailey. And Willa.

Looking up from the papers on his desk, the teacher asked, “Would you mind closing the door?” Seeing the concern on Keegan’s face, he said, “This won’t take long. I imagine you probably have someone waiting for you, right?”

Keegan grinned as he shut the door behind him. He was still grinning as he crossed the room to the teacher’s desk.

“I wanted to talk to you about this after class today,” said Richardson, “but I knew we’d have more privacy after school. I gave Wynn his final warning this morning.”

Keegan’s grin faltered.

“If it had been anyone else,” the teacher continued, “it wouldn’t have been a warning. I’d have done what I told him I’d do and started the process of pulling him out of extracurriculars.”

Surprised by this admission of preferential treatment, Keegan wasn’t sure how to respond. “Yeah, well, thanks for telling me.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Richardson, “but it has nothing to do with Wynn being the mayor’s son.” He picked up a pen from his desk and rolled it between his fingers before he continued. “Remember last week when you introduced Willa? You said what you see is what you get, right?”