Me Since You Read online

  Someone else would have done all he could and still lost them, right in front of his eyes.

  Someone else would have been debriefed by the critical incident stress counselor, been left with no appetite and sleepless nights, gone to the funerals alone and come home pale, drawn and silent, looking almost as haunted as he did at Grammy and Pop-Pop’s funerals two years ago and—

  A police car turns into the mall and cruises slowly toward the dry cleaner’s. Pulls up in the fire lane and a cop gets out. It’s Vinnie, my father’s partner and best friend.

  I wave and pull out a cleaning ticket as he gathers an armload of uniform pants and shirts and comes striding in. “Hey, Row, how’s your boat?” He’s been greeting me with that same lame joke since I was what, fetal? And he still cracks himself up every time, still flashes that cheerful Vinnie grin, white teeth gleaming beneath a proud hawk nose and neatly trimmed, veteran-cop mustache.

  “Sinking, how’s yours?” I say, smiling as he dumps the pile of blues on the counter in front of me and sorts through it. “You might as well stop. I have to count them myself. Eva says.”

  “And what Eva wants, Eva gets,” he warbles, turning to keep an eye on his patrol car. “Where is the queen of clean, anyway? I want to make sure she works you till you drop.”

  “Ha, too bad. She’s gone for the day,” I say absently, counting his stuff. “Three shirts, three pants, and I hope you left lots of change in your pockets because I’m saving for a car.” I smirk to show I’m kidding. Sort of. “So when do you want them?”

  “Hold on.” His head snaps around. “She left you here by yourself? For how long?”

  Crap, I should have known better. “I’m closing up at seven, like normal. It’s fine. She gave me a key.” I fish it out of my pocket and show it to him. “I’ve been here a month, Vinnie. I know what I’m doing.”

  “You’re a sixteen-year-old girl here alone with a register full of cash,” he says, looking at me like I’m an idiot. “Jesus, why not just put a sign out that says ‘Rob Me Now’? What the hell was she thinking?” He steps back, rubbing his forehead. “Does your father know about this?”

  “Nobody’s going to rob me,” I say, exasperated, scribbling his name and the item count on his ticket, ripping off the stub and thrusting it at him. “Here, they’ll be ready tomorrow after three and no, he doesn’t know and don’t you dare tell him. He doesn’t need anything else to worry about right now.”

  “Hmph.” He scans the parking lot, mouth tight. “So does this place have a panic button under the counter for the silent alarm? No? How about a surveillance camera?”

  “A surveillance cam?” My heart skips a beat. “Uh . . . I don’t know.” I glance around the front of the store and up at the recessed lights in the ceiling, thinking of the loose change I’ve pocketed in the last couple of weeks. Holy shit, what if that was all caught on camera? What if Eva watched me take that stupid money? What if leaving me alone here today is really a test to see if I’m trustworthy and if not . . . Oh my God, stealing? What am I, stupid? What if I get fired for taking three lousy dollars’ worth of quarters, dimes and nickels? And then what if she calls my parents and tells them?

  No. No. That absolutely cannot happen.

  The humiliation would be nothing compared to the disappointment in my mother’s eyes, not to mention my father’s. Cutting school? Forget it. This would change the way he looked at me forever. He would never trust me again, and—

  Wait.

  Don’t panic.

  It’s not over. Nothing has even happened yet.

  I gaze around the cleaner’s. Wood-paneled walls. A manual cash register. An AM/FM radio—no CD player, no Sirius—sitting on a shelf in the back by the press. This place is still as lost in the seventies as the day it opened. If Eva hasn’t renovated by now then she’d never spring for an expensive, high-tech surveillance system.

  God, I’m sweating.

  I can still fix this.

  Tomorrow I’ll bring back the stupid pile of change and leave it under the counter somewhere like I was just being sloppy. Or better yet, I have three dollars on me. I’ll just make change now, put it in the communal lunch money coffee can and casually mention to Eva that—

  “Don’t you have any friends who can come down and hang out with you until closing?” Vinnie says, giving me a funny look. “C’mon, Rowan. Help me out, here.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to get ahold of myself.

  “What about your sidekick? Why can’t you call her?”

  “Who, Nadia?” Only Vinnie would consider Nadia my sidekick, rather than the other way around. “I can’t, she’s . . .” I see the stubborn set of his jaw and surrender. “Okay, okay.” I move the stool aside, retrieve my phone from the shelf under the counter and, hands still trembling, punch out a text. “There, see?” I hold it so he can read the I’m alone at work till 7. Want to come hang out? and when he’s done I hit send. “Happy now?”

  “No.” He frowns slightly, watching my hands. “Why are you shaking?”

  Oh my God, doesn’t anything in my life go unnoticed? “Because you’re freaking me out.” It’s the first and only answer I can think of, and since I can’t look at him or he’ll know I’m hiding something, I shove his dry-cleaning ticket into the middle of his pile of clothes, bundle them all into a ball and stuff them under the counter for pinning.

  “Hey, I’m just trying to keep you safe,” he says, giving me a look from beneath his straight, black eyebrows. “Listen, I have to get going but I’ll stop in again if we don’t get busy.” He falls back a step, holding my gaze. “And, Row . . . That thing you said before, about your father not needing anything else to worry about . . .”

  “Yes?” I say ominously, thinking, Here it comes, he’s gonna go call my father—

  “You were right. Today in briefing they told us that somebody leaked the dashboard-cam video to the press . . .”

  This is not what I was expecting and it takes a moment to actually sink in. “What? From Daddy’s patrol car? Wait . . . of the suicide?”

  “Film at six and eleven,” he says grimly, shifting and settling his hands on his gun belt. “Great, right?”

  “But why?” I say, plopping down on the stool in bewilderment. “It’s already done, solved, the funerals are over. Yes, it was tragic but Corey’s dead. There’s no one left to punish so why stir it up all over again?”

  He starts to say something, then holds up a finger in a wait gesture. Cocks his head, listens to dispatch on his radio and says, “Eight oh two central, Victory and North Main.” He heads for the door, keying his radio. “Ten-four.” Glances at me. “Accident on Main Street with injuries. Later.”

  And then he’s gone, peeling out of the parking lot with lights and sirens. I’m left sitting here with my stomach knotted and my thoughts in a dark, foreboding whirl.

  Chapter 2

  Nadia texts back, Can’t. Shopping with Danica.

  Yeah, I already knew that, but Vinnie’s gone so it doesn’t really matter anymore.

  I wonder if my father knows about the video.

  He must. He probably just watched it on the news.

  Great, like he doesn’t feel bad enough already.

  Aggravated, I head into the back to my purse, grab three dollars, open the register and make change. My movements are big and exaggerated; I double-count the change and make sure the three singles I give in return are very visibly tucked neatly back into the cash drawer, because if there is surveillance and she saw me taking the pocket change then I want to make damn sure I’m seen putting it back, too.

  I drop the change in the lunch can by the phone, make a note on the pad—Eva, I’ve been putting found pocket change in here. Is that okay?—and leave it where she can’t miss it.

  Whew.

  Never again.

  And just so I don’t forget and piss Terence off in the morning, I switch the radio station from my music back to his, catching the end of something with a funky beat. Yeah,
okay. I’ve grown up with this stuff, my parents love it and it’s still light-years better than Eva’s station.

  I go up front and perch on the stool, absently watching the sky darken and the clouds boil closer as I pin Vinnie’s uniforms, then carry them into the back and stuff them into the Friday bin.

  My father didn’t do anything wrong that day on the overpass.

  I know, because when I stand at my desk, lean to the right and peer around the trees, I can see the overpass from my bedroom window.

  My mother and I saw it that day, too.

  Clearly, because it was bright and sunny and there weren’t any leaves on the trees yet. We were all up in my bedroom and he was in the middle of yelling at me for cutting school when the urgent jumper call came through and he had to go.

  Honestly? I was thrilled at the interruption, glad the attention had been diverted from me to someone else.

  It wasn’t often we got to see my father in action.

  Now I know there’s a good reason for that.

  What we saw that day, even from a distance . . . well, my mother hasn’t forgiven herself for not pulling me away from the window and closing the blind while there were still four people and a dog on that overpass. She had to shake me to stop me from screaming.

  My father won’t forgive himself, period.

  I shake my head, grab the next bundle of clothes and start going through the pockets of Mr. Hill’s elegant, gray Armani suit.

  And bam, the first thing I find is a pen left in the inside jacket pocket.

  “Nice,” I mutter, removing the pen and dropping it in an envelope. “What’re you trying to do, get me fired?” Pens are deadly in dry cleaning—they always leak and stain, and nothing pisses Eva off faster than finding a missed pen in the cleaning drum and ink spots on all our customers’ freshly cleaned clothes.

  I know, because I’ve made that mistake twice already.

  I check his pants and find a business card, a toll booth receipt and his checkbook. Stick it all in the envelope with the pen, seal it and staple it to his ticket.

  Thunder rumbles and I look up in time to see the first giant raindrop splat onto the sidewalk out front.

  I glance over at the clock—almost six thirty—and pull the final bundle out from beneath the counter. It’s a black dress, plain with long sleeves and a V neck, unremarkable except for the brooch up near the shoulder, a big, sterling silver safety pin with blue beads and three little dangling charms.

  A teddy bear, an S, and a heart.

  “I hope this thing comes off,” I mutter, and nearly jump out of my skin as lightning flashes nuclear bright, thunder crashes and the rain comes down, hammering the roof and falling in great, torrential sheets.

  The lights dim, then surge; Lauryn Hill’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” hiccups; and suddenly a big dog followed by a guy carrying a plastic bag runs into sight and stops under the overhang in front of my plate-glass window. Laughing, the guy runs a hand up over his forehead, pushing back the long, dark, wet strands that have come loose from his ponytail. He’s tall and lean, arms sleek with rain. A brown leather watchband encircles one wrist and a leash the other. The leash is attached to a huge black and tan German shepherd that shakes itself off, splattering the window with spray, and then jumps up and puts its front paws on his stomach, leaving muddy prints on the bottom of the soaked black T-shirt plastered to his chest.

  The guy takes the dog’s furry face between his hands, says something and rumples its tawny fur. He steps away, forcing the dog back down, and glances at the wet fur clinging to his hands. He shakes his head, drops the bag and steps to the far edge of the overhang, holding them out in the rain, palms up, rinsing them clean.

  “Whoa,” I whisper, mesmerized.

  As he’s wiping them on his jeans he turns and looks into the dry cleaner’s, right at me sitting spellbound on the stool, and his sudden, easy smile gets me square in the heart.

  It’s Eli Gage, from that day on the overpass.

  Chapter 3

  “Mind if I bring her in?” He pauses in the doorway, his words softened by a slight drawl, the dog wedged tight against his leg. “I wouldn’t ask but she’s afraid of thunder and—”

  “No, sure, she can come in. It’s okay.” I wave them in, heart pounding, the dry cleaning spread across the counter in front of me forgotten. “Are you kidding? We’re totally pet friendly here.” The specter of Eva’s scowling, gnomelike face rises in front of me. “Well, at least we are when I’m working.” Why am I talking so loud? Why is it so hot in here? Does he know who I am? No, how could he? I only saw him briefly, from a distance that day from my bedroom window. He’s never seen me.

  Lightning flashes and thunder rumbles across the sky, deep and threatening.

  The dog lets out a desperate, strangled yip and lunges, dragging Eli into the cleaner’s. She barrels through the aisle between the counters and around back, frantic, winding her leash around my legs as she dives into the corner, runs past me and circles back again. “No, wait,” I say, as she tries to belly beneath the counter. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” I keep my voice as calm and soothing as I can because she’s huge and terrified, and I really don’t want to be bitten. She gazes up at me, ears back, the whites of her eyes showing in a silent plea, pressing her solid, trembling bulk against my leg, the salty smell of wet dog rising around me, and then Eli is there, too, joining us in this tight space between the counter and the wall, reaching his arms around me to unwind the leash, exasperated laughter in his voice as he mutters, “I’m really sorry,” and “C’mon, Daisy, behave.” His scent, cool rain mingled with a hint of warm, dark musk, makes my head spin. “Sorry.” He steps back, cheeks pink, leash retracted, and leads a cowed Daisy back around the front of the counter. “It’s okay, girl. It’s just thunder.” And to me, “She’s not usually this bad. It’s the PTSD.”

  “It’s fine. Really.” I have no idea what he’s talking about and looking at him burns my eyes, so I busy myself tucking my hair back behind my ears and smoothing the damp spot on my jeans. “My cat doesn’t like thunderstorms, either.” Lame. Try again. “So, uh . . .” I fumble under the counter for a blank dry-cleaning ticket and give him what I hope is a bright smile but he isn’t looking at me anymore, he’s gazing at the black dress spread out on the counter, all traces of good humor gone. He touches the sterling silver safety pin, the letter S charm, and then his hand falls back to his side.

  And then it hits me. I glance at the name on the ticket—Well, as in Payton Well, mother of the deceased baby Sammy—and I realize this is what she must have worn to the funeral, this dress and her mother-son pin. My stomach plummets. “Here, let me get this out of the way.” Fumbling, I roll up the dress and put it under the counter, hugely aware that out of sight is not necessarily out of mind. “So . . .”

  Lightning flashes and six Mississippi seconds pass before the thunder rumbles a response.

  “Uh . . .” I clear my throat, glance at the clock—quarter to seven—and poise a pen over the blank ticket. “Are you dropping something off?”

  He starts, blinks. “Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry.” Runs a hand over his hair and hefts the plastic bag onto the counter. “A suit.” He pulls a folded two-piece, navy blue pinstripe out of the bag. “There’s a spot on the front.”

  “Okay,” I say, pulling an arrow sticker off the roll and putting it above the stain. “Last name?”

  “Gage. Eli.” Pause. “You?”

  “Rowan,” I say, scribbling his name on the ticket. “Areno.” I wait a heartbeat and glance up to find him staring at me. “Yes, that one.”

  “Wait . . . Nick, the cop?” he says in surprise.

  I lift my chin. “He’s my father.” It comes out sounding like a challenge.

  “Okay.” He blinks and rubs his forehead. “I was not expecting that.” He searches my face and nods. “Yeah, I can see it. You look like him.”

  “Right, especially around the big gray mustache,” I say dryly, and am rewa
rded with a spontaneous snort of laughter. “Thanks a lot.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he protests.

  “Oh sure,” I say, giving him a sparkling look from beneath my eyelashes.

  “I meant you’re both tall and have those brown eyes and that same . . . Give me a break, will you?” he says, laughing and going pink at my teasing. “Wiseass.” He shakes his head, runs a hand over his damp hair. “So how’s he doing, anyway?”

  “Oh, fine,” I say without thinking, still lost in the warmth of our shared laughter and the dazzling feeling that we’re standing much closer to each other than we really are. Smiling, I flick my hair back à la Nadia, plant a hand on my hip and give him a flirtatious look, only then noticing that the lightness in his expression is gone, replaced by serious consternation. “Uh, well, I mean he’s not fine, but . . . you know.” Damn, so we’re back to that. “Um, how’re you?”

  “The same, I guess. I don’t know.” He shrugs and glances out the window at the pounding rain. “I saw him at Sammy’s funeral but he was at the back of the room and he left before I could catch up with him.”

  “So it was crowded?” I say, because my father hasn’t said much, if anything, about either of the funerals, and I haven’t asked.

  “Packed. Lines of mourners to the casket. News crews, too. Payton said she knew maybe eight people. The rest either heard about it and wanted to pay their respects or were just gawkers.” He toys with one of the dog’s velvety ears. “It was pretty bad.”

  “I can imagine,” I say, and then, “I don’t know Payton.”

  “No, I didn’t either, before this.” He falls silent a moment, as if torn between caution and conversation. “I was at headquarters when they brought her in to take a statement and afterward, we just started talking. Her family’s down in Florida and the only people she had up here were Corey and the baby, so . . . It’s a rough time to be alone. Me and the Daze are gonna go pick up some BK and head over there now. Make sure she has something to eat and somebody to talk to if she needs it.” He shrugs and shifts in place, as if uncomfortable. “It’s no big deal.”