Forgiven (15 page)

Beck quickly manoeuvred the vehicle around until it was backed up into an alley. Only then did he get out, duffel bag on his shoulder. Poking out of the top of the bag was his steel pipe.

‘Where were ya when ya filmed them?’ he demanded.

‘On that roof,’ she said, pointing. He studied the location and then grunted his approval with her choice. They crossed the street and edged into the building.

Beck halted after a few steps. ‘Ya didn’t say it was junkie heaven.’

‘Watch where you walk and you’ll be OK,’ she said, pushing past him. He caught her arm and she shook herself free. ‘I know the best way to the roof, so stop playing the hero and let me do this.’

‘Then go for it, girl. Don’t bitch at me when ya break yer leg.’

Riley didn’t break a leg or anything else by the time she reached the roof. Once Beck joined her, she carefully rearranged the debris on the stairs like Peter had.

‘That’ll make it harder for us to get down if we have to go in a hurry,’ he complained.

‘Yes, but it keeps the scary people down below.’
Except you.

This time there was no sleeping blanket, no friendly Peter and no yummy food, just the cold, hard asphalt of the roof grinding into her butt, and Beck’s hostile presence.

Riley leaned against the wall that faced the plant, crossed her arms over her chest to conserve body heat and tuned him out. This was Stewart’s payback. Couldn’t be anything else. He really couldn’t expect her to settle things with Backwoods Boy during this lifetime, let alone the few hours they had to be together.

Her companion’s cellphone began oinking, causing him to swear. He muted it immediately, then rose and walked towards the centre of the roof to take the call, out of sight of the street below.

Probably his squeeze wondering why he’s not knocking boots with her.

Sour jealousy rose inside her, which she didn’t really understand. Beck wasn’t anything to her, not any more, and yet she was angry that a perfect flirty chick was working him over.
Don’t think about it. It’s not your problem.
She turned her mind to math equations: anything but picturing Beck and Justine together.

The math solution failed miserably.

Beck returned a few minutes later and settled on the roof again without comment.

‘That was
her
, wasn’t it?’

‘What?’ he asked, confused.

‘Justine. She missing her bed buddy?’

He eyed her. ‘Yer jealous.’ She shook her head. ‘Yer lyin’. I can see it in yer eyes.’

‘OK, maybe I am. I don’t trust her.’

Beck looked away, his jaw tense. ‘Yet ya’d trust that winged bastard?’

‘Oh, now who’s jealous, huh?’ she taunted. ‘Ori treated me like I was worth something, not some stupid kid. You wouldn’t do a thing for me if it wasn’t because of my dad.’

‘What? Yer not –’ Beck began, then went quiet. His
don’t go there
face appeared and that was the end of it.

A few minutes later the phone vibrated on Beck’s lap. He answered the call without moving this time, which told her it wasn’t the stick chick.

‘Yeah, I’ll check it out. Thanks.’ He flipped the phone closed.

Beck did a quick peek over the edge of the building towards the plant, then back at his boots as if he couldn’t stand to look at her.

Riley gnawed on one fingernail, then another. Her gut churned like a witch’s cauldron and her cramps would have dropped a horse in its tracks. That meant she wasn’t pregnant, right? That meant Ori hadn’t lied to her and if he hadn’t fibbed about that, then maybe . . .

Stop it! All guys lie.

The agonizing silence stretched on.

When Beck finally spoke, it startled her. ‘Yer daddy’s insurance cheque came today,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to slip ya the cash. No other way to do it. If we open a bank account, the loan dudes will take it all.’

‘Do I get a weekly allowance?’ she asked sarcastically.

Beck’s hurt showed in an instant. ‘No. It’s all yers, girl. That’s the way Paul would have wanted it.’

‘Still does,’ she said, before she could stop herself.

Beck turned, his eyes riveted on her. ‘What do ya mean . . . still does?’

Good move there, Riley. Oh well, he might as well know.
‘I found Dad. He’s safe, with Mort.’

Beck double blinked. ‘When were ya gonna tell me that?’

She shirted the question. ‘He’s . . . OK. Well, he’s still dead. Sometimes he’s like he used to be and then . . .’

Beck’s flare of anger faded. ‘Does he remember ya and all?’

‘Yeah. His memory’s good, but he’s not quite himself.’

‘Why did that damned necro think he had the right to summon Paul from his grave?’ Beck asked, his tone chillier now.

‘He didn’t.’

After that he kept peppering her with questions about her father and about the angel, but she refused to answer any of them.

‘Then I’ll ask Paul myself,’ Beck said defiant.

Go for it. You won’t like the answer.

Riley turned away and curled up in a ball on the asphalt, trying to sleep. It was too cold. Her mind went to the angel and how cold it must be for him in the cemetery.

Ori had placed a stick of dynamite inside her heart and detonated it, and now there were pieces of her spread all over. Beck wasn’t helping her pick them up. If anything, he was grinding them under the heel of his boot.

The truck arrived a little earlier than the night before, and for that Riley was grateful. Beck was instantly on the alert, but it took her longer to move into a crouched position with her cold-cramped muscles.

‘That the same one?’ he whispered.

‘Looks like it.’

Two guys hopped out of the vehicle at the same time the door to the warehouse slid upward.

‘That’s them,’ she said, remembering the man with the giant eagle emblazoned on the back of his denim jacket.

It was the same drill as the night before, but this time Beck zeroed in on the bottles with a pair of night-vision goggles.

‘Yeah, they’re the ones with the tax stamp,’ he said. ‘Stewart got it right.’

Actually Peter had got it right, but arguing with Backwoods Boy wasn’t worth it.

‘Time to go,’ he said, carefully moving away from the side of the building so as not to be seen.

The junk on the stairs proved to be their undoing. Not only did it make a great obstacle course for any druggies keen to check out the roof, it made their hurried departure impossible.

Beck grew angry at the delay and would have tossed stuff in all directions if Riley hadn’t warned him about the noise. By the time they made it to the ground floor, the recycling dudes had finished loading the bottles and fired up their truck.

‘Move it!’ Beck ordered, taking off across the debris field inside the building at a near run. Riley followed him, but with more caution. She wasn’t wearing thick-soled boots. By the time they’d reach Beck’s ride, the other truck was gone. He began to curse, every fourth word an expletive. Any other time it would have been impressive.

‘Just drive. Maybe we’ll see them,’ Riley said.

‘I warned ya about that shit on the stairway.’

‘Just drive,’ she repeated, refusing to buy into his anger.

They took the main street and after covering about a mile in either direction, it was obvious their quarry had escaped.

‘Dammit,’ Beck complained, slamming a palm down on the steering wheel as they waited for a garbage truck to clear an intersection. ‘We should have stayed in the truck, not gone up on that freakin’ roof.’

‘No way. We did it right.’

Beck flipped on his turn signal. ‘Stewart is not gonna see it that way.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Before I call the Scotsman and tell him we effing blew it, I need food and coffee. There’s an all-night burger joint a few blocks from here.’

He’s given up.
Riley would have driven all over trying to find that truck, but he’d backed off.

‘I’ll come back tomorrow night.
Alone,
’ he added.

Like this was all her fault.

As he pulled up to a stop sign, Riley broke out in a smile. She pointed at the truck chugging through the intersection – it was the one from the recycling place.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Beck muttered. ‘Sometimes ya do get lucky.’

As the vehicle moved away, the licence plate became visible. Riley scrambled to find a piece of paper and a pen in her backpack. ‘Was that an eight or a nine after the one?’ she asked.

‘Eight.’ Which told her Beck may not be able to read words very well, but numbers weren’t a problem for him.

‘Don’t crowd them,’ she warned. ‘They’ll see us.’

‘I know what I’m doin’, girl.’

They didn’t have to follow the truck for long when it turned into a side street and eventually lumbered to a halt in front of a run-down warehouse in yet another industrial district. As if on cue, the building’s overhead door began to rise at a crawl. To avoid being spotted, Beck pulled over and parked on the street a half block away from the structure, then turned off the truck.

Beck called Stewart with the news. ‘Understood,’ he said, then put the phone in his pocket.

‘What are we going to do?’ Riley asked, nerves taut. They were so close now.

‘Nothin’ until Stewart gets here,’ he said.

This was a new side to Beck. She’d expected him to single-handedly charge into the place like a rampaging action hero, but instead he was taking orders like a good soldier.
He respects Stewart so he listens to him.
That wasn’t a bad thing. The old Scotsman would keep him out of trouble, like her father had.

Once the bottles were inside the plant, the overhead door went down.

Beck shot her a look. ‘Just tell me who summoned Paul, will ya? I gotta know. Was it that bastard Ozymandias?’

Riley couldn’t go there. If she did, Beck would realize her father had sold his soul and that would crush him. He didn’t have many men he looked up to.

She shook her head. ‘Talk to Dad.’

‘Why don’t ya just tell me? This have somethin’ to do with that damned angel?’

‘Yes.’

He went back to his coffee.

When the trappers arrived, Riley and Beck walked to the end of the street to meet them. It was a small team: Masters Stewart and Harper, along with Journeymen Trappers Remmers and Jackson. The last member of the team was a surprise: her ex-boyfriend Simon. That had to be their master’s doing, probably Harper’s way of getting ‘Saint’ back in action after his horrific injury at the Tabernacle.

Beck did all the talking, bringing the trappers up to speed. While she listened, Riley couldn’t help but notice that Simon kept watching her. She ignored him as best she could, but it wasn’t easy. Their history wasn’t the best, though it’d started out really good – they’d been dating, maybe even falling in love – and then he’d almost died at the hands of a demon. From that moment on he’d changed into a bitter, paranoid guy.

Stop staring at me!

Riley shuffled her feet to deal with the cold, her breath and that of her companions clouding white in the night air. As the trappers talked among themselves, a man wandered up to the group, one of the countless homeless dudes in the city. He was clad in numerous layers of second-hand clothes with a ragged red-and-black checked blanket on the top. His stocking cap proclaimed he was an Iowa Hawkeyes fan, or at least a fan of warm outerwear. Riley didn’t want to imagine what it was like to live on the streets when it was this cold.

‘You folks got any spare change?’ the man asked, his eyes a piercing blue despite his unshaven face. The guy wasn’t as smelly as most of the transients and that suggested he found a spot at a shelter every now and then.

Simon dug in his pocket and handed over a few dollars. Jackson added a five to the donation. Riley had a dollar in her pocket and she gave it to him. Then Beck waved the man over.

‘Hang around here a lot?’ Beck asked, and got a nod in return. ‘That buildin’,’ he said, pointing down the street. ‘Any idea of how many work there?’