Authors: Romily Bernard
Remember Me
For my parents, who read to us every night with voices
Contents
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Somehow I think I always knew I'd get arrested. I just never expected it to happen during Home Ec. From the looks of it, Principal Matthews agrees. His face is ham-pink and shiny. He seems angry until I see the grin.
“Miss Tate?” he says. “Could we have a word?”
Love it when they make an order sound like a request.
I mutter apologies to my group partners and grab my messenger bag from under the counter, pulling the strap across my shoulder. I've been expecting this moment for almost five months now, and I know I deserve it, but I can't help one last glance at the open window across the room.
If I ran full out, I could escape.
“
Now
, Miss Tate.”
Or not.
I walk to the nearest of the two officers and bump up my chin so I can pretend my joints aren't loosening. The policeman looks me over, scowls. I know what he seesâlong, pale blond hair; short, pale blue dressâand what he's thinking: trash. He might even be right.
Nice girls don't write computer viruses.
Let alone use them.
The officer takes my bag and, after he glances through it, all of us tromp into the hallway. Just like I always pictured, Detective Carson is waiting. He looks so happy I start to shake.
“Here she is, Detective.” Principal Matthews pats my arm and I have to resist the urge to bite him. “Like I said she'd be.”
“Great.” Carson jerks his head to the left. “Can we use this classroom?”
Classroom?
One of the officers prods me forward and I trip, my feet suddenly useless. If I'm not being arrested, then whatâ
Shit. It's another job. He's going to make me work for him again.
“Um.” Matthews rubs the back of his head, looking dumbfounded, which, to be honest, isn't much of a stretch for him. “It's not really protocol.”
“It'll only be for a few minutes, and we'd really appreciate the help.” Carson's smile goes crocodile wide. “I'll be sure to remember it.”
“Oh, good. That's good.” Matthews retreats, refusing to meet my eyes. He pats his pockets like he lost something. “We're always happy to be of assistance.”
And, to Matthews's credit, he does sound happy, but when he looks at the floor, the roots of his hair are glittery with sweat.
I can't blame him. The detective has the same effect on me.
I follow Carson into the empty classroom, neither of us saying anything until the door clicks closed.
“Well, well, Wicket Tate.” He smiles. “You don't call. You don't write. What am I supposed to think?”
“It's not you. It's me.” I tap one finger to my lower lip. “Nah, it's definitely you.”
Carson laughs. He sits down on a desktop so we're almost eye to eye, a poster of Spanish verb conjugations above his head as he paws through my bag. “I miss this, Wick. You're always such a smart-ass when you're scared.”
“I'm not scared of you.”
“You should be.” He looks up, the amused smile snapped off. “You're not keeping up with our deal. You do what I want now. Remember? Or else you go to jail.”
Carson leans closer and I have to push my feet into the floor to keep from running. “I have evidence you hacked to catch Todd Callaway.”
My breath dries up. Stupid how after so many months the name can still make me flinch. Todd. My former foster dad and my former best friend's rapist. He almost killed me. What I did to catch him was justified . . . it just wasn't legal.
“If I can find evidence on what you did to Callaway,” Carson says, “imagine what I could find on the work you did for that shitbird father of yours.”
Odds are, he could find loadsâespecially if my father and his partner decide to roll on me. I focus on the Spanish verbs so I don't have to meet Carson's eyes. “What do you want?”
“I have another job. It's perfect for you.” When I don't respond, the detective clears his throat and continues, “I want to track Jason Baines and I want you to make it happen. Immediately.”
He's right. It is kind of perfect. Baines is a mid-level drug dealer who worked for my father. We have history. If anyone could get close, I couldâexcept this is beyond the type of work I usually do. Before, Carson needed an email track here, a credit card trace there. This is way riskier.
“Find someone else, Carson. I do cyberspace. Tracking that fast would require contact.”
“Your
point
? Don't play shy, Wick. Baines specializes in roofies.” Carson searches my face and, even though I keep my features disinterested, he still sees something that makes his eyes go plastic bright. “He preys on women. That's not too different from the men you used to catch, right?”
Right. Up until five months ago, I ran an online business specializing in catching cheaters and gold diggers. Most of my targets were guys. Most of my clients were women. And yeah, I did it for moneyâmy sister, Lily, and I needed itâbut I also did it because those women needed answers. I made sure the men they loved were really who they said they were. I made sure no one ended up like my mom did.
And later, I used those same skills to bring down Todd and save my sister.
But Carson only knows a little bit about the last part and nothing about the first. He's fishing and I play it blank, realizing too late that I should have played it stupid.
“What are you talking about?” I say, twirling a strand of hair around my finger. Carson's mouth thins and I switch the conversation around. “Look, your best bet for tracking Baines is putting something on his phone, only that's no good because I'd have to get close enough to do it andâ”
“And it shouldn't be hard since you two go way back. One of my sources says he'll be selling at Judge Bay's Carnivale party tonight.”
“You sure?” Bay is a local luminary: rich, well-connected, the kind of guy who uses
summer
as a verb. I know of him the same way most people like me know of him: He presided over our legal cases. “That's pretty bold.”
“My source says your new mommy has accepted an invitation as well.”
I go very, very still. “You've been watching Bren?”
“Scared now?”
“No.” I'm fucking terrified. I shove suddenly sweating hands into my pockets. “You wouldn't dare touch her.”
Only, he would, to get to me. My sister and I were adopted by Bren Callaway two months ago in what the papers are calling a fairy-tale ending. Although the description makes me gag, I can't fault the observation. Lily and I went from foster care rejects to looking like poster children for Ralph Lauren. Yeah, Bren was married to Todd, the psychopath who tried to kill both me and Lily, but aside from Bren's seriously crappy taste in men, she's straight out of Disney casting.
She doesn't deserve what Carson would do to her to get to me.
“I want you there.” The detective stands, tosses my bag to me. “Do whatever you have to do. I want to be able to follow Baines's movement by tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I'm fresh out of magic wands.” Then again, I might not be. Baines isn't the only one who can get roofies. I could knock him out, download a tracking app to his phone. There's a certain poetic justice to it. I'm very capable of this . . . and that fact should scare me.
Actually, it does scare me. Thing is . . . if I tag Baines, Carson will go away. Bren and Lily will be safe. I can go on pretending I'm normal.
For a little while at least.
“Make it happen.” The detective stares down at me, and even though it's finally healed, my injured arm starts to burn. “You wouldn't want to ruin that lovely new life you landed, now would you?”
“No.” And isn't that just the funniest punch line? Here I am with a new life, new start, and I'm already ruining it. Worse, I'm risking ruining it for my sisterâand for Brenâand they deserve any happily ever after life will give them.
I consider Carson. This is probably where I should cry a bit, but I've swallowed my tears for so long they've turned to bone.
I roll my hands into fists. “Maybe you're the one who should be careful. I brought down a rapist you couldn't. The papers are calling me a hero.”
Even if I can barely say the word.
Carson's upper lip wrinkles. “That so?”
Above us, the bell rings. School's finished for the day and the hallway swarms with students, their voices swelling like the growl of distant thunder. How long before the rumor of me getting hauled out of class by the police reaches Bren? Or my best friend, Lauren?
Worse, how long before it reaches Griff?
Is it considerate that I want to be the person who tells him first? Or paranoid? I never told him I was working for Carson. He thinks I'm free.
And just like that, my hands are shaking again. “I'll send you a text when it's finished.”
“Good.” Carson smacks open the classroom door and motions me forward. I'm almost into the hallway when his fingers sink into my bad arm, pinning me against the lockers to hide his grip. “The next time you think about blowing me off, Wicket, you think about everything I could destroy.”
I hold my breath, waiting for Carson to twist my arm until I want to scream. His hold stays light though. It's not punishment. It's a promise.
“Understand?” he asks, fitting Bren and Lily and everything I want into one word.
I nod, but the detective doesn't let go and I shouldn't look at him. . . . I do, realizing too late he isn't focused on me. He's staring at Griff.
Who's headed straight for us.
“Smile for the boyfriend,” Carson says.
Funny how I still can. Smiles are so easy when they're for Griff. I smile. Carson smiles. Griff's too far away, but I know his eyes have narrowed.
The detective snorts. “I'm always amazed at the way he looks at you.”
Me too.
Carson leans down, his lips so close to my ear the words escape in a hiss: “Think he'd look at you the same way if he knew what you really are?”
He does know. Griff helped me escape my father and Todd. He knows what I was before and he never wants me to go back.
“Think he'd still want you if he knew you were working for me?”
No. Yes.
I don't know and it makes my chest shrink tight. This is what happens when you end up with a hero. He expects you to be just as noble.