Page 2 of Dirty (Chicago Underground 5)
He waved me toward the exit. “Yeah, I’m sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re beautiful and way too smart to be doing the job you do.”
“Stop. I’ll blush.”
“Get lost, squirt. And don’t get into any trouble on your way out.”
“Actually I was thinking I might start a fire. Maybe you should pull the alarm, just in case.”
He groaned. “You’re killing me.”
“We’ll call it even, then. No more visits, cross my heart.”
He shook his head. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you better be serious about that. If I see you back here, I’ll turn you in myself.”
In the hallway, I followed the flow until I found an empty broom closet. One benefit to these old historical buildings was that security was never quite up to modern standards. They could install all the fancy systems and safeguards, but the floor plan was designed with comfortable nooks instead of open spaces.
I pulled out the little plastic badge that allowed Luke to come and go into secure areas of the building—and to log into the network. It was a dirty trick, using sex against him like that, so of course I’d had to. I hoped he wouldn’t be too mad.
Right on cue, a loud clanging fell from the ceiling, shaking the walls. The footsteps sounded like thunder down the hallway as everyone slipped outside. When it quieted, I returned to the storeroom. It was empty, since of course Chase had evacuated with everyone. Such a good boy.
I got on his computer and found the files I needed.
Stephan Laurent had been wanted in connection with multiple homicides. All young girls, all prostitutes. Full immunity. Murder probably wasn’t beyond him, but what was the point? Young girls weren’t any good to him dead. Besides, if he was guilty, that didn’t explain the immunity. He needed to turn on someone. And ah, here. Known associations: Henri Denikin. The answer had been sitting in the corner, just waiting for me to turn and see it. My descent into prostitution hadn’t been random at all. I put my hand to my mouth to keep the bile in. My eyes fell shut, and I took a few deep breaths of musty air to clear my head. I needed to focus. I needed to get the hell out of here.
I tossed the little badge on the floor in the storeroom where Luke could find it and maybe even think it was an accident, that he’d dropped it. It had slipped from its clip while we’d kissed, and the fire alarm had been a coincidence. Sure, he’d believe that, just like I believed my father’s criminal connections meant nothing.
Jade had known. I remembered the look in her eyes.
In elementary school, my class had gone on a field trip to the zoo. Not the Brookfield Zoo, but a wild animal sanctuary out by Lake Michigan. We’d huddled outside the chain-link fence while the tour guide gave us a speech about rehabilitation. Inside, the tiger prowled the far corner, watching us warily. The woman told us he was more afraid of us than we were of him, and I believed her, but I didn’t see why that should make me feel better. The air vibrated with thinly leashed violence. The tiger’s eyes were filled with malevolence, and through them, I hated myself for being a part of his captivity.
We left uneventfully, but the next week there was an “accident” with one of the trainers, and the tiger was put down. Murder, my ten-year-old mind had thought. They had caged the animal and then killed it when it didn’t obey. No one else seemed fazed by the news. Our venerable teacher trilled a laugh and thanked God we hadn’t been there that day.
Bitch.
The next day, Allie left the tiger refrigerator magnet she’d bought from the gift shop on my desk. It was a white tiger, not orange, and the plastic represented the commercial value of his life, like a cheapened version of a rhinoceros horn, but I still fell in love with Allie that day. I twined between her legs like a stray cat, and she let me stay because she knew I had nowhere else to go. I would still be there, bringing her dead rodents, the only gifts I knew how to make, except for Colin. He was like me, operating on an animal frequency, and he had claimed her.
For that, I should hate him. I
didn’t.
Loving her meant wanting her to be happy; that was what made it love.
Luke was a different story. I wanted him near me, over me, inside me—his happiness secondary. And so I would continue to seek him out, endangering his career, his life, manipulating him into helping me for my own benefit. The little plastic badge that I’d stolen and used and discarded was no better than the plastic tiger replica on my fridge, a symbol to covet, a trophy of misuse.
Underneath her usual brusqueness, Jade had looked like the tiger that day, hunted, haunted. Ready to lash out, and God, I knew—I knew exactly how she felt. Reading my father’s files had brought it all back to the fore, all the quiet rage and seething shame, every gentle touch and cruel, wrathful word. Each paid-for fuck had pressed it all down, pushed back old hurts in favor of new ones. But seeing Luke seemed to soften me, weaken me, and now I felt each memory like a sharp new cut.
Somehow I ended up in front of the shelter. The squat brick building looked the same, but I felt a world apart from the last time I had visited Marguerite. I didn’t have an envelope for her today, but I did have a girl who needed help, one who was fearful and helpless.
This time, it was me.
Chapter Two
I felt hollow inside, from the base of my neck to the pit of my stomach. Empty and cold, the dubious relief of frostbite. Instead of pain, syrupy languor spread through my veins.
My reflection waited in the black-mirrored door of the shelter, and I watched it with a casual detachment. How pretty. A marble statue to be desecrated and then washed clean in the next rainfall. But there was no water this time, only parched lips and broken eyes.
The door opened. Relief flooded Marguerite’s face before she dammed it behind studied professionalism. Her minimal makeup was flawless as usual, her curves safely hidden beneath a severe black suit and skirt. She smoothed that skirt now, her hands twitching as if she wanted to reach out to me—or slap me. It could always go either way with her, and right now, I would have been grateful for both. Anything to make me feel again.
“I saw you on the news,” she said. “I assume you’re here to stay.”
