I toss the flashlight onto the sofa, just missing her knee. “We’re both assholes.” I angle my head to see that she’s eaten the entire carton. Definitely an asshole. “Why in the world did you ask me for a drink? We both need sleep.” Does she know I’m having nightmares again? I try to retain some distance from my friends, hoping to keep them safe, but they know me too well.
“Please. The dark circles under your eyes beg for a triple vodka before bed.”
The door at the far end opens and Ella peeks out from our main computer hub, her citrine-encrusted glasses partly down her nose. She shoves them back up with her index finger. “Did either of you bring me anything to eat?”
I wince. “Rosalie ate all the ice cream.” And I the entire carton of orange chicken.
“You’re such buttheads,” Ella says without much heat. Her blonde hair is up in a ponytail, and her blue eyes are wide behind the thick glasses.
“We just decided that as well.” Rosalie shoves to her feet. “Where are we on the projects?”
A man clears his throat. Loudly. “Some of us are in here working, while others are stuffing their faces with enough dairy to cause flatulence for a year,” Merlin snaps from the other room.
I snort. “Merlin is in a mood.”
Rosalie coughs, her eyes red. Has she been crying again?
“I’m sorry Charlie dumped you, but he truly was a moron, and you’re better off.” I keep my tone gentle, but the truth is that Charlie ghosted Rosalie, which means he isn’t worth the crap in the bottom of an old drain. My tough friend is a true romantic with terrible taste in men.
She stands and holds her stomach. Yeah. That much ice cream can’t be good.
“Come on.” I sling my arm through hers and drag her around the sofa to the main computer hub. Well, our only computer hub. Ella is already back in her corner with her three monitors, while Merlin sits in his corner opposite. “We should have brought you two dinner, and we’re very sorry,” I say, meaning it.
The three of them use a hidden entrance to the building from the back alley, and Ella makes sure to note the timing of the patrols my father has in place. So far, we’ve been both good and lucky in avoiding detection.
Merlin turns and lifts one bushy gray eyebrow. He is around sixty with thick gray hair a few shades darker than his eyebrows, and he rents a room in the Victorian home Rosalie inherited from a distant aunt. As usual, he wears a suit with a bow tie; today it is a burgundy color. When I purse my lips, he looks down at the tie, apparently preparing to continue our usual argument. “You’re wrong. Burgundy and maroon are colors.”
“Are not,” I return per the rules of our long-running game, pulling out a chair to sit at the dented wooden table in the center of the room. “Those are ‘not colors.’” While the table is old, the chairs are new and plush, and the computer banks top of the line. Most of them are not available for consumers yet.
We’re not consumers.
He sadly shakes his head and waves a hand in the air to dismiss the topic. “Do we know why you’ve been called before the Aquarius board tomorrow?”
Claws slash inside my abdomen. “No. I’m sure it’s a routine type of thing, the annual meeting.” My voice emerges way too shaky.
Rosalie pales. “Do you think they want you to take Greg’s place?”
At the mention of my dead brother, my only sibling, my heart aches. We weren’t close, but I have good memories from childhood when he used to play with me at the beach. And I don’t blame him for becoming harder as he grew up. Our father and our lives did not give Greg a choice. “I doubt it.” My father has never seen beneath my surface, probably because I look just like my mother, who died young. From what I can tell from her diary, she was more concerned with the newest handbag or lipstick than real life.
Of course, most people say that about me these days.
Merlin straightens his already perfect posture. “That’s a concern for another day, and we have work to do. It looks like the fun run for the animal shelters is on lots of donors’ radar after your video tonight.”
“Last night,” Ella corrects, typing rapidly. “In addition, our Backpack program has sent additional funds to the New York, Minneapolis, and Boise areas.”
I love that program. Kids without enough to eat can take a backpack full of food home from school every Friday and return it Monday. We’re in all fifty states now, and I’d like to be in every high and junior high school by the end of the year. “Good. Do we require more funding?” I need to arrange my next several videos carefully. It’s time to hide more of my spending habits from my father. I take funds from my various trusts to supposedly party and buy high-end goods, but actually funnel the money into various charities.
“Yes,” Ella says. “I’m tapped for the month, and so is Rosalie. You could probably buy a boat or something—or at least look like you’re doing so. Your father hasn’t checked your actual accounts in months.”
That’s because he doesn’t care, which is a hurt for another day.
“I’ll make it happen.” Being involved in good deeds can only help my social media profile, but I have to be careful about how many charities I appear to support. More importantly, I can never reveal what I truly love. Revealing my soft underbelly, so my brother had once told me, will always be a mistake with our father. “Where are we with the women’s shelters in Southern California?”
“Building three more safe houses within the next two months,” Rosalie says, reaching for a binder and flipping over a page. “I know we want to operate on a large scale, but it was a win helping the California state senator’s wife after she left the hospital.”
“She’s in a safe house in San Diego for now,” Merlin adds.
Good. The sight of those bruises will haunt me forever. I am just fine helping one person at a time. “What about the senator?” I hold my breath.
Rosalie looks at Merlin. “We could take him out, but it’d make the news.”
Merlin’s head draws back, briefly giving him a double chin. “We can’t afford the scrutiny, and it isn’t like we can go to your father for the name of a hitman.”
I hate that he’s right. “I could do it?”
Merlin’s eyes widen, Ella stiffens, and Rosalie laughs outright. “I love you, Alana. I’m sure you have a gun, and I have no doubt you could go to his house. But you won’t pull the trigger.” Her voice softens, as do her blue eyes. “You’re not a killer, and that’s a good thing.”
Right. Women like me have other people do the killing for them. I flash back to the funeral of the driver who kissed me, when his mother shrieked and threw herself on the coffin. My brother and I stood far away, watching.
“I did this?” I whispered, bile rising in my throat at the horror in my fifteen-year-old heart.
Greg shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. He might’ve been killed even if he’d just looked at you. But I want you to see what happens when you step out of line. Don’t go kissing any more employees. Next time, it will be your fault, Alana.”
It is a lesson reinforced daily. I disappointed my father one other time, and my beloved collie disappeared. When I asked about Macbeth, nobody had an answer. It is still possible the dog just ran away, but there is no way to know.
Ella clicks her keyboard and flings a picture of two little girls up on the far screen. “Speaking of personalized rescue: Ana and Abbi Klostcky. Their mother and stepfather were just investigated for child abuse in Chicago, competing experts in the courtroom battled it out, and they have been returned to the pervert.” The girls are about five and six years old with wiry black curls, tawny brown eyes, and pinched faces.
I can feel the pain in them. “Were they evaluated?” My breath stalls.
