IT’S ONLY ONCE THE TAXI arrives at Mount Sinai that I realise my wallet and phone are missing, and only after the driver grudgingly lets me go without paying that I remember Goose isn’t even at the hospital anymore. Jamie had said he checked out—yesterday, was it? Time feels elastic. Warped.
Which is why I’m brought up short by the sight of Goose in the hospital lobby, chatting with a blonde in a tan pantsuit.
“Goose!” I shout, turning a few heads.
A broad grin appears on his lips when he spots me, and he takes his leave of the blonde.
“Mate,” he says, pulling me in for a one-armed hug. “What are you doing here?” we both say at once.
“I thought you checked out?” I ask first.
“Tried to. A doctor came in at the last minute, though, said I’d be leaving ‘against medical advice.’ Wanted me overnight for more tests.” He shrugs.
“You all right?” I ask, leaning in a bit to look at his eyes. His pupils are blown.
“Smashing,” he says brightly. I can’t help but think of what M said, though. Keeping Goose in her thoughts. Did she know something? Was it a threat, maybe?
“What did they see, on the tests?” I ask him.
Goose sighs, adding an eye roll. “A teensy little skull fracture. I fainted after your friend . . .”
After Stella dove off the Manhattan Bridge, neither of us says. An image of her shoe floating in the East River surfaces in my mind.
“Apparently I’ve got an extraordinarily hard head—didn’t even need staples. It’s hardly even sore.” He reaches around to feel the back of his head. “They gave me splendid drugs, though.” He sticks his other hand in his pocket, rattling a bottle of pills. “Not that I’ll need them, now that you’re here, right? Or is that not how it works?”
About that. “About that . . .” I start. The words drift in the air as I realise I’ve no idea how to finish that sentence. “Did Jamie mention anything before he left?” Better off changing the subject.
Goose shakes his head. “Just that he was heading to his aunt’s, that your flat would be mad what with . . . what happened . . .” He shifts uncomfortably. “He mentioned that Daniel and Leo and Sophie were being questioned, I think? Said I ought to check into a hotel before heading home.”
“Home?” The word feels loaded, now.
Goose shrugs one shoulder. “Guess he assumed I’d head back to London? Oh! He said something about Mara’s dad—or mum, maybe?—being a solicitor?”
“Dad,” I say. Marcus Dyer’s a criminal defence lawyer.
“Right. He gave me his number in case the police wanted a chat.” Goose looks over his shoulder, toward the lift. “Have you heard anything?” he asks in a low voice. “About what happened?”
I follow his gaze. Two police officers are talking whilst waiting for the doors to open.
There are a thousand reasons for them to be there, of course, reasons that have nothing to do with me or Stella or any of us. “No,” I say. “It’s been . . . an odd day.” My eyes drift from the police to the lobby’s other occupants. The woman Goose had been talking to is standing in my line of sight, texting.
“Who is that?” I ask, tipping my head toward her.
“Mmm . . . Mandy, maybe?” He presses his forefinger to his lip. “Mattie? Something like that. Works for the hospital, I think. The nurse who brought me down here was called away, so she came to let me know the car was here to pick me up.”
Thank fuck. “Brilliant. Where are you staying?”
Goose looks puzzled.
“Where’s the car dropping you off?”
He cocks his head to one side. “I thought you’d sent for it?”
I shake my head once, then look at the large windows facing the street. Three cars are waiting by the curb in the dark. Two are black.
“Maybe Jamie called it,” he suggests. “Or Mara?”
“Doubtful.” I look back over at the woman Goose had been talking to. Her phone is at her ear, now, and she’s approaching the lift.
“We ought to go,” I say, feeling slightly paranoid and greatly annoyed about it.
“Right,” Goose says. Then, “Where?”
Fair question. “I’ve lost my mobile and wallet, I think,” I say. “You’ve got yours?”
“Wallet, no mobile,” he says. “Might’ve dropped it on the bridge.”
Bloody hell. “You all right to walk?”
“Of course, but we could just take the car, no?”
“Rather not,” I say, after a moment. We’ve barely made it out of doors, though, before Goose trips. I catch his arm. “Careful, mate.”
“I’m fine,” he insists. “Look.” He points to his left shoe—his laces are undone.
“Mr. Greaves?” a voice asks in an Eastern European accent. We both look up. An older man is holding open the door of one of the black cars.
“Well spotted,” Goose says to the driver, who doesn’t smile.
“What car service are you with?” I ask.
“Eastern,” he says. He points to a small placard in the front window.
At least it’s a real car service, one I’ve heard of. “Where are you headed?”
“Teterboro.”
I exhale through my nose. “Well done, M,” I mumble under my breath.
“Pardon?” Goose asks.
“We’re being herded, I think.”
“Herded . . . where?”
“England,” I say.
“Could do.” Goose nods amiably, until he notices my expression. “Unless you’ve got something else in mind?”
“Not quite.”
“Are we waiting on Jamie or Mara to join us?” he asks slowly.
I shake my head once.
“Right, then,” he says. “Is there some other reason we should look this gift horse in the mouth?”
I’m not used to being cautious, but I feel responsible for Goose. “Chalk it up to past experience,” is all I say.
“Fair, I suppose.” Goose bites his lower lip. “What are you worried about, though, exactly? Think there’ll be a gingerbread cottage at the other end of the flight?”
“It’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility,” I say.
“It’s only England, mate. Not the edge of the world. Why not go until things die down, here?”
“Unfortunate choice of words,” I say.
“Perhaps. But look.” He points to the car. “It’s a Honda Civic. People don’t get kidnapped in Hondas.” The driver looks on, unsmiling.
I can’t help my grin. “All right, you’ve made your point.”
“Marvellous,” he says, climbing in. He pats the seat beside him. “See? No bloodstains or anything.” Once I’m in, he leans his head back, closing his eyes as the car starts.
“Are you allowed to sleep with a concussion?” I ask.
“They encourage it, actually. Says it helps the brain heal.” He lets out a contented sigh. “Wake me up when we get there.” Within minutes, he’s unconscious.
I can’t remember when I last slept. The night before last, maybe? I let my eyes close on the blink.
An afterimage of Mara’s face appears in darkness, after kissing me awake in the middle of the night. My hands ache with the memory of her heat, her softness.
Fuck. We’ve barely started the trip, but I can’t stand the stillness.
“How much longer?” I ask the driver, after a few more minutes.
“Twenty minutes,” he says. “No traffic.”
I run my hands through my hair, crackling and restless as I watch the clock. I nearly leap out of the car once it comes to a stop.
I give Goose a shake. “We’re here.”
He yawns. “Pip pip,” he says groggily, before letting himself out.
“Mr. Shaw?” the driver asks through his open window. I haven’t mentioned my name once. He hasn’t asked.
“Yes?”
He nods once, gruffly, and offers me a plain white envelope with no name on it, no address.
“What’s this?”
“This for you,” he says, extending his arm farther out of the car.
I take it. He drives off that same second, leaving Goose and me to stare at the planes lined up.
“Which plane’s ours?” Goose asks beside me.
“Don’t know,” I say.
“Maybe it’s in there?” He tips his head at the envelope. I open it.